242: How to Do a Close Reading Lesson in Any Subject Area

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

Jennifer Gonzalez

Education, Teaching, Instruction, Classroommanagement, Educationreform

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To become skilled readers, our students need reading instruction in all of their classes, not just English language arts. But if other subject-area teachers don't know how to support readers, how can they do this? In this episode, literacy expert Jen Serravallo walks us through the steps of a close reading lesson, one of nine re-usable lesson structures she offers in her new book, Teaching Reading Across the Day. By the time you're done with this episode, you'll be able to teach a close reading lesson yourself.

Thanks to Wix Tomorrow and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode.

To read a transcript of this episode, links to Jen's book, and a video of Jen teaching a close reading lesson, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 242.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Jennifer Gonzalez, welcoming you to episode 242 of the Cult of Pedagogy podcast.
0:05.3	In this episode, we'll learn how to do a close reading lesson in any subject.
0:26.8	As I considered how to introduce this episode, I started by looking for statistics that could paint a picture of where modern day students are with their reading skills.
0:31.2	I typed Kids Can't Read into my search bar, looked at the results, and realized I could skip
0:37.0	this step. I doubt too many people
0:39.5	need me to prove that our students in general could use some work on their reading skills.
0:44.9	They're not reading often enough. They're not reading challenging enough material, and their
0:50.0	skills are not great. So let's skip to a solution. I've covered lots of literacy related topics
0:57.0	over the years, and today's episode will be another solid addition to that collection.
1:02.7	Today we're going to talk about the idea that all teachers, not just English teachers,
1:07.4	need to be incorporating reading instruction in their classes. By the middle of elementary
1:12.9	school, it is assumed that most students have basic decoding skills. They know how to turn
1:18.8	letters into sounds and sounds into words, but reading is a lot more than saying the words on the
1:24.6	page. And in episode 212, we dig into the whole debate over early
1:29.3	reading instruction. Most academic subjects are taught at least in part with some kind of text,
1:35.8	whether it be books, articles, or digital resources. And each field has its own unique vocabulary,
1:43.5	syntax, and ways of constructing and interpreting meaning.
1:47.0	These texts get more complex as students get older.
1:51.0	And the people who know those subjects, teachers of history, science, art, technology, health,
1:57.0	these are the best people to help students navigate those discipline-specific texts.
2:03.0	But many of them don't really know how to do that.
2:06.4	Fortunately, today's guest does.
	...

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