ENGAGE: 
Close Reading

• Big book of text or projection for displaying text

• Markers, pencils, and sticky notes

• Prior to the activity, copy a short text to be read multiple times.

• Literature texts to consider for close reading include picture books, poems, fables, folktales, legends, myths, poetry, scenes from plays, and short stories. Expository texts to consider include children’s magazine issues, short articles, blogs from the Internet, biographies, personal narratives, primary source documents

1. SELECT TEXT:  Select a short and complex text for the lesson that fits the current unit of study.

2. REFERENCE DOCUMENT:  Reference Teacher Resource: Reader’s Workshop Mini-Lesson: Analyzing the Author’s Tone.

3. CREATE TEXT DEPENDENT QUESTIONS:  Use Teacher Resource: Text-Dependent Questions to create text- dependent questions that guide students toward the intended deeper understanding of the text.

4. PROVIDE TEXT:  Provide copies of the text for individual students to read and mark.

5. PROJECT TEXT TO MODEL:  Project the text or use a big book to model the close-reading steps.

6. PROVIDE SCAFFOLDING:  Provide scaffolding for any students who might have difficulty with the complex text by pairing them with a reading buddy.

7. PRE-READING ACTIVITIES:  Limit pre-reading activities, such as previewing the text or vocabulary teaching, so that students are empowered to learn how to independently approach a difficult text. Engage in a teacher-led read-aloud of the text or parts of the text to teach the process.

8. USE QUESTIONS TO ANALYZE:  Use the prepared text-dependent questions to start the analysis at a concrete level, moving toward higher level activities with each reread of the text.

9. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:  Provide questions for discussion in small groups that are text-focused.

   1. 1. 1. • This is not a time for personal connections.

10. WRITE ABOUT TEXT:  Ask students to write about the text, either through filling in graphic organizers or in response to writing prompts, using complete sentences or paragraphs.

11. DEMONSTRATE FIRST, SECOND, THIRD READING:  Using a fable as an example, the following actions demonstrate the First, Second, and Third Reading outlined in Teacher Resource: First, Second, and Third Reading

    1. 1. 1. • Ask students to read the first time to get the gist of the text and give them a prompt for a quickwrite.

             • Read the text, modeling a think-aloud about the text information and demonstrating marking the text by highlighting text evidence in two different colors to show character distinction.

             • Ask students to discuss the main lesson or moral of the story. Follow up with students illustrating and writing about the lesson to be learned.

To adapt this lesson for primary classes:  

• Use a read-aloud and model the thinking of asking and answering text-dependent questions.

• Teach the students to act like detectives looking for evidence in the text.

• Utilize color-coding and sticky notes with pictures to mark the text.

• Break text into paragraphs or sentences and analyze in sections.

• Pair students with a buddy.

• Read the text together chorally.

• Visit the AVID Elementary Foundations: A Schoolwide Implementation Resource webpage on MyAVID for a close reading example of The Star Bellied Sneetches by Dr. Seuss.

To increase rigor, utilize the close reading strategy for several days, ramping up expectations daily. See Teacher Resource: Reader’s Workshop Mini-Lesson: Analyzing the Author’s Tone for an example.