Close Reading in the Classroom

Hey everyone! I intend to write a post at least once a week, and this week I've already beat my goal!

Is it just me, or is it hotter than all heck?! Here (New Mexico) we are having a lot of unusual weather. We're having the normal summer heat with lots of abnormal humidity. It made my professional development very hard to sit through without my eyes glazing over (thanks, summer brain), but I decided to help myself by putting what I learned on here. It kept me a little more focused! 

So as you probably guessed from the title, my professional development concerned close reading. If you haven't heard this term before, you're not alone! From what I've heard, this is a pretty new term for our district, though I'm sure veteran teachers have been doing it for forever. 

Close reading is:

• Being scuba divers, not snorkelers
• Looking for deep comprehension
• Is text-dependent, but relies on both literal interpretations and inferences from the text
• Each time looking at it from a different perspective: as a mathematician, an artist, etc.. whatever the text may deal with.
• Understanding your purpose in reading!

So we talked about some ways in which we can draw attention to deep concepts. Some things we came up with included highlighting the text, circling important vocabulary, skimming and scanning the text for information, using symbols, such as question marks when confused, and summarizing what you've read.

Here's the catch!

Our kids don't always come with all these tricks in their bag!

So it's up to us to teach them ways that will help their close reading, or deep comprehension.

Some ideas we had for that included the Me, We, You model, which means that we as teachers model the concept.

"Hmm, I think this is important information! I'm going to highlight this, so I can remember it."

Then, as a class, we do it together.

"What do you think is important from what we just read? What should I highlight?"

And finally, my favorite step: releasing the kids to do it on their own!

(Don't forget to teach kids alternate ways that they can use their favorite strategy, in case they are unable to use it on standardized tests.) 

Since we've done a quick over of Close Reading, let's get onto what the program looks like! Now, this is part what I learned, and part what I've added for my own classroom. 

Planning for Close Reading

What we first need to think about is, what needs to be in place for our students to be successful in close reading?

We discussed having a buy-in for the students. We have to make sure to engage them so they can learn to the best of their ability. What else might you need for your students? You know them best!

What you need to perform this experiment:

• Kids
• An awesome teacher (you)
• A short text of any genre - see below about the doc. camera!
• A read aloud relating to that genre (if you will be reading about fossils, read an informational text read aloud. Harder to find, but possible!)
• Enthusiasm!
• A document camera, smart board, or a really big book so students can read along with you
• Highlighters or markers
• Three or four sessions over two to three weeks to teach and practice close reading!
• And that's all you need!

Close reading involves several readings of one text over several sessions. It's like a movie; I have watched Gone in 60 Seconds (favorite movie ever! Please don't hate on Nick Cage. I love him.) more times than I can count, but each time, I pick up new details I haven't seen before.

Before you start your close reading sessions, you need to pre-teach your genre through a read aloud. (Maybe I can post about this later?!) Next, get your short passage! This needs to be relatively high level. This may take some trial and error, but make sure you can capture your kids' interest with the text. 

Start by having the kids read the passage to themselves. To accommodate for your kids, you could even tape a recording of you reading the passage! After reading the passage twice, ask your students to partner share their summary with another student. 

• Here are some ideas for summarizing for different genres
• Non-fiction: Summary: Main idea, theme (mostly about), characters, details, sequential order
• Fiction: facts, content specific vocabulary
• Expository: content specific vocabulary, doesn’t have to be sequential

For the second text reading, the teacher should read the passage aloud to the students. Together, the students and you will decide what is important in the text. Ask students to summarize what the passage is about with new details. If you like, you can have your students take notes, if they are ready for it! Ask your students 3 - 4 very relative questions about the passage.

On the third day, have students read the passage independently. After reading, ask each student to come up with three questions to ask about the passage. They can be clarifying questions, or they could be questions to further their knowledge. 

If you would like to practice close reading for the fourth day, ask students to read the passage independently one more time! Afterwards, you might ask students to try answering each other's questions about the passage, or ask them to write a summary about the passage. 

Planning

• Close Reading plan ideas (based on a passage about early human migration)

• Day 1 - independent reading and oral summary
• Day 2 - teacher reading and answer 3 - 4 questions
• Question 1: Why did humans migrate?
• Question 2: How do we know about migration?
• Question 3: Where did humans first migrate from?
• Day 3 - Students will come up with four questions after reading. related to word choice. Look for words that emphasize the main idea and ask questions related to these focus skills. Cite evidence.
• Text ideas
• Poems, article, short book excerpt

That's a quick gist of my 6 hour training. 

Any questions or thoughts about close reading? How do you incorporate this into your own classroom? What "bag of tricks" do you teach your kiddos?