Free Close Reading Passages for 4th and 5th Graders

Whether you are already using close reading strategies in your own upper elementary classroom or not, you’ll love using free close reading passages like The History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie!

By using a purposeful, high interest set of close reading passages with proven reading comprehension strategies, your students will enjoy a greater level of reading success.

Here is everything included in your FREE close reading passages download:

• The History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie Reading Passage (2 Differentiated Levels)
• 5 Days of Close Reading Activities
• Text Dependent Questions
• Written Response
• Teacher Guide
• Annotation Guide
• Printable Version
• Interactive Google Classroom Version
• Answer Keys

With this complete set of free close reading passages, you can easily implement the 6 steps of successful reading comprehension activities with your students.

Here is the short version of the suggested 5-day schedule to follow with your free close reading passages:

Day 1 – First Reading of the passage: Students are provided with a passage to read independently. They identify what the passage is mainly about. Remember, we are working from surface level to deeper thinking.

Day 2 – Time to Annotate and Second Reading: Students use the annotation guides included in the free download to mark up the text. They circle powerful words and phrases, identify things they don’t understand, and mark the parts of the text they connect with in some way. Have them write important thoughts or ideas in the margins.

Teacher reads the same passage aloud. Use expression and fluency. Pause and model think-alouds. If possible, show the passage on an interactive whiteboard and model how you would annotate the passage, too.

Day 3 – Unfamiliar Words: Students explore the meaning of new vocabulary. Have them select 4-5 unfamiliar words from the passage and work to identify the meanings, create sample sentences, list antonyms or synonyms, and/or draw an illustration.

Day 4 – Third Reading: Students read the passage a final time independently. Now that they have seen the passage twice, have annotated it, and identified the main idea, they are ready to gain a deeper understanding. At this point, students should be ready to answer questions which require them to make inferences and support answers with text evidence.

Day 5 – Time to Respond: After the third and final reading, students are given some more difficult questions to answer. Usually, these questions will require students to provide an answer and then support that answer with text evidence. Once these questions are complete, students will respond to the text through writing, usually in well-developed summary paragraph.

Click HERE to grab your FREE Close Reading Passages. Download, print, and use right away! Don’t you just love ready-to-go teaching resources during busy times of the year?

I also have many other interesting and engaging Close Reading Packets, which students AND teachers LOVE.

Click on each image below to see the complete close reading unit in my store:

As a general reminder about implementing close reading in the classroom, here is a quick checklist:

What close reading is NOT:

• Use of long passages or entire books
• Total student independence
• Total teacher reliance
• Basic recall questions
• Lots of pre-reading/background building information
• A one-day lesson

What close reading IS:

• Use of short reading passages or pieces of a book
• A combination of teacher-led activities and student independence
• A succession of basic recall (right-there) questions leading to deeper-level questions
• Reliance on the text itself, rather than background, to provide challenging, new information
• Discussion with Think-Pair-Share and small groups
• Making connection with text at a deeper level
• Marking and annotating on the text and in the margins
• A series of lessons spanning several days