Reading Education

Matthew Lynch published in Reading & Literacy, Reading Education

Close Reading: Everything You Need to Know

This is a reading method whereby the teacher directs the students as they read a material, be it in whole or in part, several times and totally helps them throughout the course of their reading. In close reading, students read and reread a material purposefully and carefully. When they “close read,” students focus on what the author is trying to say and what his intention is, what the words mean, and what the material’s structure tells them. This way, close reading ensures that students truly comprehend what they’ve read.

Close reading involves critical and thoughtful analysis of a material. It focuses on significant patterns or details to help students develop an in-depth and precise understanding of the material’s meanings, form, craft, etc. Typically, close reading includes:

  •         Focusing on the material itself
  •         Using excerpts and short passages
  •         Diving right into the material with limited pre-reading activities
  •         Reading with a pencil
  •         Rereading intentionally
  •         Taking note of things that are confusing
  •         Discussing the material with others (in either small groups or with the entire class)
  •         Responding to material-dependent questions

Selecting the material for close reading needs careful screening as not all are suitable. For instance, though students will enjoy stories with simple vocabulary and storylines like The Wimpy Kid series, they aren’t fit for close reading. The reason is that once they have been read, they don’t leave room for thought-provoking messages or pondering upon deep ideas.

Typically, materials that are close read-worthy include concepts that are complex enough to explore and discuss for one or more days, guided by the teacher’s instructions. Close reading is often a multiday commitment to a material that offers an adequately rich vocabulary for students, ideas to ponder upon, and information to read, analyze, and discuss over a few days without feeling as if they’re beating a dead horse.

When choosing a material, teachers should consider the three key components of complexity:

  •         Quantitative measures
  •         Qualitative measures, and
  •         the task and the reader

For quantitative measures, teachers should decide if the material has a suitable readability level for their students and find ways to ensure their success with this material.

Qualitative measures include checking if the material offers information or ideas that further students’ understanding of the topic, follows familiar language conventions, etc.

Under task and reader considerations, questions like how interested the students are, what’s their level of prior knowledge about the topic, and how difficult it would be for them to read the material should be answered.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

Develop Language Proficiency and Scientific Literacy In Students

Language development is not an isolated skill. Once a student learns to read and write and becomes familiar with new vocabulary, it will trickle into their understanding of other topics and subjects. 

Therefore, parents and teachers should realize that helping children expand their vocabulary is one of the most effective ways to help children learn science concepts. Continue reading to learn how you can work on both your child’s language development and scientific literacy. 

Language Proficiency and Scientific Literacy Go Hand In Hand

A child is curious and easily stimulated during their early years. Therefore, that is the best time to help them learn a lot of things. 

While they learn to read and write English, they should also expand their vocabulary with words specific to other subjects. This will improve their learning of different subjects. For instance, they could learn words like “era”, “reign”, and “empires”, which would help them in their history lessons.

How To Increase Scientific Literacy In Classrooms

First, realize that students do not have compartments in their brains to learn only one thing at a particular time. Instead, their brains are like sponges that are ready to absorb knowledge at all times. Make use of that. 

You can write down words often used in a laboratory or science class and pin them onto the classroom word wall. Start by listing words such as predict, estimate, atmosphere, and so on. 

Moreover, make sure that those words are not just stuck on the wall. Model them during conversations. You can say, “You’re right, Sarah, the greenhouse gases are changing Earth’s atmosphere by making it warmer.”

Specific Ways To Model Language and Develop Science Concepts In Class

  • Conduct experiments in the laboratory. This will help model science-related vocabulary and allow students to learn while engaging and having fun experiences. 
  • Encourage children to speak during discussions. Try to subtly suggest new words that they could use to express their thoughts. 
  • Ask open-ended questions that promote predicting and problem-solving skills. For example, you can ask students questions like, “This is 50 ml of oil, and it is denser than water. Do you predict it will float on water or sink?” Make them write their predictions down or discuss them one by one. 
  • Children can observe what happens during experiments. However, they do not have the vocabulary to explain it, so continue speaking and explaining what happens during science experiments and activities. For example, when showing how filtration works, you can say, “The chalk does not dissolve in water, so it remains as residue on the filter paper.”

Concluding Thoughts

Students’ learning does not happen in a bubble. Their language development and scientific literacy are interconnected. There are many ways that both could be improved together. Incorporate the tips discussed above, and you will be able to do just that.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading & Literacy, Reading Education

Word Wall: Everything You Need to Know

This is a big surface for learners to post words they see a lot during the course of engaging with a material—reading or writing. A bulletin board, wall, or any other display surface in a classroom can be used as a word wall.

