Headfirst - a blog for primary teachers by a first grade teacher: Close Reading - How to use it in the Primary Classroom plus FREEBIES!

Close reading QUIZ! Answer this multiple choice question:

A. Reading a text multiple times to gain a deep understanding of it.

B. Using a magnifying to see small words.

C. An education buzz word that will fade away in a couple of years.

And the answer is…A!

The word close reading came into existence in the 1920s in Britain mostly for poetry and religious texts. So are we using it NOW? Upon the birth of the Common Core, educational leaders recognized a need for students to be able to understand what they read more deeply. Of course, educational trends come and go, but I think this one is going to stick around.

Close reading helps the reader to dissect the text to be able to meaningfully interact with it. So why do I need to do it in the primary classroom? In 1st grade? In kindergarten??? If kids can’t even read, how can they close read???

Remember how kids are supposed to be read 5 books a day before the age of 5 to be a successful reader? For the prereaders, the teacher is the reader. The kids may have their own copies of the text, but the rich language they are hearing from books is read by the adult who can model the intonation the author intends.

As kids begin to read on their own, we use our scaffolding to pull back and let them take over the reading. Think of your beginning school experiences with your reading book. The same story for the whole week. A basal reader is essentially a close read.

Find a really good text. It needs to be engaging to students, not too hard but has enough new vocabulary to warrant spending up to a week on it. If you have a basal or specific curriculum to follow, you can still use it. You just may need to add some things.

Choose what standards you are going to focus on. Here is a good list of primary grade skills connected to standards with essential questions. Sometimes you need to choose the standards first and then the text. Click to download.

Decide on text-dependent questions and rich vocabulary words. Some of these are for discussion and others you can use for writing. Questions should target both lower and higher levels of thinking. Questions can cover the following skills. Click to download.

Here is an overview of the parts of a close lesson and how I adapt it to beginning readers:

Preview the text.

Discuss and predict.
Quick write.
For beginning readers: Picture Walk.

Discuss/write/draw what they see and what the story might be about or a KWL of what they already know about the nonfiction topic and what they think they might find out in the text.
Describe characters and setting.
Make connections with things they see in the pictures. Point out things that are like another text they’ve read.

1st Read: independent.

Annotate with common symbols.

Write about and discuss first impressions of the text.

For beginning readers the first read would come right after previewing the text:

Read together (choral/echo) or possibly read to the students.
Teacher can annotate or students can annotate with the help of the teacher. These annotations should be the things the students see. Ask questions to draw out the things they think are important, don’t understand, are surprised by, connect with, etc. or you can skip this step until the 2nd read.
Discuss/draw first impressions of the students.

2nd Read: the students listen to you read.

Students can annotate more.
Discuss/write/draw new things they noticed.
For beginning readers: I might do the 2nd Read right after the first. Since books for younger readers are not going to be as long and complex as those for older readers, you may choose to skip this read and go to the recommendations for the 3rd read.

3rd Read: the students listen to you read and think aloud.

You put in your annotations as you read and they can add to theirs. Point out what they have missed: important parts, keywords/details, unfamiliar words, things they don’t understand, surprising parts, connections you made, etc.
For beginning readers: This is where I point out vocabulary words that I think they may not know. I will try to use photos or the internet to help students understand the vocabulary. I use and ask the students to use these vocabulary words in sentences to see if they understand.

4th Read: the students read to find and prove answers to questions/arguments.

Cite the evidence where you found answers to questions.
Write a summary.
For beginning readers: this is a good time for students to write answers to questions (even if they are just copying) and find in the text where the answer came from. This can be hard when inferencing is needed or restatement of what the text says (instead of verbatim) so they will need a lot of support.

For beginning readers: summarizing comes in the form of picture sequencing, beginning-middle-end with drawings and/or sentences, problem and solution story maps, SWBS (Somebody Wanted But So), or for the use of transition words (First, Next, Then, Finally).

For nonfiction text, they can do a graphic organizer, a writing outline, and then a final draft. Beginning readers will need a lot of support and repetition with these tasks. Even verbally retelling a story can be a way of responding to a text.

Here is a fun resource to use for close reading. My students LOVE reading and learning about animals. It is a topic that they all can get excited about whether it is fiction or nonfiction. Getting ready for Thanksgiving, the kids love exploring turkeys! Here’s my lesson plan for close reading. Click to download.