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Friday, April 3, 2015

Close Reading Heroes

We used our superhero capes and masks to help us learn how to close read.

I started this unit by doing the Oreo activity. I got this idea from my friend over at Stuckey in Second.  This was super fun and easy.  It also left quite an impact on my students.  They began to really understand what it means to take your time and think about what you read. 

The students were first given an Oreo and they had to eat it as fast as they could.  Then, they had to write down all they could about what they ate.



Next, we ate an Oreo again but this time students had to take their time and really look at the cookie.  They had to enjoy it and really pay attention to the details.




It was amazing to see the difference in details!  Check out our anchor chart.  Now, students know to take their time and look closer when they're reading or they will miss so much!


Now that students understand how to close read, we discussed the steps you take to close read.  My students seem to be more successful when I give steps.  These are all skills we've already learned!  So, the students then chose which steps helped them be more successful when they close read.





Students were then given a passage to read.  We focused on looking closely at the text.  So, we highlighted details that we found were important and supported the main idea.


We wrote the main idea of the passage after looking at the details and finding the topics that were consistently brought up in the text.   After, we wrote details to support the main idea to prove that our main idea was correct.  It was important the students understood that the details had to go with the main idea.



Once we finished, we practiced retelling what we read by using the 5 finger rule.  This rule requires the student to pick a topic in the text, share 3 facts that go with the topic, state and I wonder statement, and share their favorite thing from the text. 




It was a busy week, but the kids learned so much and opened their eyes to new ways to summarize!

You can find all these goodies in my summarizing unit.  Just click not the picture below!



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