Close reading is the big hype these days with Common Core and the push to expose ALL students to complex texts. One of my final Master’s research papers was focused on close reading, so I decided to share some of the big ideas with you. Hopefully, this will answer some common questions that are floating through teacher minds! These 5 topics are essential to close reading. 1. What is close reading? 2. Background Knowledge 3. Complex Texts & Text Dependent Questions 4. Repeated Readings 5. Annotation Articles and research are included throughout these posts. A citation page is included here in case you are interested in learning more. What’s close reading all about? Close reading: “an instructional routine in which students critically examine a text, especially through repeated readings” (Fisher & Frey, 2012a). Close reading was used in high school and college in the past, BUT the implementation of Common Core has pushed teachers to use close reading in elementary school. So, there must be some modifications made in elementary schools. The teacher must build students toward independent reading. As teachers help students dig through reading passages, they are helping students to build habits of great readers. I think this quote explains it perfectly: “The teacher’s goal Continue Reading
This project has been a favorite of mine! Not only is it extremely helpful during the school year for teachers, but it is also a life saver for students. Keep reading to get a little walk through… So, this is the sample homework checklist. Spelling words and homework are listed in a clear format for students. I like this setup because it is thin enough for me to simply staple into student agendas on Monday morning. (Plus, two checklists per page means less copy paper!) Once stapled, they are set for the week! My editable pack features three options. 1) Labels, titles, and cutesy fonts are NOT editable, but all other information is. 2) Labels are editable in case you split your spelling words differently or need to add sight words or vocabulary. 3) Literally everything here is editable. This is a great option for teachers who want to use their own cute fonts and borders. Homework Policy: Homework varies drastically depending on your school. I have certain things that I HAVE to give students. Homework is evaluated on our report cards. I am also mandated to give nightly homework instead of a weekly packet. So, how do you keep Continue Reading
We’ve been working on informational writing for the past week or so, and today I taught a mini lesson. Here is the process in images… First, we read a big book called Red-Eyed Tree Frog. Then, we decided to write about it! I created this chart with the kiddos. As I wrote, they tried to guess what words I was about to write and chanted them out loud. They thought it was hilarious…although I’m not quite sure why… Gotta love 6 & 7 year olds! I picked a few students to write example sentences on Post Its for each part of an informational writing piece: introduction, key details, and closure. They then came up and put their Post Its on the chart. We read all of the Post Its and talked about why some were “super duper” and why others needed a tiny bit of fixing. Then we put them in order. Other volunteers came up to write those Post It sentences onto our chart paper. We used different colors to color code our paragraph into three parts. These parts matched our anchor chart. Believe me. Give a scented marker to a kid, and BAM instant hard work! And of course Continue Reading