Step-by-Step Education Guide
Learning to Read
The process is complex, requiring a combination of methods
From decoding to comprehension, teaching students to learn the sound-letter relationships, along with understanding what they’re reading is one of the biggest challenges that any parent, teacher, or professor confronts.
Learning to read requires that students perform several mental tasks. Splitting those tasks by reading through a selection allows students to take each reading objective one at a time.
Close reading is a process where students read through a text several times, each time with a different purpose.
This process will not be effective if it takes place in a vacuum, that is if it is the only activity students in which students are engaged.
For example, if a teacher or parent begins a reading activity by having a student select a book from a library, home, or classroom and then only reads the title, author, and text of the story without any preparation or discussion, interest and critical thinking levels will be low.
Any child listening is sure to squirm, fidget, and lose interest in a flash.
Close Reading
Many educators believe that close reading, a process of reading a selection several times, each time with a different purpose is the answer to both the challenges students have with decoding and comprehension.
It’s not. At least without additional support and activities.
Reading a book three times, once out loud, once to find unknown words, and last to think about what an author is inferring is not likely to increase enthusiasm for reading or engagement in the process.
Close reading activities need to be supplemented with pre and post-reading for the entire learning experience to be complete.
Reading is a get-set-get-ready-go experience. Adding a reflection of the process afterward is the cool-down.
A full description of the three reading phases is described in the story below.
Close reading is a during-reading activity that proceeds after prereading (previewing) and is followed by post-reading (talking about phonics and meaning).
When students miss out on previewing a story’s content during a prereading session, including the teacher or parent setting a purpose for reading results in the following:
Behavior problems — When students aren’t prepared to read in a prereading process their minds will remain wild with thoughts of everything but the reading selection at hand.
Lack of Engagement — No child in their right mind will be engaged in the reading process without some background knowledge and scaffolding the reading by connecting it to concepts the students are familiar with.
Unwanted Movement — Fidgeting, squirming, and touching anything nearby, including other students is not a situation a teacher or parent wants when beginning to read to students.
Mindfulness
Opening a reading close reading session can begin with mindfulness. This process is initiated by having students close their eyes while the teacher softly describes the setting of a story.
Questioning
This questioning is a process that takes place during all three phases of reading prereading, during reading, and postreading.
After mindfulness, participants in the listening process need additional stimulation through questioning, which adds the use of speaking skills to the scenario.
Questioning is the key to students' understanding of the material they read. The process can be made engaging by taking students on a story walk through the illustrations in the book, and asking students what is happening in the images during the prereading phase.
The During-Reading Close-Reading Process
Questioning can’t be reemphasized enough in the close reading process.
Brown and Kappes (2012) have claimed that” in order to bring the close reading strategy to life, teachers will need to deepen their understanding of text-dependent questions- how they are constructed and how they are intentionally crafted to support the careful examination of text called from Close Reading,” (p. 4).
Once the teacher has prepared a wide variety of questions that address many tiers of critical-level thinking skills, he or she can begin close reading.
Step One — Title and Author Description
Introduce the title and author (if available) of the passage. Discuss what you know about the topic, including identifying it as narration, description, argument, poetry, play, subject area, and so on. Relate the topic to prior reading and set a purpose for reading the new selection.
Talk about the author — his/her name, background, reason for writing the story, and anything else you can think of. Beginning readers need to be aware that the author is a person doing a job that he or she enjoys.
Step Two — Adult Reading Aloud First Pass
When a teacher reads aloud he/she should be animated by using gestures and changing the tone, and pitch of the voice to play the part of each character.
Playing with your facial expressions, eye movements, head turns, body movements and all the rest is essential for students to engage fully. After, all they are expected to listen to you, so you might as well be entertaining!
When the teacher or parent reads the selection aloud students can follow along (engagement). It helps if everyone has his or her own copy of the story.
Step Three — Unknown Word Search Second Pass
Have the student read the passage again and indicate the words they aren’t familiar with (circle, highlight, etc.)
Step Four — Defining Unknown Words Cooperatively Third Pass
Student pairs share out (think/pair share) unknown vocabulary words by searching for each on Google. English Language Learners can also use Google Images to see images representing words.
Step Five — Silent Reading Fourth Pass
Have each student read the selection again silently.
Post-Reading and Reflection
Voilà, now it’s time for post-reading activities and reflection.
The teacher or parent asks critical thinking questions from Bloom’s taxonomy or the Depth of Knowledge chart.
There you have it!
This complete guide can be easily used by anyone who desires to assist a child, student, or adult to read!
Brown, S., & Kappes,L. (2012). Implementing the Common Core State Standards: A primer on close reading of text. The Aspen Institute. 1–6.