NEWSELA–I like this site but beware…
Posted on August 2, 2016Share This Content
close reading informational text
Complex sources? Give students a head start with THIEVES
Posted on September 5, 2015Teaching students to use the mnemonic THIEVES (Manz, 2002) to preview a text is an easy way to nurture students’ sense of agency as they tackle feature-dense nonfiction sources. The poster below (created by a colleague!) reveals the details of this strategy–students preview, predict & then summarize their predictions. A FEW TIPS Create THIEVES bookmarks …Read more
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Quick way to review text & content before close reading
Posted on May 9, 2015I tried something new–I provided a list of “key details” from a section of text as a way for students to review content before engaging in close reading of a more difficult section of the text. During a previous lesson, the 3rd grade students had read an article about Dolores Huerta (in the McGraw-Hill Wonders …Read more
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Analysis of Responses to 8th Grade Text Set & Prompt, Part 2
Posted on April 27, 2015In the last blog entry, I shared a rigorous text set and prompt developed by an middle school ELA team. The team and I met (via Webinex) to discuss the students’ written responses. First we look at the strengths of each student’s analytic essay; then we discuss the students’ needs as writers. Integrated into this …Read more
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Do students understand what we mean by “key details”?
Posted on April 21, 2015Is the term “key details” vague for your students? I’m teaching 2nd/3rd grade students this week and trying out an anchor chart that attempts to make the term “key details” more concrete for students. I think a “key detail” might change depending on what our purpose is for reading. Here are a few of the …Read more
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Close reading lesson with A to Z text excerpt
Posted on April 14, 2015Last week I gave a close reading lesson with an excerpt from an A to Z text, George Washington Carver, written at Level O. (See my previous post “Tips for using A to Z texts for close reading”.) Our text-dependent question was, “What did Carver achieve?” This seems like an easy question at first, but …Read more
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Brief, focused opportunities to build background knowledge
Posted on December 8, 2014Recently I was asked to teach a lesson to second grade students with an informational text on magnets. As I read through the text, I began thinking about how many of the students I’d be working with may not have had many language and hands-on experiences with magnets or magnetism or the concept of force, …Read more
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Close Reading 2nd Grade Text – Tricky Details for Students
Posted on September 23, 2014As we ask transitional level readers to engage in close reading, let’s be aware of tricky details. Below I share my analysis of one informational text that is very similar to other texts we use in our classrooms. A few weeks ago, I taught several second grade “close reading” lessons with informational texts from the …Read more
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“Can’t live without doing” during my close reading lessons
Posted on September 16, 2014Last week I had the honor of visiting multiple schools and giving demonstration lessons in 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. For each lesson, there were 10-15 teachers observing. Afterwards we debriefed about methodology and evidence of student learning. Some amazing insight was gained – as well as a sense of affirmation for what they are …Read more
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Nonfiction Author Study – Moving preK-1 Towards Close Reading
Posted on July 22, 2013Last year I had the honor of working with two kindergarten teachers who immersed their students in nonfiction author studies. Late in the spring they led a two week author study – week one on Steve Jenkins’ books and week two on Nic Bishop’s books. Monday-Wednesday or Thursday, they read aloud a book and …Read more
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Just be careful. NEWSELA is a great site for short informational articles for students to read. The content is usually worthy of student-led discussions and writing about in response. The beauty of NEWSELA is that the same article is available at different Lexile levels. (When you click on an article, check out the blue bar …Read more