Hello WNY! This is Buffalo educator Jay Hall with “Two Minutes of Teaching.”
A parent contacted me last night and asked, “Mr. Hall, how can I help my son read better? Should I just assign more things for him to read?” Before you assign additional reading, I highly suggest that you implement a simple reading process.
My favorite, Close Reading, is a researched based reading process that has three stages.
STAGE ONE: FIRST READ
The goal of this stage is to complete a first read and get the gist, or what the text is mostly about.
STAGE TWO: SECOND READ
The goal of this stage is to zoom in on the text and begin analyzing key components.
STAGE THREE: THIRD READ
The goal of this final stage is to provide insight, or to form opinions and make evidence- based claims about the text.
Today I will share a STAGE ONE: FIRST READ strategy known as CHUNKING THE TEXT to get you going on implementing the close reading process.
Let’s get started.
Watch me teach this strategy or follow the step by step directions below. And, If you still have questions about teaching this strategy, please feel free to contact me at any time.
Good luck!
WATCH ME TEACH THIS STRATEGY:
STEP BY STEP:
MATERIALS:
For this strategy you will need:
-a piece of text
-separate sheet of paper
-a pencil
MINI-LESSON
Step #1: Preview the text in advance.
Step #2: Break the text into smaller parts.
Step #3: Number the smaller parts so they become chunk 1,2,3 and so on.
Step # 4: When working with the text, the reader stops to focus on understanding one small section of text at a time.
Step #5: The reader then annotates for gist, writing a ten word or less sentence describing who or what the chunk is about and what about the “who or what” is most important.
EXTENSION
This strategy works great with any type of text. Any piece of writing in any subject can be broken into smaller digestible chunks so it become far less overwhelming and much easier to comprehend as you read.
OUTRO
Good luck using the CHUNKING THE TEXT strategy. We’ll see you next time when I show you a few more things about the FIRST READ STRATEGY known as annotating for gist.
All my best. Keep reading. Keep writing. And, most importantly, be safe WNY.
Jay Hall 