Elementary Attempt

Yesterday I completed a close reading activity with my kindergartners and first graders using the book Copy Cat by Olivia George.

Here is the sequence of steps I used as I tried to incorporate close reading with such young students.

1. I read the book aloud from cover to cover without stopping.
2. I reread the book but this time we discussed what was happening in the story.
3. A third read took us through looking at the illustrations carefully for clues about the story and more discussions.
4. Students drew a picture of when people copy them and then completed a prompt about their picture.

Before I used this book, I came up with a list of questions to ask students during our second and third reading of the story. The questions followed Bloom's Taxonomy. For better or worse, here are the questions I used:

• Knowledge: Who is the main character? Who are the other characters? How do you know?
• Comprehension: What was the bid idea in the story? How does the story change? What clues does the illustrator give about the changes?
• Application: What would've happened if Copy Cat kept following the big cats? Have you ever followed someone? How did that person react?
• Analysis: Why did Copy Cat decide to stop following the big cats?
• Synthesis: Can you think of something else copy cat could do that the big cats want to do?
• Evaluation: Did you like it that the author used cats in this story? 

Creating questions is by far the most time consuming part of the close reading strategy but I think following Bloom's really helps stretch students' thinking. 

Here are two examples of student work:

First Grader

Kindergartner

What I learned by doing this activity was that the questions I asked were easier for first graders to answer. They had a much better grasp on the concepts and were willing to have fun with the story. Kindergartners had a much tougher time understanding what I was asking without me giving more prompts. I can't wait to see their transformation as we continue using close reading!