Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading (Notice & Note Series)

Not only would I consider Notice & Note an essential and valuable resource for any English Language Arts teacher, but I also plan on using the text in my own future instruction. As a whole, Notice & Note offers highly practical, student-centered approaches to reading texts more closely and critically. One of the best tools it offers is the “signpost” concept for reading literature—that teachers can help students ask texts critical questions that build effective close reading habits. Additionally, Beers and Probst offer countless questions, activities, and lesson ideas that teachers can incorporate into their instruction to build upon the literary signposts—and therefore help students to become better close readers. One reason I think this book is especially useful is because of its timeliness; with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, in which learning to read text closely is especially valued now more than ever, this text is nothing short of a godsend. With its simple and straight-to-the-point language and textual structure, along with its accompanying appendices containing useful and easy to use class activity, I contend that this text should be in every ELA teacher’s possession. As an ELA teacher-in-training, I often busy myself with collecting various resources that will be useful to me before and while I begin my teaching experience. Always trying to acquire and appropriate simple, practical and thought-provoking lesson ideas that are effective and helpful for students, I was happy to have come across the “signposts” and “anchor questions” concepts in the text—two ideas I think we can all benefit from as future ELA teachers. The signposts, as I have mentioned earlier, serve as literary nodes which students can learn to intuitively follow (using some of the questions provided by the text) to not only read their texts more closely, but to get into the habit of asking relevant questions and looking for key details. Some examples of signposts would include the “Aha Moment,” in which a character in a text is personally changed by a profound realization or experience (71), or, similarly, “Contrasts and Contradictions,” in which thoughts or actions of a character contradict what the reader might normally expect (71). Additionally, the anchor questions provided with each signpost—such as “Why might the author bring this up again and again?” or “Why might this memory be important?”—help keep students on point when reading for signposts (76). In addition to providing teachers with these tools, the text also provides supplementary materials used for teaching students to recognize and work with the signposts; this is provided in the form of lesson ideas listed next to each signpost, as well as corresponding lesson activities provided in the appendix. I find the methods the text provides for teaching each of the signposts to be especially useful. It offers simple and realistic explanations we can provide to our students to explain each signpost—such as getting students to realize the importance of patterns in everyday communication for the “Again and Again” signpost (163-4). It then provides ways for us to incorporate the signpost into our instruction, as well as ways students can practically apply the learned knowledge with their work. It provides teachers with examples from popular texts (mostly canonical, but useful nonetheless). On the subject of popular texts, Notice & Note also provides teachers with ways of assessing the complexity of texts, and provides information teachers will need to help plan the instruction of their chosen text(s) using the signposts and anchor questions. I found this to be an especially useful tool, as well. Overall, though, I think that Notice & Note is an excellent tool that every ELA teacher should have, as it equips teachers with the tools they need to more effectively teach close reading and comprehension to students.

WITHOUT HESITATION: Buy This Book! If you teach middle-level reading (I teach 7th grade "regular" reading classes) and are struggling with how to teach CLOSE/DEEP reading, this is your new best resource. I have absolutely no connection with the authors--I am simply speaking from a classroom teacher's point of view--and omigosh, this has been my saving grace with CCSS and close reading. I have truly seen the light with the Notice and Note signposts (they are kind of like strategies--not to be confused with Strategies That Work), and more importantly, so have my students. I received the book on a Thursday, started reading it that weekend--with many "AHA!" moments--and on Monday morning I started in with my first signpost lesson. I knew INSTANTLY that my students were "getting it!" Seriously, I have had moments of giddiness and chills while working with the kids on the different signposts. I have never been this excited about a book. It is incredibly easy to read. The six introductory lessons are there for you, scripted even, so you easily get the idea of how to teach the signposts, and the text selections are in the back of the book for copying. The authors are very "real" with their comments and how their signpost implementation in the classroom panned out. Lots of "Bwahaha!" moments where I laughed that they were keeping it real with me! Notice and Note is a perfect fit with the CCSS. My students are easily citing text evidence with the signposts and focusing on the accompanying questions. The questions really bring home the deep thinking that I've struggled with (how to teach) since the advent of the term "close reading." We have been studying The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and without a doubt, these signposts have deepened my students' understanding and questioning of the novel. We are using our iNotebooks along with the signpost implementation. The kids have easily begun to internalize the signposts, cite evidence (from the signposts), and deepen their thinking with the questions--keeping up with it all in their notebooks. The six strategies have made me a better reader, as well. I told my students the other day that I would no longer be afraid to join my neighborhood book study (my fear has always been that profound thoughts and ideas would be expected of me because I teach reading!). I could say soooo much more about how in our discussions we have even gone back to other novels we have studied or that students have read independently and talked about the signposts we realize were in them...PLUS... although I am not an English teacher, I can say that these signposts would fit perfectly in a writing program to help add voice and style to narrative pieces. Have I sold you on this yet? I just can't say enough about this book. #lifechanger

