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.

A former classroom teacher and professor of reading, Nancy Boyles is a literacy consultant, who provides workshops, model lessons, and curriculum support to districts and organizations nationally, regionally, and locally. Over the course of her career she has received numerous awards , including New England Reading Association’s Outstanding Literacy Leader Award and Connecticut Reading Association’s Celebrate Literacy Award for exemplary service.

“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

The book is broken down into three parts:

• Part I gives readers a clear definition of close reading & why it's important
• Part II is full of resources for how to teach students to read closely including a tool to determine text complexity, mini-lessons, and study questions at the end of each chapter
• Part III puts all of the information into context and includes 10 easy steps to implement close reading in the classroom, resources, and short & long term goals

Appendices also include important features:

• a list of short texts sorted by category and grade level to use in the classroom for close reading
• Samples of close reading lessons for both small groups and the whole class
• Annotated list of websites for short text resources