Close Reading.  You have heard the phrase a thousand times.  And I know...you get it.  However, it is worth it to unpack the phrase and tease out what is so awesome about it and why when done with planned instructional routines, close reading can have an impact on student engagement, meaning making, and increased understanding of texts.  To be clear, I am not discussing close reading as an independent approach to reading text.  Rather, as an instructional strategy where the teacher's actions help students unpack layers of text, negotiate meaning, collaborate with peers and arrive at their own meaning of text worth reading/viewing/listening to.  If you want to read more about close reading please check out How to Read A Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, the first chapter of Falling in Love with Close Reading by Christopher Lehman and Kathleen Rogers, the first chapter of Rigorous Reading by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher, or my personal favorite, an expertly written blog post on close reading by Dr. Timothy Shanahan on his blog, " Shanahan on Literacy" located here:  What is Close Reading?

During the course of a close reading lesson, there are three key instructional moves a teacher makes:

All three moves (the oldies but goodies I call them) are well researched and have a positive impact on student learning.  Questioning, wait time, and student discussion are really behind the overkill and heavily commercialized use of the phrase "close reading."  Let's look at these three instructional strategies to remind us of how powerful they are.  For each move, I will provide my colloquial version of how it should be enacted in classrooms followed by the research and a concluding statement.

 

Questioning

Layman's Advice:  Ask questions worth asking.  After asking, be quiet and let the babies do the thinking and the talking.

 

Here's what we know about questioning:

In short, questions are critical to support student understanding, to communicate and to ensure students have learned. Whether in the classroom or providing professional development, take time to think about questions you want to ask, how they align to your objective and its alignment to the text.

 

Wait Time

Layman's Advice:  Be Patient. Come on, you can do it. Hold it. Hold it...Okay, release.

It will be quiet and maybe even awkward, but wait time can work wonders.

 

Here's what we know about wait time:

Wait time is one of the hardest things for teachers to adjust.  Teachers often state that the silence bothers them.  Administrators share that when they observe teachers, teachers immediately start firing off questions to show they are engaging students.  Coupled with what we know about questions, rapid firing of questions can indeed be ineffective.  The key piece (along with good questions) is to give pause and allow students to reflect, reason and respond.

 

Student Discussion

Layman's Advice (more of a cheer):
"Who should be talking?"

Students

WHO?

Students.

ONE MORE TIME!

STUDENTS

 

Here's what we know about student discussion:

Student discussion helps students make sense of text.  For those who believe that language and meaning making are socially constructed this is a no brainer.  But for those who are a bit skeptical, I implore you to think about how reading someone else's thoughts (whether fiction or informational text) influenced your thinking.  It is no different with students talking with and amongst each other.  It is important to note that talk for the sake of talking does not necessarily lead to learning (Murphy, Wilkinson, Sotera, Hennessey & Alexander, 2003).  Planning for and using appropriate discussion formats will yield better student results.

 

Concluding thoughts

 

I hope these oldies but goodies remind you of what is important about effective teaching or sparked new thoughts about powerful instructional practices.  It's not "close reading" that does the trick, it is the intentional use of questioning, wait time, and discussions that will give our children more access to a variety of texts, increase their ownership in learning, increase comprehension and support student success.

 

References

Applebee, A. N., Langer, J. A, Nystrand, M. & Gamoran, A. (2003). Discussion-based approaches to developing understanding: Classroom instruction and student performance in middle and high school English. American Educational Research Journal, 40(3), 685-730.

Murphy, P.K, Wilkinson, I. A. G, Sotera, A. O, Hennessey, M. N. & Alexander , J. F. (2009).  Examining the effects of classroom discussion on student comprehension of text: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology 101(3), 740-764.
http://www.quality-talk.org/pdf/Murphy_et_al_2009.pdf