Affective Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program: Grades 6-8

The Affective Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program uses a models approach to scaffold student learning and promote inquiry-based discussions of texts. This series of Jacob's Ladder focuses specifically on supporting advanced students' social-emotional needs through the discussion of reading selections in the following genres: biography study, nonfiction psychology-based selections, and short stories. Using the same critical thinking ladder framework, students move from lower order, concrete thinking skills to higher order, critical thinking skills. The books include high-interest readings, ladders to increase reading skill development, and easy-to-implement instructions. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering language arts standards such as sequencing, cause and effect, classification, making generalizations, inference, and recognizing themes and concepts, while simultaneously focusing on career development, emotional intelligence, and common affective concerns for gifted students, such as perfectionism, risk and resiliency, friendships, and achievement motivation. The Jacob's Ladder guides provide teachers with an explanation of the nature and substance of supplementary tasks in reading comprehension that will help prepare students for literary analysis. Also included are an overview of the goals and objectives of Jacob's Ladder tasks and suggestions for implementation, giving every teacher of gifted learners the tools needed to create a successful reading classroom that is tailored to their students' academic and social-emotional needs.