At last it's here--a book that offers a focus for reading literature beyond the necessary, but overused elements of plot, character, setting, and theme. Notice & Note should top the professional reading lists of teachers interested in optimizing their students' literacy skills--not only for its well-crafted presentation of unique, creative strategies, but also for its authors' ability to present important information clearly and concisely without obscure educational jargon. Calling upon decades of experience as public school and university teachers, Beers and Probst developed their Notice and Note Signposts after reading, re-reading, and studying the most widely taught novels in grades 4-12. From this research, the authors crafted six signposts for studying a novel that focus on signals writers include in a book to highlight critical aspects of the story being studied and paired questions with the signposts to help students analyze those signals. Once students master the signposts, they are armed with strategies and questions that compel them to go to the author's words and read closely to gain knowledge from the text. They become sleuths using the signposts as clues to solve the puzzle that is literature. Very quickly they learn that they can use the signposts independently, with reading/writing partners, or cooperative team members. Suddenly literature classes are energized and students are motivated. Nothing in this book is run-of-the-mill; instead its strategies are creative and thought-provoking. Not surprisingly because students are delving deeply into novels with practical strategies they can actually use, they begin to have fun learning despite having to work hard to understand what the author is saying. Teachers, label this book a "must have."

This well written and easy to read text is a wonderful guide on how to get students started on close reading. The authors are extremely knowledgeable about technique and have done their research! Also, it's refreshing that they are so familiar with Common Core State Standards as well as common misconceptions about the standards. I would recommend this for a faculty book study in upper elementary through high school.

I found this book serendipitously while trying to figure out why I had been required to read something of much lesser value. (See my recent reviews if you want to know what the Other Book was.) This is a masterpiece of advice, anecdotal narrative, just enough reference to other people's work to lend it more than the "verisimilitude of authenticity" -- and a concise presentation of tools to help students become more deeply engaged with reading. Most of it, perhaps inevitably, is biased toward fiction, but there are some useful interjections of ways this might be used in other domains that require reading. A lot of this is really creating a reader's mindset -- read, pause and notice, think, move on. That inner monologue is the goal: read, re-read, what's just happened, why it just happened, what it might mean to me, what seems to be coming, what is a surprise and what is satisfyingly predictable. This nurturing of this mindset is necessary to supporting our children as they decide how (or if) reading will remain a part of their lives now and in the future. Weak spots? I think the authors may have spread themselves a little too thin. They lock horns a few times with Common Core, toss in a useful but perhaps irrelevant section about readability scores and the extent to which they need human as well as computer-evaluated data, and include some incomplete reflection on how we might read e-books differently than we read print . . . but it's almost churlish to mention these because of the practical and powerful content of this very good book. I've been an upper-elementary general classroom teacher for more than 45 years. I teach in a private, Progressive school with amazing colleagues as well as wonderful children and their families. We don't have to worry about Common Core, and we believe that no child should be left indoors. So we worry about learning and about teaching. This book has dangled a lot of new things in front of this old dog's nose, and I am panting for school to start so I can put them into practice.

This book is the most amazing strategies book ever. After reading it I immediately put my new knowledge to work in my 4/5th grade classroom, teaching my students to look for the signpost that opened up comprehension and understanding on a whole different level. It is well written and easy to read, (I finished it in a weekend) and by Monday morning I had created one of the provided anchor charts and started my students on the road to deeper and more consistent understanding of text. It provides wonderful mentor texts suggestions and clear and easy to follow examples on how to start implementing the strategies from day one. By day two, my students were calling out signpost examples on their own!!! The beauty of this book is that it gave me the language to teach my students just what to look for when reading in order to better connect with the content. It was and is AWESOME to see students interact with a text on a deeper level. And it's fun!!!

I have been teaching for 21 years and this book opened my eyes. I kept hearing about Close Reading and after a few searches found these authors' talking about this book. I was intrigued. I ordered it right away and as soon as I started reading I knew it was the book I had been looking for to revive my teaching. After 14 years of the same curriculum I was getting bored and running on automatic. The strategies in this book come naturally for students to grasp as the story progresses. Not forced like the current curriculum I am mandated to use. The reading is teacher friendly and lays out the strategies with sound research and classroom practice. This book gave me a way to teach children how to Stop, Notice and Note the key parts of a story. And how to teach students to ask questions that lead to a close reading that was both rigorous and complex. I can't stop talking about this book. I have formed a "book club" at my school with other teachers so we can discuss these strategies that we are trying in our classroom.

This book did not disappoint! All the reviews I read before purchasing the book were all correct--it is a book that is well written, is research-based, and explains in a well-laid out way how the various strategies used to teach close reading can be used in a regular classroom, even an elementary classroom. I am still reading it but I love that the chapters are short, and the language is an easy-read. The examples from actual texts are great and the section at the end of each chapter allows the book to be used for professional development. I wasn't sure how to teach close reading strategies, but this book has given me many ways this can be done.

Simple non-educator heavy terms that my students (grade6) can get from the outset. The book offers their ideology and thinking processes which helps to know where I was maybe not reaching my students as well. From there a deep dive into each signpost and ends with texts and organizers for immediate use in the classroom. I suggest looking for the f. book page for so many more ways on how people have applied these signs to help make our students ingest more when they are reading, listening to , writing and watching fiction.

This was an excellent book, recommended to me by a fellow teacher. It is full of great strategies, with details, examples, and lesson plans to help students learn to identify significant parts of a text and strengthen comprehension.

This product showed up quickly and is a great resource for anyone teaching junior high ELA.

This is the most important book a reading teacher can read! It will totally change the way you teach!!

Je l’ai reçu en bon état et livraison rapide, je suis très satisfaite