Labels

Saturday, November 9, 2013

FROM EL: Close reading: Teach it when they need it

Sunday Cummins on how to teach close readingFound this article from EL http://inservice.ascd.org/educational-leadership/close-reading-teach-it-when-they-need-it/ and it certainly resonated with my thinking as I have been reading Close Reading (Lehman). 

  

 

Sunday Cummins begins with the question many of us have been pondering, "How often should I give a close reading lesson?”

She reminds us that it's not the, "be all and end all of instructional approaches to teaching reading."

She mentions an article, “Close Reading and Far-Reaching Classroom Discussion: Fostering a Vital Connection,” (Snow and O’Connor) that suggest too much close reading could lead to disengagement or thinking only about text-based evidence rather than our background knowledge or other texts.

In my opinion, and in Cummins summation, there are benefits to close reading of texts.  I can attest to this based on my own forays into that realm recently.   It's a powerful way to unpack a text and it leads to those wonderful teaching moments when students might say something like, "Did you notice...." and your heart melts!  

No comments: