Monday, February 9, 2015

Close Reading

We don't use a Reading series where I teach.  I enjoy this because it allows me to be creative with my teaching.  I love incorporating picture books into my daily whole-group reading lessons!  There are a few downfalls of not having a series.  One is that my kids don't get to read a lot of grade-appropriate non-fiction text.  Sure we do my non-fiction writing and text features units, but as far as my read-alouds in class go, they are mostly fiction.  I've been incorporating some close reading into our daily Reading time and it's been AWESOME!  I used Lyndsey's {from A Year of Many Firsts} close reading freebie to help me plan my instruction.

We followed her suggestions in her pack for beginning by looking at some nature objects with our "naked eyes."  Then, we added a magnifying lens and looked a littttttttle closer.  Much to our surprise, we were able to see SO MUCH MORE!





The next day, we began by reading "Rabbits," a free passage Lyndsey has here.  We did a cold read and then talked about vocabulary words that we were not familiar with.  We used our mini-highlighters {obviously the awesomest thing evaaaa!} and highlighted our words.  We matched up the whole-group vocabulary cards, as well, using context clues and our background knowledge.






On the third day, we re-read our passage {warm read} and answered some "right there" questions. My teammate came up with a few questions that could easily be answered by reading the passage.

On the fourth day, we did a hot read {choral style} and worked through some inference questions together {these were included in the freebie, as well}.

I ended up getting the big pack that Lyndsey has, because I saw how much my kids loved the "Rabbits" text!  Today we started "Anacondas" and let me tell ya, that Nicki Minaj song was going through my head all.day.long.  I was able to find a YouTube video about Anacondas {not Nicki Minaj, although that did pop up as an option...just sayin'.} and the kids LOVED seeing the live snake!



I'd highly recommend you taking a look!  Link below; just click the cover!



Freebie below:




xo
Megan


2 comments:

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Thank you.

Chandler said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Do you follow this same format each week when you do the close readings?

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