There are various reasons to encourage the use of word walls. First, they provide the students with a permanent model for words that are often used. Second, they help students notice relationships and patterns in words, thus building and improving their spelling and phonics skills. Word walls also offer reference support for students during their reading and writing activities.

To use a word wall optimally, teachers should make it accessible and position it where each student can see the words. It’s wise to use bold and large letters for the words and put them on different background colors to help students distinguish words that frequently create confusion.

Ideally, students and teachers should work together to decide which words would be put up on the word wall. Choosing words most commonly used by students in their reading and writing would be a good way to begin. Gradually, new words should be added to the word wall. For a slow and steady start, the goal could be adding five words each week. Teachers should encourage the daily use of the word wall to practice words. 

This can be done by incorporating different activities, such as tracing, chanting, cheering, word guessing games, snapping, clapping, and even writing the words down. The teachers should let the students have adequate practice to ensure they read and spell the words correctly and automatically. It’s important to make sure the words from the word wall are always spelled correctly in the student’s daily reading and writing tasks.

Instead of choosing and putting up randomly selected words on the word wall, it’s better to select words from the curriculum’s content. When these words are referred to often, students will be able to understand them better and even notice their relevance.

Word walls don’t just work for languages. Even subjects like mathematics can benefit from a word wall that provides visual cues, graphic representation, mathematical concepts, number sense, etc. For example, multiplication on a word wall can be displayed by different symbols like *, x, and ( ). Even in science, interactive word walls can help students categorize things from the smallest to largest or vice versa (bacteria, cell, tissue, etc.) or create connections (say, organs are made of tissues and tissues are made of cells).

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading & Literacy, Reading Education

Reader’s Theater: Everything You Need to Know

This is an act or an entire setting that has the dramatization of a text or the place where the text is orally presented. The process involves a “script” that the students read based on who gets which part of the script to read aloud. Reader’s theater scripts don’t need costumes, memorization, props, special lighting, or blocking. They just need the students to reread their assigned scripts multiple times, which helps develop their fluency.

Any classroom or library can act as the setting for a reader’s theater. Students can either sit or stand in their allotted seats or be asked to form a semi-circle, where they take turns to read aloud their assigned scripts.

Choosing an appropriate reader’s theater script is a task that needs careful screening. Boring stories or scripts should be given a miss. Instead, scripts or stories that have lots of dialogues or involve dramatic presentations should be given preference. The key is to find stories or scripts that the students will find interesting to read aloud with expression, comprehension, fluency, and joy. 

Once the teachers finalize the script, they just need to give their students a photocopy of it, allot a section to each of them, and have them read those sections of the script aloud and act it out. The focus should be on the students reading their assigned sections of the script with gestures and expressive voices. By using reader’s theater, teachers can make comprehending the script fun and meaningful for their students.

Since reader’s theater doesn’t involve any costumes, props, or memorization, students don’t feel overwhelmed or at risk while getting involved. Instead, even the most introverted or shy kid can enjoy the procedure and may blossom, while becoming confident in social interactions with peers and developing a strong sense of community. Since reader’s theater gives the students an adequate opportunity to practice before they read aloud their respective scripts in front of an audience, struggling readers can also participate as they aren’t put on the spot.

When using reader’s theater for the first time, teachers should start small and slow. They should give the students enough time to make them feel at ease in the performance mode. If the teachers find a script with has too many scenes, sections, or characters, they can trim it down by eliminating the ones they feel unimportant and won’t affect the overall story. Since reader’s theater scripts aren’t sacrosanct, teachers can mold them as they deem fit if such changes work better for their students.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

The Five Key Aspects To Teach Vocabulary More Effectively

For the most part, vocabulary is something that is not taught formally. It is something that children pick up through exposure to the language as they grow, meet new people, and find new material that introduces them to the language. It also happens to make up a large part of our ability to communicate, as knowing more words means you can communicate more effectively and precisely.

Teaching vocabulary is not overly emphasized in school because it is mainly learned through exposure to media. However, there is much to be said about taking an active role in the classroom and devoting time to helping young students develop and expand their vocabulary. Here are some fundamental principles that can help pave the way for more effective vocabulary instruction.

Focus On Practical Meaning – Not Simple Dictionary Definitions

The first of these various principles is to have the student work with more complex definitions. This can be quickly done by choosing to use encyclopedic definitions instead of dictionary definitions. Those explanations of the words do a better job of describing word usage in a practical sense. This also provides much more context.

