One important aspect of the 6th grade reading curriculum in Kansas is honing a student's ability to determine the meaning of a word or figure of speech without the use of a dictionary or thesaurus. This is accomplished in two ways. The first way involves having a student determine the meaning of a word by looking by understanding the context of the word through examination of other words or sentences around it. Another approach is to have students determine the meaning of words by understanding word structures such as root words, prefixes and suffixes.
Helping students understand what they are reading is another aspect of the Kansas 6th grade curriculum. Literary devices such as analogies, personification and onomatopoeia are taught to students by having them identify such figures of speech and discuss or explain them. Students are also taught how to use text features like titles and subheadings in order to identify or locate sections within a text that will improve their understanding of it.
In addition to understanding the text they are reading, students must know how to critically interpret it in order to develop informed opinions. Students are taught how to make inferences or draw conclusions from passages. Understanding how an author structures or presents the information contained in a passages aids in the formulating of an opinion about the text. Consequently students analyze text structures in order better understand an author's angle or purpose for writing such passages. They are also taught how to discern the difference between fact and opinion.
Sixth grade reading students in Kansas also read a variety of writing to learn how to become better writers themselves. When reading such works, students examine how characters are portrayed in order to understand how their traits and actions impact their interactions with other characters and the plot of the story. The settings of such books are also examined to show students how the environment of a book impacts the tone or characters. Students also explore the sequential spacing of events in a story to understand how one event causes another.