Close Reading Bookmarks for Nonfiction

Do your students need a visual reminder of how to do a Close Reading every time they read?  Are posters and pieces of paper with the steps of Close Reading lost or ignored while students are reading?  Then you need to check out my Nonfiction Close Reading Bookmarks!

I use the Nonfiction Close Reading Bookmarks most often during my core classes, particularly science. I recommend that you print and laminate these bookmarks for each student to keep with them as they read a number of nonfiction texts.  It works particularly well as a bookmark for your classroom textbooks.  

Option 1:  Copy a textbook page or article for each student in class.  Have students mark directly on the page with colored pencils.

Option 2 if you have a copy limit: Laminate enough articles for a small group or put them in a page protector.  That way, you can use dry-erase markers to annotate “on” the text, but not have to make so many copies.  You can easily reuse the same article or page many times until all students have been able to have the Close Reading experience with that article.

Option 3 if you want to annotate a textbook:  Clip a page protector to the book using a binder clip.  Again, this allows students to use dry-erase markers to annotate “on” the text, but not damage the textbook.



This file includes:
For the teacher:
~Different options/directions for using the bookmarks to annotate texts 

For the student:
~Directions that guide the student to read and reread the text 3 times
~Directions that guide the student to use a dictionary and/or ask for help with clarifying unknown terms and content

~Directions on how to summarize the text 

If you'd like to pick up a copy, click here.

Do you use bookmarks as a reminder for your students while they are reading?  I'd love to hear some of your ideas!

Close Reading for Complex Texts

I just finished reading Guided Highlighted Reading by Weber, Nelson, and Schofield.  It's a great addition to my Close Reading strategies I've already gathered.  This book focuses on techniques for complex nonfiction texts, such as historical documents and classic literature, such as the works of Mark Twain.  I gained some valuable techniques I will be applying to our science articles as well.

This book gives instructions for using complex texts to teach the following strategies:

Summary

Author's Craft

Vocabulary

Multiple-Choice Questions

Common Sense Text (including vocabulary and Cloze assessments)

One of the things I plan to use them for is Guided Highlighted Reading of online texts. Essentially, all you need to do is the following:
1:  Find a text online and copy/paste it as a Word document/Google Doc OR simply type up a text you want to use and save it that way.
2:  Number the paragraphs or lines and save the document on Google Drive.
3.  Provide the link to students or share it with them on Google Drive.
4.  Have students use the highlighting tools on Google Add-ons to highlight (see picture below)
5. Have students share the link/document with you (see picture)

I also plan to use the strategies I learned from the book in conjunction with my Close Reading in Middle School directions.

As you can see in the picture below, we didn't have an orange marker so we just colored over it in red and used that instead.

I like to laminate the first few articles so they are reusable and I can practice with all my classes.   It also allows students  to use dry-erase markers to annotate directly on the article, just as the would with highlighters or colored pencils on a paper copy.  This is also is a form of differentiation for students who do not yet have the skills to highlight a text online.

Do you have any other strategies for teaching Close Reading/Guided Highlighted Reading of online or print texts?  I'd love to hear about them!

Middle School Hacks: Early Finisher Enrichment

Oh, enrichment in a middle school science room!  What to do?  Gather up some content-related articles and laminate them to start.

Trust me, these may look too "babyish", but my students still love them.

I often used the Close Reading technique in my 4th Grade classroom, but I wasn't quite sure how to adapt it for my middle schoolers.  Then, I thought about what the critical skills are that all students, regardless of age, should practice.  I always like to have articles available, so I hatched this plan.

This packet includes:
~A teacher direction page
~A student direction page

This activity increases the following skills:

•Reading comprehension

•Asking questions about what students are reading

•Determining importance

•Increasing content-area vocabulary

If you'd like to pick up a copy, click here.

Do you use Close Reading in your classroom to teach or enrich?  I'd love to hear how!

Nonfiction Close Reading and Early Finishers

So, I'm settling into my middle school science home rather nicely.  I'm really loving this age group and this curriculum!  In the past few weeks, I've learned many new things about how the students think and learn.  Here are three that I decided needed addressing right away:

1.  Many students don't seem to want to "mix" reading and science.  They see them as two separate subjects that don't have anything to do with each other.  Uh, oh.  


2.  Students don't want to support their answers with the text or use it to do research.  Once again, doh!


3.  If students finish assignments early and others are still working, they want to distract the students that are still working.  Well, that one is the same for any grade level.


So.... I found some articles and books that are content-related that I will display in my classroom.  To go with them, I made some Nonfiction Close Reading Bookmarks.

The idea is to put page protectors over the text and annotate, then go back and clarify terms and ideas.  Finally, the student gives a one-sentence summary.

These bookmarks are part of an editable PowerPoint that includes:
~Directions on how to annotate the text using a page protector and dry-erase marker
~Directions that guide the student to read and reread the text 3 times
~Directions that guide the student to use a dictionary and/or ask for help with clarifying unknown terms and content
~Directions on how to summarize the text

I'm hoping this will encourage use of these strategies while we are reading the textbook, but also will enrich the students needing a challenge with additional text.

I'd love to hear how you keep your students engaged and ready to learn in science class!

Close Reading in Social Studies

I've been reading a great book called Building Literacy in Social Studies: Strategies for Improving Comprehension and Critical Thinking by Donna Ogle, Ron Klemp, and Bill McBride.

In a section of the book called "Supporting Struggling Readers", the authors write that "The more students read on the same topic, the more likely they are to move from novice to expert ways of thinking.  Therefore, students need to be surrounded by more rather than less material on the topics being taught."  They go on to say that you need texts of three different levels: simple, instructional, and advanced.

This led me to think of a reading strategy called Close Reading.  If you're familiar with text complexity and Close Reading, you know it is a method for increasing reading comprehension.  Many teachers use it in the core subjects in addition to reading class.  The following graphic is a summary of the steps of Close Reading by Tracy Watanabe at her wwwatanabe blog.

On a recent trip to the Library of Congress (LOC) with my friend from One Teacher's Take, I picked up some great kid-friendly texts to support my Social Studies curriculum.  While reading the books together, we thought they would be perfect for some Close Reading!

Two books that would support students during our "5 Documents of Freedom" unit:

These two books would be an example of the "simple" level of texts.  It introduces and explains the concepts in simple text with many pictures to support all levels of readers.

What about the instructional and advanced levels?  Do you have any examples of texts that would work for a Close Reading for these levels?