Falling In LOVE with Close Reading

Happy Summer Reading!

I always say that I want to take time in the summer to read educational texts and reflect and think about what I need to change for the next year, but I always seem to get so busy!  This year, though, thanks to my WONDERFUL bloggy friends, I have been reading, reflecting, and planning up a storm!

Starting today and continuing on Sundays I will be sharing with you some thoughts on the book

I will be honest, I don’t know a lot about this concept and I have heard that it may be a bit tricky for my firsties, but I am excited to learn more – Don’t worry if you haven’t started reading yet – chapter 1 is a quickie and basically an overview of the entire concept – Order from Amazon and you will be ready for next week’s chapter 2 posts!

As I mentioned chapter 1 was a good overview of what exactly close reading is.  Close reading is getting so close to a text that you know it from many angles – the author compared it to how well you know your spouse, child, friend, or favorite sweater!  Think about that book  that you needed to remind yourself that you were not actually a character in the book…  I do that a lot! J

Close reading instruction will do many things for a reader including raising engagement, lead to student independence.  Students will need to be able to have strong reading stamina and should not be regularly interrupted with different activities.  Close reading instruction is only one piece is a balanced literacy program and needs to be practiced and repeated regularly.  Finally, close reading also needs to be planned to meet the needs of the students, not planned to match a book or a scope and sequence. 

So…what am I doing to use close reading currently?  Nothing specific.  I am sure that I use many of the pieces in my literacy lessons, but I have not been using this type of instruction up to this point.  I am interested in learning about how I will be able to use this with beginning readers and how I may need to change it a bit to meet their emerging needs! 

One additional thing I found VERY interesting.  When we were learning about CCSS, our literacy coach told us about how students will only be using text evidence to answer questions – staying within the four corners of the book.  Did you hear this too?  According to this chapter that quote was taken out of the final draft of CCSS, allowing more room for students to use their prior knowledge and ability to make connections!  LOVE THIS!! J

Thanks for joining us all!  Of course, we have a giveaway for y’all – make sure to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And then keep on hopping, there are 12 other bloggers who have joined this book study and you KNOW they are going to have some great ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up

Finally, don’t forget to come back next week, when we talk about chapter 2!