I’m continuing this blog series on the steps of close reading. Today’s topic? Vocabulary development! We’ve all seen studies about vocabulary development in children. The more words and phrases a child knows by the age of two helps them to develop the language skills they need to be successful readers. As a mom, I tried
So you’ve been spending your planning period looking for the right close reading passage. Sometimes it’s hard to find the right passage for close reading, especially if you have little readers. They might be too hard/easy and you’re left feeling like Goldilocks looking for the perfect chair. Ever been there? When you can’t find the
If you’re teaching close reading to your elementary students and it’s not going well, you might be making some of the mistakes I made when I was first starting to teach a close reading lesson. In this blog and with this FREE teacher guide, I’m going to show you how to teach close reading effectively
Teaching close reading to younger students is hard! A lot of the aspects when you are teaching close reading are more applicable to older students in middle school or high-school. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to reading. So when I began to teach close reading to my first graders, I was intimidated! So intimidated, in
So you’re ready to teach close reading, and you’re even ready to use close reading symbols, but where are you going to find the right passages for close reading? They’re not always readily available. And how do you know if you have the best text passages? I’m going to show you what I did to
Teaching close reading in your classroom is hard enough, but teaching your students how to use close read symbols correctly and effectively seems next to impossible. I mean, c’mon, they’re six years old and probably have never taken notes on anything before. And don’t get me started on the fact that they’re just starting to
Teaching close reading isn’t a difficult concept. It’s teaching your student to read closely and get as much meaning as possible from the text. Students will spend several days on one text, looking at the words the author uses and discussing the text’s meaning. This method of digging deeper into the text will prepare your