Strategies for Reading

I regularly use three specific instructional strategies for reading each day: Reading Reconsidered’s “Control the Game” reading, reading workouts, and close reading. A large amount of careful, intentional planning goes into each of these, and they are designed so that each student has opportunities to read aloud and analyze a text several times a week. I also provide my students with a few companion resources that they can use alongside the text in order to bridge any gaps in knowledge, such as their annotation toolkits and knowledge organizers. All of these strategies are in place to encourage students to develop a deep understanding of the text we are reading and to provide students with a variety of ways they can apply their knowledge and practice their analytical and evaluative skills.

‘Control the game’ reading

Each day, we read from our novel in class via “Control the Game” reading (CTG), a strategy I learned from Reading Reconsidered. This strategy, which combines whole-group reading, teacher-led reading, cold-call student reading, shoulder partner reading, and independent reading, allows me to vary my role in the instructional process based on the lesson objective and needs of the students.

To prepare for CTG reading, I pre-annotate the text during planning with annotations I want students to make, basic ideas I want them to gain, and questions I plan to ask. You can see a sample of this preparation to the left on pages 1-3. During instruction, I will begin reading and then cold-call a student to continue and then another in turn, and so forth until we reach the end of the passage. While reading, students annotate their books (see page 5 to the left) — sometimes this looks like a student annotating on the document camera at the front of the room, other times students simply annotate for specific questions I ask. Higher students will generally add their own annotations as they read, while lower students will usually wait until explicitly told to annotate something before writing in their books. Reading in this way — by listening, speaking, and writing — allows me to adapt my instruction to the needs of each individual class. For example, a lower class my have more partner or group reading, while a higher class may have more independent or shoulder partner work with more evaluative questions.

In addition to planning my CTG passage, I also plan which students will read and when based on each students’ strengths and learning needs. On page 4 of the document to the left, you can see my annotations for when and which day each student read aloud in class. Pre-planning which students read allows me to implement relevant learning experiences for students at all levels. I am able to (1) ensure that all students are getting fluency practice at least once a week and (2) plan when specific students will read and warn those students who struggle with fluency or may be embarrassed when cold-called. For example, I will note an easier passage and call on a lower student to read that selection in class. This gives the student the opportunity to read aloud and build confidence without stumbling over several words.

This model has built a “no opt-out” culture in the classroom, as students must be following along in case their names are called. If students are lost in the text, I move to another student but they know I will immediately come back to them. This strategy and culture shows my personal commitment to deepening the awareness and understanding the strengths and needs of all of my students when planning and adjusting instruction.

Reading workout

On many days, following CTG reading, students complete a Reading Workout (see examples to the right). The Reading Workout is designed so that students can take notes on surface-level, literal key points of the passage and then answer rigorous, analytical questions. Students will first answer the question independently and then discuss, either with their shoulder partner or whole group. I will also take two to three student samples of various levels and show-call them on the document camera. This allows students to analyze and improve upon each other’s work, further cultivating our “good to better to best” culture, and engages all learners in developing higher order questioning skills by using a range of learning strategies to access, interpret, evaluate, and apply information.

On page 1 to the right, you can see my intellectually prepped Reading Workout. The intellectual prep includes a summary of what we will be reading, an analysis of the same passage, and instructional notes to consider from my coach (bolded in the comments). This is created at least a week prior to instruction and informs the execution of the lesson.

Implementation of this Reading Workout can be seen on the next pages of the document. Page 2 includes the teacher-facing key that I work through with each class, including exemplary answers and notes I want students to have by the end of the lesson. On page 3, a student is being pushed to deepen his understanding of the text with aggressive monitoring marks, and page 4 includes a student response that I used to show-call to the rest of the class. This student’s work was chosen because she identified that the characters’ lack of warm clothes suggested they were in poverty, and then in whole group discussion, students used her answer as a baseline to connect the information to the themes of the novel. The last page of the document, page 5, shows a student writing notes based on the class discussion and show-called work samples.

Each Reading Workout is followed by an Exit Ticket, wherein students answer the same essential question with a different passage.

Close reading

The resource to the left showcases a close reading passage we read in class. Each close reading passage is read three times, first for literal meaning, second for deeper analysis, and third for evaluative writing. The teacher-facing key, which is planned ahead of the lesson, is on page 1 of the document. Whenever we are close reading a passage, I color-code each read for clarity. Students are expected to make the same annotations on their resources, and all of these build to the writing task on the bottom half of the page.

The next three pages showcase student work:

• Page 2 — This is a low student sample because, while the student did finish the writing task, the student did not go beyond restating the answer in the Evidence & Explanation settings, and only repeated the same phrase from the text as evidence. This student did not grasp the deeper meaning of the text and became stuck on the wording of the question and the literal meaning of the passage.

• Page 3 — This is a mid student sample who cited one of the exemplary pieces of evidence; however, this student did not fully explain the evidence to support the claim.

• Page 4 — This sample is from a high student who was able to identify both exemplary pieces of evidence and had a much strong analysis. This student did a good job of paraphrasing the evidence, did not cite long pieces of evidence, and had a more clear explanation.

These three samples are fairly reflective of the performance of the class, with most students falling in the mid-level response range. In response to this, I adapted my instruction to meet the needs of the students by having the students write the different pieces of evidence on index cards, each with a different level of paraphrasing. We then taped them to the whiteboard and engaged in sensitivity analysis, voting on which was most correct and most well-written (see page 5). Following this activity, students then revised their own work.