T EACHING LITERACY Tyler eagerly reads the letter from his pen pal. Authentic Reasons for Close Reading: How to Motivate Students to Take Another Look by Elizabeth Dobler C lose reading entails returning to the text multiple times for multiple reasons. As an adult reader, I may read a recipe several times, once to identify the list of ingredients prior to shopping, a second time to gather and organize cooking materials and supplies, and a third time as I am actually preparing the food. While our own reading habits as teachers provide a backdrop for understanding close reading, teachers must focus on the various ways to engage our students with close reading to deepen comprehension. Timothy Shanahan (University of Illinois, Chicago, and a past president of IRA) presented a session at the 2013 IRA Convention in San Antonio, entitled Meeting the Common Core Challenge: Planning Close Reading. Shanahan’s view is that meaning is hidden in the text, and the reader’s task is to extract this meaning through careful and thorough analysis and reanalysis, with each subsequent return to the text based on a unique purpose. A suggestion for teachers is to select high-quality texts that make www.reading.org reading and re-reading worthwhile, and then plan for a multi-day commitment to a text, with a focus each day on a specific reading mission to be accomplished. entails the establishment of authentic reasons for students to return to a text for developing deeper levels of comprehension. In2Books To prepare for instruction, a teacher must first read the text and identify aspects of the text that could require special effort for a particular group of students. These aspects may include key vocabulary, unfamiliar concepts, or gaps in information. Then through purposeful reading and rereading, the teacher guides students to peel away the layers of meaning within a text, like layers of an onion, while also tackling the challenging aspects of the text. A quandary facing teachers is to provide guidance in this meaning-making treasure hunt but to not give away the location of the treasure. When a teacher, attempting to be helpful, provides too much information about the text’s meaning, the reader is deprived of the opportunity to think deeply and unearth the treasure of comprehension. Promoting close reading in the classroom In2Books (http://in2books.com) is a program that encourages close reading within a motivational reading experience by matching children with adult eMentors. Both mentor and student read the same book from a selected list and share ideas about the book via online letters, which are uploaded to the teacher’s inbox and, when approved, passed on to the student or mentor. The students, prior to preparing their letters, read and discuss the book in the classroom, within a small group or whole class setting, all the while knowing a mentor awaits in the virtual wings to also discuss the book through electronic pen pal letters. Having an authentic audience gives students a reason to return to the text, to think beyond the surface, to formulate their ideas about the text, and to present these ideas in a clear and cohesive way. Mentors June/July 2013 Reading Today 13 participate in a background check, to ensure the safety of the online learning community, and they must commit to working with a student for the full academic year. The writing center, a website feature, provides pen pals with tools to guide mentoring, such as thought-provoking questions, key vocabulary, and sample letters. Susan Rodriguez, a fourth grade teacher at Whiteriver Elementary School on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona, describes the benefits her students reap from having an audience for their thoughts about the book. “My students are more careful with their work because it has an authentic purpose. They want to be an expert on the book, so that when they write their letter to their pen pal, they would seem knowledgeable. The motivating factor is that some other human, their buddy, their pen pal, their confidant, is going to read that letter. They want correct spelling. They want correct grammar. They want to sound like experts, so they refer back to the book.” In the process, Susan’s students learned how to reference text, how to infer meaning, how to use a dictionary/spell check, how to use a thesaurus, and how to type. Susan views this type of learning as authentic, giving her students a real reason to read closely, to delve into the book, and to peel away those layers of meaning. In2Books provides a recommended list of children’s literature, along with suggestions for in-class literature circles Did you know that IRA offers awards and grants for In2Books projects? Visit www.reading.org/awards to learn more about the IRA Erwin Zolt Curriculum Excellence Award to support exceptional design and execution of a curriculum unit based on In2Books/e-Pals and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the IRA Esther Zolt Academic Research Grant for a research study on the effective classroom implementation of an In2Books/e-Pals project and the CCSS, and the IRA Esther Zolt Teacher Research Grant to support an action research study about implementing an In2Books/e-Pals project and the CCSS. Applications are due November 15. and instructional activities linked to the Common Core State Standards. During class, the teacher lays the foundation and creates opportunities for students to make meaning from the book, and the students demonstrate and further develop their understanding through the pen pal letters. As Susan says, “The students read their books and take notes. They talk about the book and hear other people’s ideas. All so that when they go to type their letter, their pen pal, whom they will never meet, will be impressed with what they have learned.” Susan’s students eagerly await responses from their pen pals. Students are prompted to consider aspects of the text in a new way, possibly returning to the text with this new perspective for an even closer reading. For these fourth graders, having a connection to an adult through the sharing of books and letters is a powerful motivator not only for reading but for overall success in school. Other Ways to Encourage Close Reading Ask students to share their