What: Close Reading pushes students to dig deeper into a section of text and promotes reading with a pencil or pen. It requires students to dip into the text multiple times.

Who: Close Reading can be used at all grade levels when an appropriate piece of text is selected.

When: This strategy can be used BEFORE, DURING, or AFTER reading, depending on the specific standard, skill, or craft that students are focusing on within the piece of text.

Why: Close reading is a student driven strategy. Students figure out key issues while rereading and discussing the text. They are engaged in reading the text, often using a pen or pencil while reading. This strategy builds capacity through intense exploration of one main skills, process, etc. The focus is ongoing, further than overall meaning of the text, but to understand the why and how of key parts of the text. Close reading is a repeated reading. Students generally read the piece of text 3 or more times.

How: The teacher will pick a skill, process, etc. that the class will focus on through a Close Reading. Next, the teacher will select a section of text specific to the focus skill, process, etc. The teacher will then determine how the skill, process, etc. will be highlighted to engage students in exploring it closely numerous times. This can be seen through the following example:

Using, The Tiger Rising, students will focus on identifying how the author develops characters by:

• What he/she does (underline)

• What he/she says (circle)

• What he/she thinks (squiggly line)

• What he/she looks like (brackets)

• Other information from the narrator (double underline)

After analyzing the piece of text, the teacher should make an anchor chart to tie together the close reading.