This morning, I am
presenting here is Los Angeles to a group of educators that were selected to be
part of the Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC), which is a collaborative
partnership among the California Teachers Association, the Stanford Center for
Opportunity Policy in Education, and the National Board Resource Center at
Stanford. Teachers have traveled from all over California to be part of this
amazing project.
The ILC will
provide professional development support to assist teachers in the implementation
of the Common Core Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts and Mathematics
and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for California Public Schools. I
am not only a selected participant, but also a presenter for a session. My
session is on Close Reading and Academic Vocabulary.
Presentation
materials for this session:
Close Reading Strategies for The Common Core
Close Reading is a way to teach analytical reading
and critical thinking in one lesson. Close reading is the foundation for all
explicit and rhetorical reading exercises that demand a deeper understanding of
literary works. Close reading can be presented in a simple form for students
starting out and progressively advanced to a highly complex analyses of
advanced literary concepts suited for graduate students. Close reading and
critical thinking plus higher order questioning go hand in hand.
Text Complexity
Definition: Text Complexity includes three components, qualitative dimensions, quantitative measures, and reader and task considerations.
Qualitative refers to meaning, structure, text features, clarity of the language, and the intended purpose of the text.
Quantitative refers to word frequency, sentence length and text cohesion. To get a sense of the difficulty of school texts, you have a measure on your computer called the Flesch-Kincaid. This is a tool that is designed to show if a text is easy or difficult to read. When using this tool, you will receive a readability formula called Lexiles. www.lexile.com
Reader and task considerations refer to the students’ cognitive abilities and skills, motivation, prior knowledge, and content/theme considerations.
Strategies for teaching complex text:
- Challenge students to struggle with the text.
- Encourage use of context clues and structural analysis of vocabulary.
- Teach the reading/writing connection by having students practice variations in their writing to match the complexities of what they are reading.Model and teach critical thinking skills to understand complex text.
- Adjust instruction to accommodate reading issues as students read more complex text.
- Encourage independent reading outside the classroom to increase comprehension and vocabulary.
Tales
with a Message, Unlocking and Exploring Folktales - Educator's Guide
with Close Reading embedded
Academic Vocabulary