Additionally, you can then help develop vocabulary by providing more practical context to the words in question. For example, you can start with the simple dictionary definition but then have the student learn synonyms and antonyms, what part of speech the word belongs to, what comparison you can make with words, and what the word is classified as. Finally, you can provide real-world context through actions, graphics, or examples.

Highlight the Connection Between Words

The brain is wired to categorize words in a way that is unlike how they could be associated in a vocabulary program. Instead of words being categorized by broad subjects – such as healthcare or medicine – words are instead organized by similar ideas, such as the word’s attributes, function, and synonyms. There are a few ways you can use this association to your advantage.

Of course, there are cases where you might have to cover words similar to the subject they are teaching, such as in science or biology, when discussing the atom or cell structure. In other cases, it might also be good to link groups of words to an associated concept that they are already well aware of instead of simply linking a string of words together.

An example of what not to do would be to teach words that are loosely similar in meaning but have different applications, as then the student will associate these words together and could use the incorrect one.

Encourage Word Usage

With the plethora of words available to use, it is crucial to become aware of the words and encourage them to use them daily. By using these new words in their writing and speech, students can become even more fluent, to the point of truly understanding the place of these words in their vocabulary, which is vastly more important than simply knowing of the word.

Review the Usage

Adding to the previous point, it is just as important to review the word usage and ensure that words are being used correctly and with minimal confusion. Our vocabulary is only as large as the words we use, and it becomes difficult to remember to use new words if we do not use them at the right opportunities.

You could assign your students words or groups of words to use and then have the times they used it recorded. Then, you could review it later for any corrections if need be.

Engage Your Students In Identifying Words

Because a vocabulary is mainly developed through exposure, another approach you could take is to actively engage your student in identifying new and unknown words through reading. 

By engaging students with new reading material and then pointing out new words that they may not understand, you could provide context and then loop back to any of the above points to better learn and apply it in their vocabulary.

Concluding Thoughts

Vocabulary is an essential part of literacy and understanding language. With a smaller vocabulary, students are limited in their diction and opportunity to express themselves. 

While it may not be a significant focus in schools, you can still help your students develop their vocabulary to become more fluent and perform better in other areas of their schoolwork.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

Tips On Reading Nonfiction Texts

As a parent, you are probably in an endless quest to find entertaining fiction books to promote reading and active listening in your child. Little do you know, children enjoy real-life and nonfiction stories. These present a fantastic way to learn about different experiences and animals, plants, and, most importantly, people. 

By teaching your child how to navigate nonfiction text using captions, diagrams, and the table of contents, reading is likely to become their favorite activity. How do you do it, though? That is something we will discuss throughout this article.

Introduce Them To Nonfiction

For your child to gain interest in reading nonfiction books, you need to introduce them to these topics. The first step is to explain to them that these texts hold information and realistic situations that they may encounter in life instead of fiction books. 

Furthermore, it would help if you told them that most nonfiction books focus on a particular idea. An excellent method to help your children understand the difference is to organize books by topics in their free time. This increases their interest in reading and learning from texts and understanding the interconnection between written and spoken language.

Lead the Read

It would be best if you allowed your child to choose a nonfiction book to read. Still, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be the leader who guides them through the text. Compared to fiction stories, skipping a few chapters in a nonfiction book doesn’t have to be inconvenient. 

However, if your child is eager to cover all the components of a specific text, you should support them. Start by educating them on the importance of a table of contents and discuss why the chapters are placed in order (for example, the characteristics of an animal, then its habitat, food, etc.). 

Furthermore, you should help them increase their understanding through presented charts, diagrams, and sketches. The coolest part about reading a nonfiction book with your child is that they are interested in the topic and are more likely to stay focused. 

Educate Your Child On Essential Components

As a first-time reader, your kid probably doesn’t understand the index, list of sources, table of contents, and other components that comprise a nonfiction book. You have to guide them through and educate them on how to use some of these elements. 

For example, a table of contents is perfect for navigating an idea or a topic of interest (if they don’t have enough time to read the whole text). The same goes for the index, which presents the covered topics in alphabetical order. 

Although you may skip the glossary as an adult, it can be interesting for a kid who wants to learn new phrases and words. In the end, photos and charts are probably the elements that your reader will focus on the most (in the beginning), as they present visual explanations of written text. 

