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Module 3:

Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading

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2015

Informational Focus

2013

Narrative Focus

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Notice & Note: Signposts for Close Reading

What are the signposts?

  • strategies to deepen comprehension
  • key places to stop & think, to deepen comprehension
  • simple and memorable: �easy for readers to spot
  • show up in most texts

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BENEFITS of Teaching the Signposts

  • develops awareness & thinking about significant parts of text
  • leads students to naturally use comprehension strategies: �(visualizing, predicting, summarizing, clarifying, �questioning, inferring, and making connections)
  • simple and memorable, the ritual is “built in” & fosters independence
  • helps students go deeply into a text when teacher/adult is not there
  • language is generalizable

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We ought to be saying to kids…Some passages are worth looking at a second time.

The author may mean something here that the author wants you to notice or figure out.

Kylene Beers

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Narrative Signpost:

Contrasts & Contradictions

Anchor lesson using “Thank You, Ma’m” by Langston Hughes

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The Signposts = The Ritual

  • Use the lenses to find patterns
    • Students notice when signposts appear (and may also notice recurrence or frequency) and think about anchor question.
  • Develop a new understanding
    • Answers to anchor question leads to new understanding or ideas to hold onto.
  • Read through lenses
    • Here, students have the lenses in their toolboxes

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Teaching the Signposts

Consider teaching these 3 first,

  • Constrasts & Contradictions
  • Aha Moments
  • Tough Questions

They appear in many texts, �struggling readers can learn easily, & anchor questions provide opportunities �for significant insight or understanding.

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Teaching the Signposts

  • Set aside time to teach each signposts.
  • They’re not minilessons. They are new concepts and require time.
  • You need about 30 minutes.
  • Within our time today, we’ll explore 3 of them in a condensed version.

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Teaching the Signposts

  • Recognize that the model text might not be at a student’s independent reading level -- and that’s okay! It’s a shared experience.

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Each lesson is designed using gradual release model

Most support from you

1 Explain the signpost and the anchor question.

Make/share poster.

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2 Tell students you’ll show them how the signpost works by sharing a short text. Students have copies of text.

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3 Read aloud to the first occurrence of the signpost.

Point out that what caused you to pause is the signpost you’re teaching. Ask yourself the anchor question and share thoughts about possible answer.

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4 Read the second section, stopping at the next instance of the signpost.

Point it out to students and ask them to turn & talk in pairs. Share some responses with whole class.

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5 Read the third section, and perhaps a fourth. Release responsibility even more, as you ask them to identify signpost and discuss anchor question. Talk is for 2-3 minutes. Share thoughts with whole group.

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6 Read to the end of the selection. Ask them to identify the most significant example, discuss the anchor question, and report to the full group.

Least support from you.

7 Tell students to watch for signpost in their independent reading, mark those they find, and jot down their thoughts as they think about the anchor question.

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Narrative Signpost:

Aha Moments

Anchor lesson using excerpt from Crash by Jerry Spinelli

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Narrative Signpost:

Signpost: Tough Questions

Anchor lesson using excerpt from A Long Walk to Water �by Linda Sue Park

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What New Ideas & Understandings?

  • Contrasts & Contradictions:
    • meaningful predictions or inferences about plot, conflict
  • Aha Moments:
    • Reveal character development and motivation
    • Reveal theme
  • Tough Questions
    • Reveals internal conflict
    • Meaningful predictions or inferences

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The Six Signposts

Contrasts & Contradictions

When a character does something that contrasts with what you’d expect or contradicts his earlier acts or statements, STOP and ask “Why is the character doing that?”

Aha Moment

When a character realizes, understands, or finally figures out something, STOP and ask “How might this change things?”

Tough Questions

When a character asks herself a very difficult question, STOP and ask “What does this question make me wonder about?”

Words of the Wiser

When a character (probably older and wiser) takes the main character aside and offers serious advice, STOP and ask “What’s the life lesson, and how might it affect the character?”

Again & Again

When you notice a word, phrase, or situation mentioned over and over, STOP and ask “Why does this keep happening again and again?”

Memory Moment

When the author interrupts the action to tell you about a memory, STOP and ask “Why might this memory be important”

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Beyond the anchor lessons

  • Give students bookmarks for independent reading
  • Partners or small groups use a picture book to practice finding signposts

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Beyond the

anchor lessons

Novel groups create posters or charts mapping key signposts

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Close Reading Non-Fiction: �Essential Questions & Signposts

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Move students from reading like a tourist to read like a resident

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Move students from reading like a tourist �to read like a resident

  • Read like a Tourist
    • Gather basic information from the text.
  • Read like a Visitor
    • Extend understanding by asking clarifying ?’s.
    • Figure what else you need to know.
    • Identify what’s confusing.
  • Read like a Resident
    • Make connections
    • Decide what you’ll accept/reject
    • Question what the author is telling you.
    • Decide what has changed, challenged, or confirmed previous thinking.

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3 Essential Questions for Non-Fiction Reading

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3 Essential Questions for Reading Non-Fiction

  • What surprised me?
  • What did the author think I already knew?
    • Introduce mid-year 4th grade and up
    • What confused me (K-4)?
  • What changed or confirmed what I knew?
    • Most important question to keep in mind
    • You cannot get to rigor without an element of tentativeness
    • Teach kids to read with a willingness to change their mind.
    • Once you know what you don’t know, that means you have to pick a strategy to help you solve it.

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Non-Fiction Reading

  • Let kids decide how they want to annotate text to show thinking.
  • Let kids choose one of the questions to respond to in their reader’s notebooks.
  • Once you know what you don’t know, that means you have to pick a strategy to help you solve it.

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Non-Fiction Signposts: A Preview

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  • Contrast & Contradictions
    • Why are those people living this way and those people not?
  • Extreme & Absolute Language
    • For example, the author says: “The world will end.” or “Climate change is irreversible.”
    • Reader sees clue words such as “If we don’t do this, then…” or “No one…” or “Everybody…”
    • Reveals author’s purpose
  • Numbers and Stats
    • Helps kids to visualize (circle the ratios and draw it)
    • 4 times bigger than the other person
  • Quoted Words
    • When did the author choose an expert to talk about something or choose an amateur?
  • “Like This” Examples
    • Gets you to question where/how it is not “like this”.
    • What point does it not cover?

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Non-Fiction Signposts: A Preview

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  • Resource will also include 7 “fix-up” �strategies that will help students deepen comprehension

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