West Georgia RESA
Differentiation through Close Reading
Building Independence
Dr. Barbara Bishop bbishop@garesa.org
www.tinyurl.com/CloseReadingResources
Enduring Understandings
What strategies may be employed to guide
readers to greater independence in close
reading?
What does an appropriate Common Core
integrated reading task look like? (next
generation assessments)
How do close reading strategies align with the
expectations of differentiation?
Today’s standard
Participants will build capacity to more
deeply understand and employ guiding
strategies to build independence with
integrated reading tasks.
Participants will determine next actions to
ensure continued preparation toward
teaching integrated rigorous close reading.
ELA Common Core Standards document
Curriculum and instruction needs to be designed in
order that students…
“acquire the habits of reading independently
and closely, which are essential to their future
success.”
So, the big goal is to build student capacity to read
INDEPENDENTLY and CLOSELY.
In our time today...
Discuss the new Common Core reading demands
and work with an exemplar text.
Discuss some general reading strategies and ideas.
Work through an example of one of the more
powerful strategies (per the research).
What are the new Text Complexity expectations?
Common Core Text Complexity Chart
Close Reading Makes Reading
"Overt" and Public
What do good readers do?
Expect, model, and record...
Look! everyone in here does those things.
Students can "level" texts too!
Teach students how to understand the triangle of text
complexity so they can choose appropriately challenging
texts when their goal is increasing reading skill, stamina,
independence, and capacity for analysis.
The Common Core ELA Standards
Appendix documents include
examples of appropriately challenging
“exemplar texts” – for both
informational and literary genres.
The “Range and Content” of the Common Core
Full Group Dialogic Reading
Using full group modeling, over time, to strip
away fear, unfamiliarity, and to build context and
activate prior knowledge....
in order that a high order reading task might be
accomplished.
BELL WORK
Please read this carefully.
With hocked gems financing him, our hero bravely defied all
scornful laughter that tried to prevent his scheme. “Your eyes
deceive,” he had said. “An egg, not a table correctly typifies
this unexplored planet.” Now three sturdy sisters sought proof.
Forging along, sometimes through calm vastness, yet more
often very turbulent peaks and valleys, days became weeks
as many doubters spread fearful rumors about the edge. At
last from nowhere welcome winged creatures appeared,
signifying momentous success.
*Taken from Ornstein (1991), p. 187.
Let’s make a word tree! Circle three words that relate to
Christopher Columbus’ voyage.
With hocked gems financing him, our hero bravely defied all
scornful laughter that tried to prevent his scheme. “Your eyes
deceive,” he had said. “An egg, not a table correctly typifies
this unexplored planet.” Now three sturdy sisters sought proof.
Forging along, sometimes through calm vastness, yet more
often very turbulent peaks and valleys, days became weeks
as many doubters spread fearful rumors about the edge. At
last from nowhere welcome winged creatures appeared,
signifying momentous success.
*Taken from Ornstein (1991), p. 187.
Let's look at one of the Common
Core Exemplar texts and tasks
from Corestandards.org's
Common Core ELA Standards
Appendix document.
Next steps?
What are your personal next steps for increasing
student reading comprehension ability?