Close Reading Resources
Make and Take Activities
This anchor chart shows sample “think marks” students can use as they annotate a text for a close read.
Items needed: chart paper or poster board
This free download gives students a resource for close reading word problems. Students need to read and comprehend across the curriculum!
Items needed: word problems, printable, and writing utensils
This free download provides the teacher with a close reading question wheel. Teachers can use this resource as they teach and model. Also, it can be placed in a reading center for independent student practice.
Items needed: passages and printable wheel
This table top writing activity promotes actively engages all students in their small groups. Simply glue a copy of the passage of focus on bulletin board paper and provide each student with a marker. All students can now actively share their thoughts and academic discourse is promoted. (Note: Be sure each student has read the passage of focus ahead of time. Also, consider providing resources such as question wheels and “think marks” to focus your students on the task at hand.)
Items needed: selected passage, bulletin board paper, and markers
This website has a close reading bookmark that you can print off and use … or you can use this bookmark as an inspiration to create your own!
Items needed: cardstock and bookmark printable
This website includes directions on how to create a comprehension binder with trade book examples and comprehension lessons organized by targeted skills.
Items needed: binder, dividers, your lessons
Resources
This resource looks at skills that you would like to teach (such as author’s craft and character analysis). It then gives you strategies and tools (highlighters, sticky notes) that you can use to teach each skill.
This link provides free one page nonfiction passages that are aligned to Common Core priority areas. Each passage has the skill noted. These could be used as close reading passages.
Saluda Schools has created a webpage dedicated to close reading. It has multiple close reading links on one site. This is a convenient, go-to site.
NCDPI created this document that gives you steps for carrying out close reading exercises for a short passage of text. The summary sheet is very helpful. After the summary sheet, there are deeper explanations provided for each step.
This site contains a short video with Dr. Doug Fisher (the close reading guru). It is a short and sweet place to start if you want a basic definition of what close reading is.
This video shows how to make annotations to a text as you model a close read to your students. The teacher integrates technology into her lesson. This would be great to do during whole group comprehension lessons.
This resource provides trade books organized by the comprehension skill that can be pulled from that book. Printable versions of the booklists are available within each comprehension skill.
This site provides sample read alouds with a schedule for think-aloud, pair and talk, stop and jot, write and talk long opportunities. It contains some leveled read alouds as well
This site provides example trade books with comprehension strategy ideas described in detail with evidence pulled from text. Teachers could use the same format to create close reading activities for other books as well.