Close Reading. Not in a very long while has a term been freighted with so much responsibility to pull every student out of a reading tailspin and into a great future of college and career readiness. Finally, here’s a book that tunes out all of the hubbub and gets down to the business of showing how exactly to “get close reading right.”
What makes Closer Reading such a have-to-have resource? Nancy Boyles knows full well that we’ll never realize the promise of close reading unless we figure out where it fits in with existing literacy practices. So she magnifies all the planning that goes into powerful close reading lessons, while providing a wide-angle lens to answer our biggest questions—top among them how close reading relates to text complexity and strategic reading comprehension.
Chapter by chapter, Nancy delivers astoundingly practical ideas on how to import close reading into daily planning, including how to:
- Connect close reading with other instructional practices (whole class, read alouds, guided reading, conferring)
- Select rich texts and plan for initial close reading lessons
- Deliver initial and follow-up close reading lessons
- Engage students in peer practice after close reading
- Coordinate comprehension strategies and close reading
- Use close reading to deepen students’ independent reading
Close—closer—closest. Yes, if we want our students to intimately understand a text's ideas, we'll need to make some shifts in our instruction. Fortunately, we now have Closer Reading to lean on as we go into higher gear.
“Closer Reading, Grades 3-6, will become a treasured friend and guide, as you will value every tip, model lesson, and complex book recommendation. It is a must-have book for your professional library and for professional learning communities!”
—LAURA ROBB, Author of Unlocking Complex Texts
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Author Bio
Dr. Nancy Boyles was a classroom teacher for many years and recently retired from Southern Connecticut State University where she was Professor of Reading and Graduate Reading Program Coordinator. She currently consults with districts, providing workshops and modeling best practices in classrooms. Nancy is the author of: Teaching Written Response to Text, Constructing Meaning through Kid-Friendly Comprehension Strategy Instruction, Hands-On Literacy Coaching, That’s a GREAT Answer, Launching RTI Comprehension Instruction with Shared Reading, Rethinking Small Group Instruction in the Intermediate Grades, and her newest book Closer Reading.