Offers helpful hints to teachers looking to learn about close reading and annotating texts with their students.

1. Let’s Take Another Look: Reading for Meaning
Strategies
Andy Meyers - Educational Technology Specialist,
FSUSD
goo.gl/0AboJ
C

2. Andy Meyers
Ed Tech Specialist FSUSD
Email: andym@fsusd.org
Presentations and Blog:
andym14.wix.com/EduTechAn
dy
Twitter: @EduTechAndy

3. “Close reading, one of the most ubiquitous terms of the Common Core
literacy era, passed away yesterday evening. Ironically, its death is
mourned by the very teachers (myself included), administrators, coaches,
consultants, and authors who killed it through overuse. In its final hours,
close reading lay on its deathbed and reflected on its meteoric rise to
stardom and similarly rapid decline to death, content in the knowledge
that, in classrooms, blogospheres, publishing houses, and convention
centers around the nation, its name would live on, even if not its actual
meaning.
In its final moments, close reading asked that those who mourn it devote
themselves to studying the cause of its sudden demise, a disease known as
buzzwordification.”
from An Obituary for Close Reading,
Dave Stuart Jr.

4. 1. What is “Reading for Meaning?”
2. Why Close Reading
3. Key Features of Close Reading
4. General Practice Considerations
5. Text Dependent Questions
6. Reading for Meaning with Actively Learn
7. Reading for Meaning with Subtext (AR 360)
8. Reading for Meaning with Notability
9. Resources
More training and resources from Andy
Celebrating the life of the Close
Read

5. Something to consider...
Text is anything that has meaning.
(i.e. graphs, charts, videos, pictures, paintings,
sculptures, music, recipes, blueprints, instructions,
manuals, steps in experiment and so on...)

6. Example: California State Seal
Minerva
Shield
Grain
River
Eureka
*Seal Explained

7. What is “Reading for Meaning”
“Reading for Meaning is a researched-based strategy
that helps all readers build the skills that proficient
readers use to make sense of challenging texts.” This
will be achieved by teaching students to:
- extract meaning from complex texts
- evaluate and use relevant evidence to support
claims
- develop core reading skills (identifying main ideas,
making inferences, and supporting interpretations

8. Why Close Reading
Close reading achieves the goals of
Reading for Meaning by looking at the
“deeper structures” of the text by:
- considering the way text is organized
- attending to the precision of its
vocabulary to advanced concepts, and
its key details, arguments and
inferential meaning link to
publication

9. Why Close Reading
By understanding these “deep structures”
the reader may more accurately:
- consider the purpose with clarity
- see how ideas connect to themselves
and other texts
- formulate opinions
link to
publication

10. Key Features of Close Reading
Below are 5 features that differ from most reading
instruction. They are features that must be addressed
if close reading is to be successfully implemented in
schools.
1. Reading Short Passages of Complex Text
2. Limited Frontloading (inductive vocabulary
activities)
3. Repeated Reading
4. Use of Text Dependent Questions link to
publication

11. General Practice Considerations
1. Use texts that are at grade level or above.
2. Reread several times, with a different purpose for
each read. (verb usage for 1st read, types of
adjectives used to describe the characters for 2nd
read, etc).
3. Select a wide variety of genres of types of texts over
the course of the year. Expose them to the
different types of unique “deep structures” each
genre holds.

12. Text Dependent Questions
An effective set of TDQ systematically dissects a text
so students may extract key meanings or ideas found
there.
While there is no set process for generating TDQ for a
text, the following slide is a good guide that can serve
to generate a core series of questions for any text.

13. Text Dependent Questions
Prior to a close read:
- identify the core understanding and key idea of the
text
- think about how this fits into the culminating
assessment
- identify the specific standard(s) you intend to
address
Create Coherent Sequences of Text Dependent
Questions:
- start small to build confidence

14. ActivelyLearn.com (use Safari on
iPad)
- Sign in with Google, using class code 88fe6 when prompted
- Add content from free & paid text from catalogue, internet,
GoogleDocs or a PDF (3 a month)
- Some content has pre-loaded questions and annotations that may be
used as a template to add/delete content
- Create content, assign content, monitor activity within text
- Students can annotate and highlight text with purpose, share notes
with others, comment on others annotations/notes/etc
- Students can add independent reading content and share with peers

15. Accelerated Reader 360 (Subtext)
- now part of Renaissance Learning
- download Subtext App, sign in with Google, join code: DPGHBSAX
- Assignments use the premium features
- Highlighting and Annotations (discussion Tools) use free features
- add content from a variety of sources
- Create content, assign content, monitor activity within text
- Students can annotate and highlight text with purpose, share notes
with others, comment on others annotations/notes/etc

16. Notability
- $2.99, but worth 10x the price (no excuses for not showing work)
- Students can write on PDF’s using a stylist or their finger
- Import images and easily resize and crop to fit into document
- Import PDF to easily annotate
- Exports to a pdf and easily backups to GoogleDrive
- Easy exports means it plays well with most, if not all, LMS
- Use it for note taking, worksheets and creating visual
representations (poster, presentation, sketch notes, etc) across all
subjects

17. A few others
Skitch Google
Docs
(now with images!)
Voice
Thread
ThingLin
k

18. Resources
- Obituary for Close Reading
- The Core Six Essential Strategies for Achieving
Excellence with the Common Core
- Close Reading in Elementary Schools
- Text Dependent Questions Guide
- Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District Close Read
Resources