Concluding Thoughts

To prepare them for challenging texts and concepts, you should introduce children to nonfiction books at an early age. Educating them on how to navigate a nonfiction text and find the topic that they are interested in is a valuable skill that they will significantly benefit from later on in life.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

The Benefits Of Non-Fiction Reading Time

All kinds of books can help children learn better, and you can easily make the most out of reading with your children by using a range of methods. These will help you get the maximum benefits for your child when it comes to reading. 

They will get to improve their literacy and reading proficiency over time. One of the main genres of books that children should read is non-fiction, but why is that so? 

Why Are Non-Fiction Books Important?

Non-fiction books are essential for children to read, as they offer your child a range of new learning possibilities. They get access to new information, concepts, and vocabulary through these new books. These are sometimes different from what children gain from typical story picture books. 

Non-fiction books may also come with graphs, charts, and many other types of illustrations, and this will easily allow your child to learn more about new things. It also helps your child work on their reading skills. 

Book Walk – Going For the Preview

Before you start reading non-fiction books with your child, you must make sure that you go over the book. This way, they will have an idea about what it is. 

You don’t want to confuse them by giving them too much information all at once. Allow them to ease into it. You can help them go over the book by first reading the front and back covers. 

Along with this, skimming is a necessary process that will help them develop a better understanding of what the book is all about. Book previews or book walks prove to be quite effective when getting the most out of non-fiction reading time. 

Active Reading and Questions

You can generate increased interest in reading for your child by prompting them with questions. This will help them learn better as they go about reading non-fiction books. Lead them with statements that would make them want to question what they are reading. This will help them better learn about the ideas presented to them. 

Not only this, but they will develop a sense of reflective reading, as they will understand things that they read and see. 

You will find that active reading leads to a better learning experience for children. Helping them ask questions and reading more actively allows them to retain the information they receive from books. 

Concluding Thoughts

You can use reading apps and tools to help your child gain access to non-fiction reading material. Help them learn about new things by enabling them to ask questions and by giving them previews of what they will be reading. You’re sure to see them learn better and improve their vocabulary over time.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education

NEA’s Read Across America

NEA’s Read Across America is a national reading celebration that takes place every October. It is an effort to encourage children to read and to celebrate the joy of reading.

In 1990, NEA created Read Across America as a way to encourage children to read. The program encourages students to read books in all different formats and to share the love of reading with others.

One way that NEA encourages students to read is by awarding book tokens to students who read the most during the month of October. Book tokens can be used to purchase books, books online, or books in the local library.

NEA also encourages students to participate in events and programs related to Read Across America. Events can include book rallies, reading contests, and book signings. Programs can include literacy workshops, book clubs, and storytime.

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Matthew Lynch published in Early Childhood, Parental Involvement, Reading Education

How to Help Children Learn to Read Well

There is no such thing as “starting too early” when teaching reading to children. It has been said that learning how to read stars even before a child can utter their first words. There is so much that can be done at home to help children learn to read well.

Teachers can do the formal teaching in schools, but at home, parents and caregivers can help by creating an environment that is conducive to reading, where a child can develop his or her love of reading. This is important because reading as a subject is challenging for both the teacher to teach and for students to learn. It’s not uncommon for students to have a negative perception of reading. Part of this resistance because children do not develop an interest in reading early on.

Below are some tips on how to help boost a child’s reading skills.

1.      Read to infants and young children –reading to infants helps them build reading and communication skills. Even if the words don’t make sense to the child when adults read to them at that age, they will likely develop positive feelings towards the experience of reading and communicating.

2.    Daily reading habit – set aside at least thirty (30) minutes of one-on-one reading time with your child. Change your voice, get into character and ask the child what he or she thought about the story! Not only will this be a good bonding experience, but it will also encourage the child to form that habit of reading every day. Invite other family members to read to the child and with the child. In this way, other family members can also enjoy the benefit of having a learning and bonding activity with the child.

3.      Field trips – take reading outside of the four walls of your child’s room. Schedule a trip to the library or the local bookstore. Let your child pick the books that they want to read. This will open their eyes to the different types of books and explore the different genres. Let this experience pique their curiosity about the books that they may not have at home.

4.      Reach out to volunteers and specialists – when it comes to reading concerns, it is always best to identify possible delays and to have your child receive the proper intervention as soon as possible. Do some research about the age-appropriate reading milestones, and if you have any concerns or questions about your child’s reading level, consult a specialist and do not rely on what you find on the internet.  

5.      Engage in conversation – ask your child about their favorite part of the story they read and what they did not like about it, ask them how their day went and who they hung out with. Reading is just one of the components of communication that children need to master. Engaging in conversation with your child will help them develop and become comfortable with communicating coherently.

