Close Reading in Elementary Schools

Article Review
Bibliography

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2012). Close Reading In Elementary Schools. The Reading Teacher, 66(3), 179-188.
Retrieved 9 8, 2017, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.01117/abstract

The article by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey discuss the benefits of close reading in elementary
schools. The practice of close reading has been used at secondary and college levels in the past,
however, the question is still open as to whether close reading benefits students at a younger level.
Fisher and Frey describe close reading as though it Invites students to examine the deep structures of a
piece of text. “These deep structures include the way the text is organized, the precision of its
vocabulary to advance concepts, and its key details, arguments, and inferential meanings.” Close reading
askes the students to assimilate additional information included with their current background
knowledge. The article continues to discuss the effects, but more importantly the appropriate use of
close reading as an instructional routine for elementary school students.

Fisher and Frey observed and collected field notes from secondary and elementary classrooms.
Their observations helped they create the key feature of close reading, such as length, complexity,
limited frontloading, repeated readings, text dependent questions, and annotation. Obviously for close
reading to be effective for kindergarten students those features need to be tailored. For example, “In
elementary school classrooms, there are situations in which the teacher does the reading, as is often the
case in kindergarten and first grade. Although many of the close readings eventually conducted by
teachers in the upper grades begin with an initial independent reading, close readings in the primary
grades often begin with the teacher reading the text aloud as a shared reading” (Fisher and Frey).

The article continues to go on to discuss the benefits of using text dependent questions as a way
of assessing close reading with your students. These are questions that require the student to look to
the text for an answer. General understand, key detail, vocabulary and text structure, authors purpose,
and inferential questions all fall under the umbrella of text dependent questions, which Frey and Fisher
easily outline in a table for quick use. One of the ways to develop close reading is annotating, which in
a classroom of kindergarteners, can create a problem for the simple fact of teaching them when it is an
appropriate time to notate in books. The authors give us a few pointers for learners at the Kindergarten
level—"Use wiki sticks to underline key ideas in big books; develop notes collaboratively about books as
part of interactive writing instruction.” Frey and Fisher end the article with a through provoking
question. If we tailor close reading to use with our younger students, “Who knows what the limits of
their comprehension might be?”