Teach Students How to Read Deeply and Succeed on Assessments
Close reading and effective test-taking are essential skills for understanding complex texts and performing well on state tests and classroom assessments.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to teach close reading, how students should read repeatedly and purposefully, and how to approach multiple-choice and written response questions with confidence. This guide also examines text-dependent questions.
Table of Contents
- What is Close Reading?
- How to Close Read a Complex Text
- Close Reading Strategies for Test Success
- Test-Taking Tips for Reading Assessments—Multiple Choice and Open Response
- Why Close Reading Matters
- Understanding Text-Dependent Questions
- What Do Text-Dependent Questions Ask Students to Do?
- Creating Text-Specific Questions for Close Reading—A Step-by-Step Process
- The Five Types of Text-Dependent Questions
What Is Close Reading?
Close reading is a structured method of engaging with text so that students
✔ understand the deeper meaning
✔ reference evidence in their answers
✔ avoid relying on background knowledge or guesswork
Rather than skimming, students read a passage multiple times, focusing on:
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Key ideas and details
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Author’s craft and text structure
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Integration of meaning with prior knowledge
This method helps students analyze, infer, and make evidence-based claims, which improves comprehension and test-taking success.
Get the above placemat for free—CLOSE Read Placemat by Beryl Bailey | Teachers Pay Teachers
How to “Close Read” a Complex Text
Step 1: First Reading—Big Ideas
Have students read once to identify main ideas and essential points.
Step 2: Second Reading—Structure & Craft
Focus students on how the text is organized and why the author chose certain words or structures.
Step 3: Third Reading—Integration
Encourage students to synthesize information and connect ideas. Discuss how new learning relates to other texts or experiences.
✔ Tip for teachers: Use a close reading chart or graphic organizer to support structured analysis.
Close Reading Strategies For Test Success
1. Teach Repeated Reading
Model how to read a passage three times:
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First read: What is this passage about?
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Second read: How does the author build meaning?
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Third read: What can we conclude?
This systematic approach helps students slow down and think critically.
2. Annotate the Text
Teach students to mark:
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unfamiliar words
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repeated themes
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key transitions
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evidence that answers questions
Annotations make it easier to locate answers when students are under test pressure.
Test-Taking Tips for Reading Assessments
Multiple-Choice Questions
✔ Match keywords in the question to words in the passage
This helps students find evidence quickly and prevents selecting distractor answers.
✔ Use the process of elimination
Even if students aren’t sure of the correct choice, eliminating wrong answers raises the odds of choosing correctly.
When answering multiple-choice questions, use the process of elimination—but remember:
An answer choice may be true about the text but still not answer the question being asked.
Writing Open-Response Answers
In written responses, students should:
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Restate the question as the opening sentence
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Quote directly from the text
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Explain how the evidence supports their answer
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Use transition words to strengthen the flow
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Conclude with a clincher statement
Example template using color codes:
Turn the question into your opening sentence.
First, p. ___ says, copy a sentence from the text and “put it in quotes.” Explain the quote. This is inferring! Write: This shows that ______. It is important because _________.
Next, p. __ says, copy a sentence from the text and “put it in quotes.” Explain the quote. This is inferring! Write: This shows that______. It is important because _________.
Finally, p. __ says, copy a sentence from the text and “put it in quotes.” Explain the quote. This is inferring! Write: This shows that______. It is important because _________.
Turn the question into a clincher sentence.
Sample Open Response
Here is a sample open response using the above color system from the MA DOE MCAS 2013 Grade 4 selection, “You Rock!” The question is, “What can rock climbers learn from practicing in indoor gyms?”
Rock climbers can learn a lot from practicing in indoor gyms. First, p. 5 says, “Rock climbing gives you courage and self-confidence.” This shows that in indoor gyms, you can learn courage and self-confidence. Rock climbing is dangerous. You need the safety of practicing in an indoor gym before doing it in the real world. Second, p. 6 says, “The fake rocks at an indoor gym have crevices where fingers and toes can grasp and fit. Colored tape and dots show various routes.” It is important to try different challenges in the gym because you can practice seeing if you can handle more challenging routes in the real world. In the real world, not all rocks have crevices for toes and fingers. You also won’t have someone next to you telling you what to do, so it is good to practice in a gym. Finally, p. 10 talks about the need to trust your belayer. Rock climbing is a partner activity, and you need to learn to trust the people you are with when you climb for real. Practicing in an indoor gym is beneficial for building climbing skills.
This structure aligns with Common Core writing expectations and promotes clarity.