Final Thoughts

Reading is such an essential skill for everyone to have. Many articles and stories are constantly shared among parents and reading specialists that emphasize ways to help children become good readers, especially during their younger years. It takes the effort of professionals and people at home to help boost a child’s reading skills.

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Matthew Lynch published in Early Childhood, Parental Involvement, Parenting, Reading & Literacy, Reading Education

Using Close Reading to Improve Your Kids’ Reading Comprehension Skills

Close reading is a teaching strategy where content is read several times to find more profound meaning. Emphasis is placed on analyzing the content, beyond recall questions. Educators must carefully select content for close reading, looking for rich vocabulary, complex ideas, and thought-provoking messages. Close reading can be introduced in kindergarten and continue to be used throughout older grades.

Introducing Close Reading

In kindergarten, close reading is typically introduced via teacher read alouds. The content chosen has to be complicated enough that it lends itself to being reread over several days, with a specific purpose set for each reading. For beginning readers, having the text read aloud by the teacher is an efficient way to begin incorporating close reading into their literacy curriculum.

The teacher plans the purpose for each close reading and whether the entire text or portions of the text should be read aloud. On the first day, the teacher may select to read the text in its entirety and for learners to listen for enjoyment. This first read may consist of straightforward reading strategies such as having learners tap into their prior knowledge about the subject, discussing the main events in the story, and sharing their opinions of the content.

During the initial read or the second read, the teacher may select “text-dependent questions,” which are carefully crafted questions that require learners to utilize evidence from the book to explain their responses. For instance, questions may be posed about the text’s central ideas or the problem and resolution.

The next day, the same book, or parts of the book, is read aloud again. Learners are cued to listen for a specific purpose. This process is repeated over several days.

In older grades, where learners have become proficient readers, close reading can still be accomplished through read alouds and guided reading and independent reading. Educators need to select texts at learners’ teaching level to access the content and explore their deeper meaning.

Defining the Purpose

Educators need to decide a clear purpose for each close reading and share it with learners. There are many areas educators can select to focus on as they facilitate a more in-depth examination of texts. To support language development, educators may focus on taking a closer look at challenging vocabulary. Learners can be cued to listen for words they identify as “tricky” in a specific passage, sharing their findings afterward. Educators can give learners specific words they want learners to listen for and ponder their meaning in the context of the text.

Contingent on learners’ age and ability level, determining the meaning of foreign vocabulary may occur through discussions with the whole group or with a peer. More proficient readers can be allowed to search for definitions on a computer device and share their findings. They may also use their copy of the text to utilize context clues, like rereading the sentences around the unknown word, to guess its meaning.

Close reading can be used with comprehension strategies. It is a great teaching strategy for going beyond simple recall questions. For example, learners may be cued to listen to the author’s purpose. They may be asked to explain the story from the perspective of a specific character. Close reading can help learners understand inferencing as they listen for implied versus stated info in a text. Learners can be asked to read to discover the vital message we learn from the content or what it motivates us to do.

Learners can be cued to ponder what questions they still have after the text concludes or what wonderings they experienced throughout the story. Educators may select to have learners finish these activities orally, utilizing strategies such as “turn and talk” or “think, pair, share.” Alternatively, educators may ask learners to record their thinking in writing, utilizing blackline masters, or reading journals.

Close reading can be implemented in collaborative learning. Small groups of learners can be formed, and groups can reread the text with a specific purpose in mind. Learners may utilize content such as highlighters and sticky-notes to document their thinking. With developing readers, the teacher can read the text aloud, then have small groups of learners meet afterward, working towards a common goal. For collaborative learning to be efficient, each learner needs to participate, share their ideas, and ask their classmates questions. The goal is for each group member to walk away with a deeper understanding of the content.

Pros of Close Reading

Close reading requires that content be read more than once. This process provides chances for learners to explore the content in several ways, including to deepen their understanding and to work with others. Close reading does not overwhelm learners with multiple questions and instead allows them to slow their pace, visit a text more than once, and cue into specific purposes.

Close reading allows educators to share a wide variety of texts with learners from many genres. It also provides the benefit of encouraging learners to engage in purposeful conversation in whole group, small group, and partner settings. For learners who require extra support, close reading is advantageous because they can visit a story more than one time. Close reading facilitated in the form of read alouds also allows each learner to participate, even those who struggle to read the text independently. It is an efficient teaching tool for promoting the utilization of critical thinking.

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