Common Core Standards: Close Reading in ELA

District Strategic Goal #1: Continuously Improve Student Growth and Achievement

Common Core State Standards English Language Arts Strategy: Close Reading

Close reading is a literary studies practice applicable to all kinds of cultural texts (e.g. films, novels, photographs, plays, etc.). Performing a close reading means making an interpretive argument about a text or texts, through detailed attention to and critical reflection on textual form and detail.

A significant body of research links the close reading of complex text—whether the student is a struggling reader or advanced—to significant gains in reading proficiency and finds close reading to be a key component of college and career readiness. (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, 2011, p. 7)

Close reading assists students with:
• understanding the purpose in reading;
• seeing ideas in a text as being interconnected;
• looking for and understanding systems of meaning;
• engaging in a text while reading;
• getting beyond “surface” reading or skimming;
• formulating questions and seeking answers to the questions while reading.

Guiding Principles
1. Select text worthy of close reading, and study the text to plan the lesson.
2. Make close reading and rereading of texts central to lessons.
3. Provide scaffolding that does not preempt or replace text.
4. Craft text dependent questions from a range of question types.
5. Emphasize that students support their answers based upon evidence from the text.
6. Provide extensive research and writing opportunities (claims and evidence).
7. Offer regular opportunities for students to share ideas, evidence and research.
8. Offer systematic instruction in vocabulary.
9. Ensure wide reading from complex text that varies in length.
10. Cultivate students’ independence.

At Dunlap Grade School, Close Reading is a strategy that is used across grade levels in different ways to help students meet the rigor of the common core state standards. We are seeing students develop the ability to attend to more complex text and analyze it for meaning and purpose.