I am joining in again with two of my Freebielicious Girls {Lyndsey and Tara} this week for their Close Reading in Elementary School book study. Reading Informational Text or any challenging text can be difficult because rarely do kids ever want to reread a challenging text just for the "fun of it." Not many people do =)
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Chapter 4 is all about close reading across different genres. Close Reading isn't a one size fits all where you use the same thing no matter the text. The chapter outlines frameworks for all the different genres, which is great for people like me that need to see it. The chapter makes the point that (as we all know) non-fiction is more challenging for lots of reasons: requires background knowledge, vocabulary, text structure, purpose…and most of all: interest level. But although these reasons are the reasons why it is more challenging, they are the very reasons why we MUST have our students read non-fiction. With it, they can begin to build that much needed background knowledge and we can increase access to difficult vocabulary, diverse text structures, as well as, encourage academic rigor.
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The bottom line?
Every text is unique. So each one requires a unique close reading framework. Our job?
Increase students' literary experiences.
The framework that I found most interesting was the one for poetry.
I HAVE to do a better job with the poetry I share.
I created this little page to go along with our weekly poems.
Get your FREEBIE {here}
Need some ideas for great poems? My favorite for kids has to be Jack Prelutsky…here is a link to some of his selected poems that I think would be great for Close Reads {HERE}
You should definitely join in the book study with Lyndsey and Tara on their blogs!
Need some ideas for great poems? My favorite for kids has to be Jack Prelutsky…here is a link to some of his selected poems that I think would be great for Close Reads {HERE}
And as to what I have been working on this week, I remembered how much my students (especially my boys) LOVE cheetahs….fastest land animals? Of course they love them!
Read that chapter last night and thought the same thing. I do not spend nearly enough time on poetry. I love that poetry is short enough text for us to tackle in its entirety. Any favorite poems for close reading?
ReplyDeleteI added a link to my favorite {kid} poet, Jack Prelutsky... he even has some of his selected poems on his website (link above in the post) Hope that that helps! =)
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