Using Close Reading to Improve Critical Thinking Skills: A Project

| |designed to develop skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking which ultimately improve critical reading skills in the content | |

Within my school literacy lesson will be planed by the teachers, the teacher will go over the

Many students were reading below grade level, and Tyner needed an intensive reading model that could fill in the gaps of each student’s literacy. She began using a basal reading program called Early Steps (Morris, Tyner, & Perney, 2000). Tyner decided to use some of the components of Early Steps to develop her own reading model that would focus on the needs of beginning and struggling readers. The Small-Group Differentiated Reading Model consists of a framework specifically designed for beginning and struggling readers so that they may progress through the appropriate developmental stages and become proficient

Give each student a copy of Student Close Reading Text – Copy 1. Read it aloud to students as students follow along. Read it fluently, not stopping to

Author note: This paper was prepared for the American Federation of Teachers by Louisa C. Moats, project director, Washington D.C. site of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Early Interventions Project, and clinical associate professor of pediatrics, University of Texas, Houston, Health Sciences Center. Her work is supported in part by grant HD30995, “Early Interventions for Children with Reading Problems,”

Shared book reading focuses on developing comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading achievement to enhance student literacy achievement. The teacher selects a text and reads it aloud to a student and/or group of students. The shared book reading program allows the teacher to model reading strategies, increase alphabetic skills, and activate and increase comprehension skills through targeted questions, prompts, and strategies. During the reading the teacher prompts students with strategic prompts and/or questions to engage the students in the text. Moreover, the teacher directs the students to key elements within the pictures, words, and/or text features. The teacher tailors the shared reading experience to meet the needs of the participants (International Reading Association Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Committee, 2012). Hence, educators are able to alter prompts, questions, and strategies to enhance the learning needs of

Another way I plan to develop students’ critical thinking skills is by including more information-based texts in my curriculum. An article in the Early Childhood Education Journal discusses how two second grade teachers incorporate this into their classrooms (Calo, 2011). My favorite way that the teachers used informational texts was by choosing readings related to what was going on in the students’ lives. In one classroom, they had weekly visits from service dogs, so the teacher chose texts about dogs. For elementary students, this is a great way to get them engaged, ask deeper questions, and promote critical thinking.

(Counselors Affecting Reading Everyday). My plan would involve developing one-on-one counseling sessions where the students would start off by taking a learning style inventory as well as a reading interest inventory. The purpose of the learning style inventory would be to help the students as well as their teachers to understand how each individual child learns and processes information. The reading interest inventory would serve the purpose of helping the students to find a particular type of text that they may enjoy reading. Upon completion of the learning style inventory and reading interest inventory, the students would begin meeting with the counselor to receive one-on-one reading opportunities using books that students self-select based on their interest. This one-on-one meeting will serve to meet the needs of those students who stated that they did not have anyone at home to read with. The students will utilize the school’s Accelerated Reading program to take quizzes on the books they read with the counselor. After earning their first five Accelerated Reading points, a book will be purchased for the student based on their interest. This incentive plan will serve as a means to provide personal books for those students that do not own any as well as attempting to help them to get over the fear or taking reading tests. During these weekly meetings, the counselor will provide a variety of reading text (based on student

Teaching students to think while reading--critical reading--should be central to any discussion of thinking skills. This is in part because the reading of textbooks has such an important role in the content fields. Critical reading is defined as learning to assess, draw inferences and arrive at conclusions based on the evidence.

Although I acknowledge that the more we read the more we become a better critical reader, my critical reading skills have not fully developed and this factor has affected my college career a lot.

-I feel that this projected related to this class and the discussions for this class. How people interpret things individually this project not only look at the fact but also someone’s option. I think I could use this process in psychology, to better analyze how others process their thoughts.

Most of the other students in her 2nd grade classroom are able to read classroom text and complete work independently. They also read books for enjoyment on their own. The reading time in her classroom consists of a block during which the teacher works with small groups and the children are expected to work quite independently when they are not working directly with the teacher. The class uses a trade book format and this is utilized across the curriculum. Students are provided with short skills building lessons in large and small groups. Most of the time spent during explicit reading instruction is targeted to helping students develop reading fluency.

I enjoyed looking at your lesson plan because it reminds me that the skills I am teaching in 6th grade are a small piece of the puzzle. One of our goals in our district is to open communication in grade levels. It is so helpful to know the plans of classrooms not only in my district, but other districts, too.

Ideal critical thinkers are informed, open minded, fair, realistic about bias, and careful in making judgments (Abrami, et.al, 2008). Critical thinking consists of specific skills as opposed to psychological attributes. Critical thinking skills can be transferable across contexts although there is debate on how to teach skills (generalist or specifist perspective) (Abrami, et.al, 2008, cited in Anderson, 2011). There is much controversy about whether it is possible to include critical thinking strategies in education or not and whether critical thinking can be taught or not. However, in spite of all these controversial ideas and beliefs on teaching critical thinking skills, everyone agrees that thinking critically is the major goal of education (Reed, 1998). It seems that critical thinking can affect other factors involved in the process of teaching and learning. One of these factors is the learners' performance in language tests. In the following section a brief introduction is presented on two format of reading comprehension tests, namely multiple choice test and close

Critical thinking allows the reader to follow his understanding as you read. If you notice that the text claims are ridiculous or irresponsible (critical thinking), which on closer examination to test their own understanding (critical reading).