At any age or grade level, powerful readers are those who are aware of their thinking as they read. The assumption is that high school students don't need to be taught how to read; but even if they can decode words and gain literal understanding, they often don't think deeply about what they are reading.

Presenting a balance of theory and practical lessons, Powerful Readers demonstrates that instructions in the key strategies of connecting, visualizing, questioning, inferring, determining importance, and transforming can help students develop their reading skills and get more out of their work with fiction and nonfiction.