This title presents a fresh approach to improving academic reading. Much is made about the need to have good reading 'skills', but those skills are generally interpreted as those related to literacy and vocabulary. The skills that actually improve comprehension and information retention and increase reading fluency are the focus of this new academic reading skills series. Through a combination of pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading activities, students will learn strategies for scanning and skimming texts, coping with a large amount of academic vocabulary, and dealing with difficult subject matter. Because today's readers need to master a large volume of material presented in different genres and disciplines, "Building Academic Reading Skills" is organized by a high-interest topic and features two readings from different academic disciplines and genres. Book 1 includes the disciplines of cross-cultural communication, environmental science, chemistry, cultural anthropology, biology, art, geology, political science, math, psychology, and history. Readings come from newspapers, magazines, textbooks, and blogs.