What Is Close Reading?
An instructional strategy where students read a complex text multiple times with increasing depth, focusing on meaning, structure, and author's craft.
Close reading is an instructional strategy where students engage deeply with a complex text through multiple readings, each with a different purpose. The goal is to help students move beyond surface-level comprehension to analyze meaning, structure, craft, and argument.
A typical close reading sequence involves three reads: first read for general understanding (what does the text say?), second read for analysis (how does the text work? what's the structure, vocabulary, and rhetoric?), and third read for evaluation (what does the text mean? how does it connect to other texts or ideas?).
Close reading is text-dependent — students must support their interpretations with evidence from the text itself, not just personal opinions or prior knowledge. This skill is central to college and career readiness standards and is heavily tested on most state assessments.
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Guided Reading
A small-group reading instruction strategy where the teacher works with students at similar reading levels, providing support as they read a text at their instructional level.
Scaffolding
Temporary instructional supports that help students accomplish tasks they cannot yet do independently, gradually removed as competence increases.
DOK (Depth of Knowledge)
Webb's Depth of Knowledge framework classifies tasks into four levels of cognitive complexity: Recall, Skill/Concept, Strategic Thinking, and Extended Thinking.
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