Koala Lou

The first graders and I are reading Koala Lou by Mem Fox during the Global Read Aloud event. We are using this book as a close read. It's a story that can open up a new world to the students as we learn about Australia through the author's words.

As we completed the first read, I asked the students to concentrate on what was happening at the beginning, middle and end of the book. Their retell of the story helped me to figure out if there were any misconceptions or errors that needed to be corrected.

During the second read, we focused on character traits. We made a character trait chart of the three main characters (Koala Lou, Mom, Koala Klaws) and cited evidence from the story to back up the trait we thought each character portrayed.

Finally during the third read, the students made connections to their own life. Questions we focused on were:

• Has there ever been a time you felt like Koala Lou at the beginning, middle, and end of the story?
• What can you infer about Koala Lou and her mom's feelings for each other?
• Have you ever met someone like Koala Klaws?
• Was there ever a time you spent 'special' time with an adult?

We finished this lesson by watching a video about Koalas on YouTube so the students had a better understanding of the Koala.

Here's a deck toy we used to make sure we really understood the message Mem Fox was trying to get across to us:

Close Read Pinterest Board

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Follow Sandy's board Close Reading on Pinterest.

Toy Boat for First Graders

This week I focused on a book titled Toy Boat by Randall de Séve for my first grade students. In this story a boy creates a toy boat out of material he found at home. The boy loves this toy boat and takes it everywhere he goes. But the toy boat becomes restless with his new home and longs for an adventure on the nearby lake. The author takes us through some troubling times for the toy boat as he discovers that being at home with the boy is the best place for him to be.

I choose to use this book as a close read because it uses some language that can be hard for students to understand. Also because the author sets up this story to really make us think about where we belong in the world. The words I picked that would be hard for my students were blustery, humble, quiver and spied. As we came across these words, we highlighted them and tried to use context clues to figure out what they mean.

My students fell absolutely in love with this book! They made great connections to their favorite toys and how they would feel if they lost that toy. Talking about where they belonged in the world was a little more challenging for the students to think about. It's hard for students to imagine their life without everything they have now. We did eventually get to the point of being satisfied with what they have and not always wanting more.

Here is a list of text dependent questions I asked as we read the book the second time:
1. What was the boat made from?
2. How does the boy feel about the boat? How do you know?
3. How are the other boats treating the toy boat? How do you think that makes the toy boat feel?
4. What is different about the fishing boat from the other boats?
5. Why does the author say, "It knew just where it wanted to be?"
6. Do you think the toy boat was good or bad? Use words from the story to help explain your thinking.

As a culminating activity, they responded to the prompt: The perfect place for me is...

Stay tuned, I'm hoping to post some pictures of their responses when we get that far.

Bat Loves the Night-- First Grade

This Close Read lesson was completed with my first grade ESL students. I once again relied on the ReadWorks.org website for parts of this lesson. To begin, the students listened as I read aloud the story. I didn't generate much background knowledge because the Close Read strategy specifies not to do that so we really just dug into the book.

During this first read, I asked the students to think about the main idea. I use prompts like, "What is the author trying to tell us?" and "Do you think this author is going to give us information or entertain us?" It usually becomes clear early on that this story was written to give us information about bats. Once I finish reading aloud, we then discuss my prompts from the beginning. I always ask students to tell me what information from the story helped them to come up with an answer. This way they have to justify their answer and not just shout out anything that comes to mind.

The second read of this story focused more on vocabulary words. As I read it aloud again, the students were armed with highlighter tape so they could highlight words that were confusing to them. Using the tape poses a problem because students just want to mark every word. It's always interesting to me how many times students will solve this problem by correcting each other and saying things like, "You really don't know what _____ means?" The student who wants to use tape for the sake of using tape, generally backs off with blurting out ideas and really listens for words that are confusing to him/her. Once we are done listening for vocabulary words and highlighting them, the students then worked together to see if they could come up with ways to figure out the words (think context clues here... a bonus as students scaffold back to previously taught lessons!!) Those really tricky words that couldn't be figured out, were then discussed as a whole class to make sure they understood each one.

The third read was tricky because I wanted them to read it themselves but I only had one book. I decided to let them read with a partner as they filled out a graphic organizer about bats. The other students worked on different skills around the room and then we switched places. During this read the graphic organizer worked well to keep them focused but I really wanted to make sure they grasped some of the main concepts in this book. So I also included a list of questions they had to answer as they read. Here are the questions: 1. What is the story mainly about? Use details from the story to help you explain your thinking. 2. When does bat hunt for food? How do you know this? 3. How does bat fly during the dark night without bumping into things? Use one of the vocabulary words in your explanation. 