interpretations of a text, whether orally, in writing, or through a visual creation. This accountability to others can be a motivating factor for developing the stamina required to read a text with thoroughness and return to the text again to seek a deeper layer of meaning. Activities such as literature circles or a class book blog give students the opportunity to present their thoughts to others and provide purposeful reasons to return to a text for a closer look. One way to encourage students to return to a text for a second or third reading, as Shanahan suggests, is to provide authentic and unique purposes for each of the re-readings. One pass with the text may focus on the details or story structure. The next may seek to define the author’s craft or ways the author utilizes dialogue, description, or other literary techniques to convey ideas. A third encounter with the text may entail an analysis of the theme, a character’s motivation, or the thread linking ideas together. Do all texts require readers to reread three times? Close reading is a mental process, not a checklist. A teacher promotes close reading by setting up reading situations which encourage students to practice this mental process. If the text is complex and requires a closer look to gain a deep understanding, then three reads may be needed. A simple text may only require one reading. A goal is to help students understand when a closer reading is needed and when a single view will suffice. Close reading does entail rereading, but it must be purposeful rereading. The close reading experiences of Susan’s students serve to deepen their comprehension and validate their ideas. The knowledge, motivation, and confidence gained are positive benefits that can be transferred to other reading experiences. Close reading should be viewed not as a task, but as an opportunity to extend our understanding for real reasons and in authentic ways. 14 Reading Today June/July 2013 www.reading.org More on Close Reading To learn more about close reading, see these resources: Beers, K. & Probst, R. E. (2013). Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2012). Close reading in elementary schools. The Reading Teacher, 65(3), 179–188. Hinchman, K. A. & Moore, D. W. (2013). Close reading: A cautionary interpretation. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(6), 441–450. Shanahan, T. (2013). Meeting the Common Core Challenge: Planning Close Reading. Retrieved from https://sites. google.com/site/tscommoncore/home/ close-reading Elizabeth Dobler is a literacy professor at Emporia State University, in Emporia, Kansas, edobler@ emporia.edu. Phases of a Close Reading Lesson Note: These suggestions are excerpted with permission from a slide presentation posted online by IRA Past President Timothy Shanahan, University of Illinois, Chicago. See https://sites.google.com/site/ tscommoncore/home/close-reading. Prereading • Set the context for the text without revealing too much information and thus denying students the opportunity to think deeply Timothy themselves. Shanahan • Keep it short and to the point. Prereading activities should be no longer than the reading itself and not cover concepts taught within the text and/or illustrations. First Reading—What Does the Text Say? • Guide students to consider the most important elements of the text, and clarify confusion. • Ask students to summarize the information or retell the story, including the key ideas and details. Second Reading—How Does the Text Work? • Lead the students in considering the author’s craft and the text’s structure as tools for conveying ideas. • Develop an awareness of the choices an author and illustrator make to convey ideas. • Focus on why and how the author told the story or shared the information. Third Reading—What Does the Text Mean? • Consider what the text means to a reader and how it connects to other texts and the reader’s life. Beat the Heat with Summer Learning Activities from ReadWriteThink by Mary Lynam E vidence has shown that all students suffer from the “summer slide” if they don’t read and write during the summer break. This is especially true of low-income students who have little access to books in their homes and communities (Neuman & Celano, 2001). Having extensively researched academic setbacks during the summer, particularly those of poor students, Richard Allington and Anne McGillFranzen recommend that schools consider a summer book distribution program (2013). ReadWriteThink.org is proud to be a free resource offering activities, tips, and tools designed for at-home learning. This summer, ReadWriteThink is partnering with the Pearson Foundation’s We Give Books program. Each week, their Read for My Summer program highlights a book for each of these age categories: 0–3, 4–7, and 8–10. For every book that children read using the free, online We Give Books library, they can elect to donate a book to a public library, broadening access to books for low-income kids. Books include fun activities and reading tips to help kids reinforce and connect with what they read. Below are examples of titles along with their activities offered by ReadWriteThink: Not Your Typical Dragon by Dan Bar-el (Viking Juvenile): Identify the objects by their first letter, using the Alphabet Organizer. www.reading.org Dinosaur Detectives by Peter Chrisp (DK Publishing): Solve a crossword puzzle and then build your own. The Unforgettable Season by Phil Bildner (Putnam Juvenile): Make trading cards for baseball legends Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (Viking Juvenile): Create your own rhymes after learning about them from this book. Ladybug Girl at the Beach by David Soman (Dial): Write a poem or story about your summer experiences. For more ideas, see the Reading Today Online article at www. reading.org/RWTsummer. References Allington, R.L., & McGill-Franzen, A. (2013, April/May). Eliminating summer reading setback: How we can close the rich/poor reading achievement gap. Reading Today, 10–11. Neuman, S., & Celano, D. (2001). Access to print in low-income and middleincome communities. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(1), 8–26. Mary Lynam is a strategic communications intern at the International Reading Association. June/July 2013 Reading Today 15