Close Reading Tools

This year, close reading has been my main focus. We had a wonderful speaker visit our school not too long ago and she shared so many ideas. I just now got around to digging into all the information she left for us and so today I am going to share with you some close reading tools.

Before I start I want to make clear that all of the ideas I am sharing are from Kathy Bumgardner. She has an amazing website you can visit {HERE}. I have just taken some of her great {free} ideas and added cute fonts and clipart to some. I made most in a color and black and white version. You can download any by clicking on the picture.

The first thing I am going to share are these close reading bookmarks. After my students had practiced close reading for several weeks with me and had become experts at showing text evidence I starting getting them to use the skill with reading partners. That's where these little guys come in handy. They each have one in their book bag to remind them of the steps and what they need to do.

These are guided questioning stems that I laminated and keep on a ring at my guided reading table. I'll pull them out and randomly flip to one at the end or even the middle of our small group time to check their understanding.

 One strand of the common core standards is speaking and listening so these cards I have laminated front to back and they also keep them in their book bags for partner reading. It reminds them if it is their turn to listen what they should be doing or responding with and if they are speaking what they can use to start the conversation.



 

 

This sheet is a step by step close reading guide for teachers to remind you what students should be looking for, noting, and thinking.

 



 

Here are three more tools that I did not have images of, but they are worth checking out. The first are thinkmarks for fiction and nonfiction. My students use these as a reminder of important ideas they should be thinking about as they read. When they finish a book they use their thinkmark to check for understanding.

 

This one is just a reading log we use during class and this one has three summary tools for fiction, nonfiction, and biography in the somebody/wanted/but/so fashion.

 

I hope you were able to find something useful here to help you with close reading in your classroom. There is still so much we learned from Kathy that I want to share with you but at a later time.  

 

If you need passages and text dependent questions for your close reading check out my informational text close reading packet. I'm putting it 20% off for the next three days!