I feel like this lesson was very successful! The students seemed to be highly engaged in the story all the way through the final read and the graphic organizer looked amazing from the students. It was a very simple graphic organizer from ReadWorks but it really helped them to understand the story.

I am really starting to see how the Close Read strategy is beneficial to students of all ages. A difficult book is worth reading many times if you really want to understand it!!!

Second Grade Close Reading with Text Markings

For my high level first graders and second graders, I have decided to use the folder system. This just allows us to keep the current stories we're working on in one place for easy access.

The second graders have been working on a short story called "I'm Trying to Eat, Please!" by Vanessa Richie. This story came from MobyMax. A paid site I use for language instruction that also has stories that align with various skills.

Here are the steps we took for this Close Read:

First read: short discussion about the title and pictures. They read silently around the room.

Second read: I read as they mark the text with the symbols we've discussed. We are using the star, question mark, exclamation point and circling words system at this grade level too.

Third read: We took turns reading aloud and cleared up anything that confused them as we read. Their writing piece was to write about something they need to control so that they are a better person.

Here's an example of two students' writing:

As you can see, my students have issues to work on but don't we all have something to work on to become a better person??? I really loved the message of this story as we all try to become a better person.

Parts of a Tree, Kindergarten Lesson

Readworks.org is a website that I've come to rely on for useful passages and lessons aligned with the common core. If you've never been there, please check it out. It's really worth it to sign up and it's FREE!! You'll find comprehension units, novel units, skills/strategies lessons and lots of reading passages all organized by grade level, lexile and skills. You can even create your own binder to store any lessons you want to keep for future use. Have I mentioned that I absolutely LOVE this site!!

Here's one lesson I used from ReadWorks that follows the Close Reading strategy. My Kindergarten students and I were reading the "Parts of a Tree" passage. This is a one page passage about four different parts of a tree: leaves, bark, branch and roots. It's a very simple story but I was amazed at how my students had no idea about the names of these parts. Most of my students are high level ESL so this really surprised me. The only part they had background knowledge about was leaves.

During the first reading, I read aloud the whole passage and emphasized the vocabulary words with my voice. We then had a short discussion about trees and what they see happening to them during this time of year. During the second reading, I stopped reading to talk about the four parts. After reading the passage, I drew a picture of a tree with the four parts and we talked some more about their function. To make sure the students were clear about the parts (I'm not the best artist!), I also found pictures online with the parts labeled. Now the students had two pictures to help them understand the vocabulary terms.

After the third reading the students answered questions from a worksheet that was generated by ReadWorks. Since these are kindergartners in the first semester of school, most questions have pictures as answers but some of the questions asked students to read words, write answers and draw pictures. Here's an example of one page of the assessment students completed:

I read aloud the questions to the students and then they circled their answer choice. I was surprised at the details students included in their drawings. Reading closely really helped the students understand this lesson and I think they will retain the knowledge learned for a long time!

Apples by Gail Gibbons and Kindergarten

Recently my kindergarten students used the Close Reading strategy to read Apples by Gail Gibbons. I chose this book because I knew it would be difficult for my ESL students to understand all the vocabulary in the story. I figured the Close Reading strategy would be a good fit for this book and the students.

I started off by reading aloud the story from the beginning to the end. Before I read aloud, I gave a quick introduction about the book and discussed how the author is trying to teach us things about the history of apples. After the first reading, we had a short discussion. Next, I reread only the parts of the book I really wanted my students to focus on. Johnny Chapman and learning the words dormant, seedlings, and blossom were what we focused on. During this second read, we had more in depth discussions about the parts I chose. I used the third read as an echo read because the students really enjoy echoing me and it's great speaking practice for my ESL students.

Here are some of the questions I asked during the second read:

1. Who is the person that helped to bring apples all across the United States?
2. Can you give me an example of how the author shows you what dormant means?
3. Would you like to read another story like this? Give reasons from the story to tell why you would or wouldn't want to read another story like this one.
4. What is the author's purpose for writing this story?

Finally, to make sure my students really understood the vocabulary words I chose, I had them use a graphic organizer to draw a picture and add a sentence using the word. It's the same graphic organizer I used earlier. I love it because the students get to be creative but also think critically about the word as they use it in a sentence. Since printing can still be a little difficult for the students, I write their sentence on another paper and then they copy it to their graphic organizer. Here's an example of student work:

This graphic organizer was created by Ladybug's Teacher Files and it's definitely a favorite of mine!