A Closer Look at Close Reading

This being my first year as a Title I Reading Specialist, I seem to be constantly thinking about my students ELA progress and digging deeper to find the most effective ways of supporting their areas of need. That is one of the parts of this new position that I am just loving--being able to focus solely on ELA skills and strategies and really using student data more specifically to pinpoint exactly what each student needs. 

I noticed very quickly that most/all of the students were having difficulty with comprehending what they read. They could read most of the words and use strategies to de-code the ones they were unsure about. However, when it came to recalling information or make valid inferences and predictions-they struggled. They were not truly thinking about what they were reading about. They were intently focused on reading the words with accuracy. 

This led me to think about my past 4th grade students. We did a lot of close reading and they thrived!  We did an acutal close passage every Thursday. These passages tied in to our Science or Social Studies content. They were lengthy lessons and encompassed many valuable literacy experiences.  I loved it and felt it really helped my 4th graders read deeply and think about what they were reading. So, in thinking about my REACH readers,  I knew I didn't have the length of time needed to do that type of close read so I revisited the standard...

Common Core Reading Anchor Standard No.1, for Literature AND Informational Text, for Kindergarten AND 12th Grade AND every grade in between states the following:

"Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text." 

The standard says "read closely..." this is what the reader is doing. How frequently they are ready, the duration of time, and intensity-metacognition of reading or re-reading. The goal of this standard is what the students need to be do automatically while reading. Since they are not currently doing these things, I needed to introduce these skills and strategies to them.  Here are a few snapshots of our process....

 I am mandated to use specific text in my instruction so I really have to do some pre-planning to see exactly what part of the text I wanted to be the focus.

On day one they read the leveled text using their post-it pads. This enables them to leave their thinking tracks without writing in the book. They use their Check for Understanding checkmark after every one or two pages to share with me who they read about and what just happened. If they can not answer those questions they go back and re-read. 

This fresh read experience gives them the opportunity to "works the kinks out"...they receive guidance and support from me and their peers throughout their "first read" experience. This allows/requires them to slow down their reading and mesh accuracy with thinking and understanding to result in REAL READING! 

On day two I give them a photocopy of one two-page layout from the book that we can really sink our teeth into.  It is this photocopied page that students use their thinkmarks to mark up, highlight, and annotate. I pre-read the text and find a section of the text that demonstrates my focus or something the writer did of importance. This text was a mystery and on this two page layout, the author really build suspense well. The students highlighted evidence of suspense and wrote a sentence supporting their findings. 

We are identifying paragraphs with brackets, labeling text features,and highlighting were in the text is the "specific answer" for the question. 

During their first read of these two pages, most of the students really missed some important information or clues to the mystery. So, I decided to focus on these pages and have them highlight the clues. They also had to make a prediction as to who/what was the mystery shadow. They had been making more schema based predications that were not supported with information from the text. However, on day two they had to prove their predication with evidence from the reading. After guiding them on how to think more closely and giving them a specific reading focus they did amazing!! 

Sure doe make my teacher heart happy when I see them REALLY READING! All of this thinking will help students begin to read more closely when reading independently which is the ultimate goal!