Are you a text detective?!

A couple weeks ago I shared how I use Close Reading with my reading groups. (You can find that post here.) I mentioned that my tier 3 group had to do something a little different and I want to share with you what that is...

In December I found out about these amazing Text Detective packets on TpT. I knew they were good... but little did I know just how great they would turn out to be for me. I originally started using them just simply... read together, color code the text, answer the questions. But now, now they have taken my tier 3 group to a deeper level.

Reading the passages and answering the questions wasn't taking too long so I knew I had time to build more into each passage. So here is how we use each passage (sometimes we finish in a day, sometimes two or three days).

First, I read the passage to the students, them following along. Then we all read it together. Finally, they read it twice to themselves using the whisper phones. While they are reading to themselves I am listening to them one at a time and taking notes.

After we have read the passage and I finish taking notes on each child's reading, we flip the paper over and practice with a reading skill. This week, we worked on sequencing. The students told me the events from the story in order and we wrote them out together. I ran out of time but we are also going to complete a main idea and details graphic organizer for the story we did this week.

Once we finished writing out the important events, we went back to the front to start answering the questions. While this might be easy for the typical 3rd graders, this group of students has a hard time pinpointing the EXACT answer. And this is PERFECT to help with that. The students might know the answer, or have a general idea of the answer, but forcing them to identify exactly where it was found in the story and justify their answer is big. Some of them are fairly easy, which is nice because the students don't get to a frustration level. Each question has a color next to it that the students use to underline their answer. Add a little crayons or colored pencils and all of a sudden this is the best assignment ever!

I absolutely LOVE these and love how they are forcing this group of students to think just a little bit more.