How much independent reading of nonfiction in k-8?
Posted on August 27, 2015Share This Content
teaching close reading
Is “text evidence” becoming a fill-in-the-blank?
Posted on February 18, 2015A few weeks ago I had the honor of working with a class of students who were writing an analytic essay in response to a text about Frederick Douglass. During this lesson, I’d posed a text-dependent question and we’d carefully read the article and taken notes. When we moved from taking notes to using those …Read more
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Teach “example” as a type of detail info text authors use
Posted on January 9, 2015Take a moment to read the following text excerpt. Where does the author include examples of a concept? Why is that helpful to readers? Look closely and you will see. Magnets can be found on a can opener. The magnet attracts, or pulls, a lid off of a soup can. A push or a pull …Read more
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Close Reading Lesson with Elijah McCoy’s Steam Engine
Posted on October 7, 2014All Aboard! Elijah McCoy’s Steam Engine by Monica Kulling (2013) Recently I had the pleasure of teaching demonstration lessons in several third grade classes. In one class, the students were immersed in a unit of study with the essential question “How can learning help us grow?” The text for the lesson was All Aboard! Elijah …Read more
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Are your students struggling with explaining evidence?
Posted on March 27, 2014It seems like many of the students I work with struggle to explain why or how a detail is supporting evidence for a main/central idea. Does this sound familiar? What I have begun inquiring about in my practice is whether students have enough “language” to explain evidence. Maybe this is the missing piece. So for …Read more
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School Counselor’s Success with Close Reading
Posted on November 5, 2013Close reading can be used to tackle texts across all disciplines – even career counseling! Andrea is a school counselor who attended a workshop I hosted on close reading. By the end, a light had gone off for her in how to address a tricky text she’d been using to teach students about different careers …Read more
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Close Reading Instruction Essential #1
Posted on October 9, 2013When you engage students in close reading of an informational text excerpt, you must study that excerpt thoroughly. I find that I have to read and reread carefully, keeping the purpose for close reading in mind, doing my own close reading (line by line) and taking notes. I can use these notes later as I …Read more
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My last blog entry was about starting the year by encouraging students to read nonfiction. This is a big deal in the field of Common Core and in a world where we have to read a lot to understand what’s happening around us. How much independent reading is sufficient, though? Recently, at an institute, I …Read more