I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying the textbooks. In regard to grading the quizzes (which should be nothing more than daily grades), try a scale in which missing one is 90, missing two is 80, missing three is 70, missing four is 60, and missing all the questions is a zero. If the students have read the assignment (not merely skimmed it), they should consistently be getting all the questions correct or missing only one. Students who consistently miss more might have a reading comprehension problem. Scores on achievement tests could verify that issue. The quizzes are meant to offer some accountability for having read the literature. If there is an occasional question that seems to you to be asking students to recall an obscure detail, substitute a question asking for something that students should have gleaned from one reading of the text. They should do well on the quizzes generally. Barbara Rooks Greenville, SC
I had the same problem with my students, so what I did I put them in pairs, let them read the questions of the quiz first and then let them read the part of the story so they could answer the quiz and pay attention to their reading.