Why Close Reading Matters
Close reading isn’t just a test strategy—it’s a lifelong skill. It teaches students to:
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analyze arguments
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discern meaning in complex text
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justify conclusions with evidence
Educators and literacy researchers alike recognize that these skills transfer to college and career readiness.
Understanding Text-Dependent Questions
The Common Core State Standards for Reading emphasize students’ ability to gather evidence and derive meaning directly from text. In fact, 80–90% of reading standards across grade levels require text-dependent analysis.
You can only answer a text-dependent question by referencing the text itself. These questions do not rely on background knowledge, personal opinion, or individual experience. Instead, they require students to analyze what the author says, how the text is constructed, and why specific choices were made.
Text-dependent questions help students:
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Read closely and critically
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Support answers with evidence
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Develop academic vocabulary
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Strengthen comprehension and analytical thinking
What Do Text-Dependent Questions Ask Students to Do?
Effective text-dependent questions require students to engage deeply with a text. They may ask students to:
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Analyze paragraphs sentence by sentence and words phrase by phrase
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Examine how word choice shapes meaning and tone
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Evaluate arguments, ideas, and key details
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Understand how parts of a text work together as a whole
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Identify shifts in ideas or structure and their impact
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Consider why an author begins or ends a text in a particular way
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Notice patterns in writing and determine their purpose
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Recognize what information is implied, missing, or left unresolved
Creating Text-Specific Questions for Close Reading—A Step-by-Step Process
An effective sequence of text-dependent questions guides students from basic understanding to more profound analysis. Questions should progress logically and intentionally.
Step-by-Step Process for Teachers
1. Identify Core Understandings and Key Ideas
Begin with the end in mind. Identify the most important ideas students should understand by the end of the text. This “backward design” approach ensures that questions support a meaningful culminating task.
2. Start Small
Begin with accessible questions that help students orient themselves to the text. Early success builds confidence and prepares students for more complex thinking.
3. Target Vocabulary and Text Structure
Focus on powerful academic (Tier 2) vocabulary and sentence structures that are central to the text’s meaning. Draw attention to how these elements support key ideas.
4. Tackle Challenging Sections Directly
Identify portions of the text that may confuse students and design questions that scaffold understanding of those sections.
5. Create a Coherent Question Sequence
Questions should build logically. Avoid random ordering; instead, guide students through the text in a purposeful progression.
6. Align Questions to Standards
Clearly identify which reading standards each question addresses.
7. Design a Culminating Assessment
End with an independent task that:
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Demonstrates mastery of one or more standards
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Requires writing
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Reflects the text’s central ideas
The Five Types of Text-Dependent Questions
These five question types frequently appear on assessments and classroom activities. Here is a checklist for evaluating question quality.
1. Vocabulary Building (Understanding & Applying)
Students determine the meaning of unfamiliar words using context clues.
Student Strategies
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Locate the word in the passage
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Reread the surrounding sentences
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Look for clues such as synonyms, antonyms, or examples
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Use knowledge of prefixes and suffixes
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Test a possible definition for accuracy
Teacher Question Frames
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The word ________ in the text most nearly means ________.
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Which word best helps the reader understand the meaning of ________?
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What is a synonym/antonym for ________ as used in the passage?
2. Find It (Understanding)
Answers are stated directly in the text.
Student Strategies
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Identify keywords in the question
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Scan the text for matching information
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Reread relevant sections carefully
Teacher Question Frames
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Where does the story take place?
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When did ________ occur?
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Which event happened first?
3. Look Closer (Applying)
Students must synthesize information from multiple parts of the text.
Student Strategies
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Reread and connect ideas
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Identify cause-and-effect, sequence, or comparisons
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Determine main ideas and supporting details
Teacher Question Frames
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How are ________ and ________ alike and different?
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What details support the main idea that ________?
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What is the main idea of this passage?
4. Prove It (Analyzing)
Students infer meaning using textual evidence.
Student Strategies
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Identify clues and details
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Draw conclusions not directly stated
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Support answers with evidence
Teacher Question Frames
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What can you infer from paragraph ________?
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Which sentence best supports the idea that ________?
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What conclusion can be drawn from the passage?
5. Take It Apart (Analyzing & Evaluating)
Students analyze the author’s purpose, structure, and craft.
Student Strategies
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Think from the author’s perspective
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Examine text organization and features
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Evaluate why specific choices were made
Teacher Question Frames
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Why did the author include paragraph ________?
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What text structure is used, and how does it support the message?
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What is the author’s primary purpose?
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