CIUDAD ESCOLAR COMFENALCO
DEPARTAMENTO DE EDUCACIÓN FORMAL
COORDINACIÓN DE BÁSICA SECUNDARIA Y MEDIA ACADÉMICA
Reading Guide
ENGLISH CLASS
FULL NAME: _________________________________ DATE: _____________________ GROUP: ___________________
Dear Students, this is a Reading Guide for developing your reading comprehension
OBJECTIVES:
 By the end of each lesson the students will be able to
understand the human tendency to categorize one an-
other and how this expresses itself in reading
 The students will be able to see the difference between
comparatives and superlatives
TECHNIQUES:
1. SKIMMING: Skimming refers to the process of reading
only main ideas within a passage to get an overall im-
pression of the content of a Reading selection. It´s a
quickly running one's eyes across a whole text .It gives
readers the advantage of being able to predicate the
purpose of the passage, the main topic.
Students…
* Read the title.
* Read the introduction or the first paragraph.
* Notice any pictures, charts, or graphs.
2. SCANNING: Is a reading technique to be used when you
want to find specific information quickly. In scanning
you have a question in your mind and you read a pas-
sage only to find the answer, ignoring unrelated infor-
mation. Scanning exercises may ask students to look for
names or dates, to find a definition of a key concept, or
to list a certain number of supporting details. The pur-
pose of it is to extract certain specific information with-
out reading through the whole text.
Students…
Peace Activist and Holocaust Survivor Hedy Ep-
stein Dies at 91
Holocaust survivor and peace activist Hedy Ep-
stein has died at the age of 91. Epstein was born
in Germany and left in 1939 on a Kinder-
transport to England. Her parents died in Ausch-
witz. She later returned to Germany to work as
a research analyst for the prosecution during the
Nuremberg trials.
She was involved in civil rights and antiwar move-
ments throughout her life. In 2011, she was part
of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and was a passenger
on the U.S.-flagged ship, The Audacity of Hope.
She was a frequent guest on Democracy Now!
She first appeared on the program in 2009, as she
and other activists were planning for the Gaza
Freedom March.
* Try to anticipate how the answer will appear and the clues.
* Use headings and any other aids that will help them identify
which sections might contain the information they are looking for.
* Work in cooperative groups to create lists defining characteris-
tics of successful problem solving
MATERIAL SUGGESTED: Dictionary, pen
WARM UP!: To talk about the definitions and importance of the
two techniques skimming and scanning.
ACTIVITIES: The teacher show the articles to the students and ask
them to skim the text for general knowledge as fast as they can .
After all of them finish skimming it, he asks them questions about
the article. Then students scan the article again to find all the an-
swers for these questions.
a. Skim the text and answer:
- Read the title and say what´s the article about.
- What happened?
- Answer the next questions: …….
- -
- -
b. Scan the text and underline: Students look for synonyms
in the text, regular and irregular verbs, and adjectives
c. Scan the article to check….
d. Find evidence in the text, support your answers.
Three years later, just days after her 90th birth-
day, Hedy was arrested in St. Louis during a pro-
test outside Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s office
over the police killing of unarmed African-Ameri-
can teenager Michael Brown. She spoke about
her arrest on Democracy Now!
That was Hedy Epstein speaking on Democracy
Now! in 2014. She died of cancer in her home in
St. Louis on Thursday at the age of 91.
The cause was cancer, said Dianne Lee, a friend.
Ms. Epstein was born Hedwig Wachenheimer on
Aug. 15, 1924, in Freiburg, Germany, and raised
in nearby Kippenheim. Her father, Hugo, ran a
dry-goods company founded by his grandfather.
Her mother, the former Ella Eichel, was a home-
maker.
“I was a terrible child,” Ms. Epstein told The St.
Louis Post-Dispatch in 2000. “I resisted going
away and accused my parents of having found me
on the doorstep, left by Gypsies, and now want-
ing to get rid of me. I recognized later that they
were giving me life.”
1

Her parents were unable to find sponsors in the
United States and, as secular, anti-Zionist Jews,
had no desire to emigrate to Palestine. “They did
not wish to live in a country that was run by Jews
and for Jews only,” Ms. Epstein told The Jerusa-
lem Post in 2014.
Hedy was raised by foster parents in London and
left school at 16 to work in a munitions plant. In
1945, she returned to Germany, where she was a
translator and researcher with the Allied War
Crimes Tribunal at the Nuremberg “Doctors
Trial.”
1. What is the mainly topic about?
a. loving Hedy
b. peace in Colombia
c. life of Hedy Epstein
2. What was her occupation?
a. a rights activist and holocaust survivor
b. an actrees
c. a nurse
dictionary to define each word and make annota-
tions to the text. Read the text and highlight or
underline the line or segment that you feel was
the most important within the passage.
Passage 1 - Erosion in America
Passage 1
Erosion of America's farmland by wind and water
has been a problem since settlers first put the
prairies and grasslands under the plow in the
nineteenth century. By the 1930s, more than 282
million acres of farmland were damaged by ero-
sion. After 40 years of conservation efforts, soil
erosion has accelerated due to new demands
placed on the land by heavy crop production. In
the years ahead, soil erosion and the pollution
problems it causes are likely to replace petroleum
scarcity as the nation's most critical natural re-
source problem.

3. Where was she from?

a. usa
b. palestine Com- What is What de- What is List sim-
mon the au- tails are im- the ilar
c. germany
Sense thor portant? main griev-
saying? idea of ances
4. how old was she? the from
a. ninety one read- the
b. ninety ing? Decla-
c. eighty ration
of Inde-
5. What was the cause of her dead? pend-
a. cancer ence
b. yellow fever Passage
c. Flu 1

Complete the chart according to the reading.

Find the verbs, write the present, simple past and

past participle.

Verbs (pre- Simple past Past participle

sent)

Instructions: Read passage 1. Skim through the

passage and circle the unfamiliar words. Use a