Leap Into Literacy
May/June 2015
Spot Light on Comprehension: Close Reading
Close reading asks students to engage in multiple readings of a text over a number of sessions. Multiple readings are intended to help students find out what the text says, how it says it, and what it means. Typically the purpose for each session is different. A close reading of a text is accompanied by rich discussion, and with older students it often culminates in a written task. Close reading involves choosing short, high-quality texts that allow for vocabulary learning, the examination of text structure and author’s purpose, making inferences, and other forms of interpretation and analysis. “Texts” may include poems, newspaper or magazine articles, excerpts from larger works, speeches, videos, and other digital texts. There is minimal frontloading of background knowledge on the part of the teacher. The idea is for students to “read like detectives” and grapple with new vocabulary, unusual syntax, implicit meanings, point of view, mood or tone, etc. on their own before the teacher intervenes.
Close reading is not a new technique or strategy. For years, many middle and high school teachers have been asking students to read texts, annotate and record their thinking about the text, and respond in writing to it. For elementary teachers, however, teaching this type of deep reading may be new. Authors of the standards acknowledge that in the early elementary grades, close reading will likely happen during interactive read-alouds, with a great deal of modeling, because students may not be able to independently read texts of sufficient complexity at first, and they will need to learn the process and protocols for reading, note-taking, and discussion. The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project has some excellent videos that you can turn to for help and ideas.
http://www.teachersfirst.com/exclusives/moreless/librarian/closereading_what.cfm
TCRWP's senior staff developer Amanda Hartman provides insight on questioning with our primary students in this vimeo clip.
Click on this link to see how Sunday Cummings shares a K-1 new book that moves students toward close reading:
https://sundaycummins.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/k-1-new-book-moves-students-towards-close-reading/
Here is a link to Sunday Cummings Nonfiction reading bookmarks for summer reading to share with your students
https://sundaycummins.wordpress.com/
Kindergarten Close read lessons
http://www.pps.k12.or.us/departments/curriculum/8789.htm
This link from Achieve the Core provide two featured Close Read lessons for k-2.
http://achievethecore.org/page/752/featured-lessons
Pinterest link for nonfiction writing
Reading Strategies Book
Strategies make the often invisible work of reading actionable and visible. In The Reading Strategies Book, Jennifer Serravallo has collected 300 strategies to share with readers in support of thirteen goals-everything from fluency to literary analysis.
Check out Jenn's site for more a preview for her newest text now available for purchase
http://www.jenniferserravallo.com/the-reading-strategies-book/
Nonfiction: Humorous Informational text
App for Fluency
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.k12.TRCPLiteappstore&hl=en
Intervention Strategy: Rereading to build Fluency
Timothy V. Rasinski refers to reading fluency as, "the ability of readers to read the words in text effortlessly, and efficiently (automaticity) with meaningful expression that enhances the meaning of the text (prosody) (2010) Rasinski in his book, The Fluent Reader, discusses 4 ways to build reading fluency as follows:
- Model Good Oral Reading
- Provide Oral Support or Assistance for Readers: Choral Reading, Paired Reading,Using Recorded Materials
- Offer Plenty of Practice Opportunities (Repeated readings)
- Encourage Fluency Through Phrasing
Read more about on Timothy Rasinski's site and view available material to add to your teacher toolkit while building fluency with your students.
Writer's Corner:
Focusing on nonfiction reading and writing is important for several reasons. The first reason for including nonfiction reading and writing in the primary grades curriculum is that nonfiction materials incorporate information from an array of subject areas, including math, science, social studies, technology, art, music, and writing (Duke, Bennett-Armistead, & Roberts, 2003; Pike & Mumper, 2004); thus nonfiction promotes learning across the curriculum. Given the benefits of nonfiction, it is reasonable to conjecture that teachers in the primary grades would devote a significant amount of instructional time to teaching nonfiction. However, educational researchers have shown that primary grade children spend little time reading or learning to read and write nonfiction (Duke, 2000, 2004; Moss, 2004). The second reason for including nonfiction reading and writing in the early childhood curriculum is that it has been hypothesized that a significant percentage of the content of standardized tests’ passages includes nonfiction material (Daniels, 2002; Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003; Kristo & Spring 2009 42 Journal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences 13(2) Bamford, 2004). Therefore, students in the early grades should spend more time with nonfiction and expository texts to be able to understand the complexity of these texts and receive adequate preparation for standardized tests of reading achievement. In addition, students need to have exposure to these texts before entering the upper grades. Early exposure to nonfiction and informational texts may be the best preparation for the increase in academic rigor that students will encounter at the intermediate grades (Stead, 2002). Excerpt taken from, Nonfiction in the Early Grades (Flowers & Flowers)
http://www.clemson.edu/centers-institutes/houston/documents/nonfiction.pdf
Kindergarten Informational Writing Vimeo session with Amanda Heartman, a senior staff developer at TCRWP.
The below link brings you to Chart Chums a great blog created by Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz, staff developers at TCRWP and NYC teachers.
https://chartchums.wordpress.com/ Their charts are the ones featured below.