Article Review #4

EDUC 650
Jennifer Kurtz

Students' Close Reading of Science Texts: What's Now? What's Next?

By Grant, Maria C , Lapp, Diane, Moss, Barbara & Johnson, Kelly

The article explores the specific strategy of close reading to improve students reading of science
texts. It details how a student can approach a challenging text by annotating it, partner talk, textbased questioning and reflective writing. This reading strategy builds competence in reading,
writing, listening and speaking about informational texts. Also, they discuss how this links to the
CCSS for students to critically read increasingly complex texts across content areas with the
expectation that by high school graduation they will be able to read college or career-related
texts. Doing so involves the mindful, disciplined reading of an object (i.e. text) with the view to
a deeper understanding of its meaning (Brummett, 2010). Close reading involves analyzing the
unfolding of all text dimensions, including language, form, argument, and ideologies within
texts, emphasizing the particular over the general (Fisher & Frey, 2012; Richards, 1929).
I found this article intriguing. A particularly startling statistic is that after the No Child Left
Behind testing requirements were enacted, that 71% of elementary school districts nationwide
have reduced time spent on subjects other than reading or mathematics (Jennings & Rentner,
2006) Other subjects such as science and social studies can offer students hands on, real-life
experiences that keep them interested in school. Science texts can help students learn more about
the social, biological, and physical realms of our world and connect them with real world issues
(Grant, Lapp, Moss, and Johnson, 2013, p. 110). The sciences, particularly in high school, are not

only mandatory to graduate but the basis of so many careers. If students dont have the
opportunity to start learning and reading this material at an early age they will and do struggle as
secondary students! As stated in the article, this reading strategy needs scaffolds to help students
get started and feel successful, then through the gradual release of responsibility they will
eventually be able to navigate informational text on their own.
It has been my professional experience that students at both elementary and secondary levels
need to be explicitly taught to read informational text. This explicit instruction, using the close
reading strategy, requires the teacher take several actions. These include: choosing the
appropriate text, identify the purpose(s) for the close reading, identify key ideas, infer author
craft and intention, analyze text structures and organization, or argue a position, prepare the text
for presentation by numbering lines, or paragraphs, to support ease of reference, and discussion,
teach children how to annotate the text, and write text-dependent questions and prompts that will
continually push the students back into the text for deeper analysis. All of this takes lots of
practice for students to become independent readers of nonfiction but is well worth spending the
time. Reading nonfiction text is a life skill for the 21st century learner.
I intend to implement this strategy more consistently next year as I teach social studies. In 7th
grade we study world geography and cultures. There are so many real-world issues amongst
cultures that I need to teach students to read, interpret, and analyze current readings for them to
become informed citizens. I believe the close reading strategy will be an appropriate tool to meet
CCSS in reading increasingly complex text.
Reference:
Grant, Maria C , Lapp, Diane , Moss, Barbara & , Johnson, Kelly. (2013). Students' Close
Reading of Science Texts: What's Now? What's Next?. The Reading Teacher, 67(2), 109119.