Teachers will scaffold and support student learning as necessary. The lesson is built on the gradual release of responsibility. Students will demonstrate understanding and engagement through hand signals, turn and talk, etc. Students will be actively engaged for a specific purpose in each of the three readings. The use of the text, A Color of His Own will engage and motivate learners.

Teacher will model the expected behaviors throughout the learning process. Teachers will scaffold these tasks as necessary given the young age of the readers. In each section of this close reading exercise, teachers will focus students on the purpose of this specific reading. When students are active listeners, they will be able to make meaning from what they hear through questioning, reflecting, responding and evaluating. This process will support students' critical thinking skills and will allow them to actively and skillfully engage in interpretation, analysis, evaluation and sythesis of information in a text. Close reading will focus not only on the vocabulary and ideas in the text, but may also include discussion surrounding text structures, text features and illustrations.Įffective readers use appropriate strategies to construct meaning through a close reading. Due to the scaffolded nature of close reading, a grade-level appropriate, complex text is needed in order to promote deep thinking and stretch students as readers. K-1 teachers will model the purpose and goals of each reading through interactive read alouds. The same text is read for specific purposes three times. It is important for K-1 teachers to use the gradual release of responsibility model when utilizing this structure. Close reading is an instructional tool that activitely engages students in reading and responding to complex text.

A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni