In the age of COVID, many teachers are taking their classrooms online, and everyone is struggling to adjust. Virtual learning may mean students can’t use highlighters and pencils to annotate text, but virtual tools can make for effective close reading techniques.

In fact, learning close reading techniques with digital tools might even be easier for kids -- and it will certainly save them some paper. Ereading apps allow students to write in the digital margins of texts, and offer digital annotation tools that let students underline, highlight, and circle words and passages. Many apps have chat features that can allow classes to discuss texts in real time, and discussion boards are available for asynchronous discussion of texts. Students can share photos or screenshots of their annotated pages, and learning close reading online provides ample opportunities to help students practice critically evaluating the information that comes their way.

Model Close Reading Techniques in Real Time

Interactive learning tools make it easy to model close reading techniques for your students. Whether you choose to share pre-recorded screencasts, or share your screen to model close reading techniques in real time, students will be able to see exactly how you underline important ideas, highlight evidence an author uses to support those ideas, circle words you need to look up, and annotated the margin with thoughts, questions, and reactions. You can demonstrate exactly how you want students to annotate texts, right down to colors of highlighting to use on each read-through or marks used to indicate passages they find powerful, confusing, or ineffective.

EReading Apps Make Annotating Texts Easy

The margins of a book are only so big, so students have often resorted to sticky notes, notebook pages, or index cards to record annotations that simply won’t fit in the inch or so of white space at the edge of a dead-tree page. Ereading apps eliminate this problem, offering unlimited space for students to record questions, counter-arguments, ideas, and more as they read. Some tools offer the appearance of wide margins on the virtual page, as well as a full suite of annotation tools to help students circle, underline, and call out as much as they want.

Other apps offer commenting capability, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. And when everything is digital, you or your students’ families don’t need to come up with extra money for highlighters or colored pens, sticky tabs and sticky notes, and other annotating tools that can be out of reach for needy families. Instead, they’ll already have everything they need on their school-issued laptop or tablet and ereading or interactive educational apps.

Students Can Harness the Internet's Unique Collaborative Affordances

Digital tools can be frustrating to learn how to use, but they offer students opportunities for collaboration and conversation that just don't exist in the brick-and-mortar space. Students can share screen grabs of their annotated pages, or share their entire annotated texts with classmates. Ereading apps allow readers to carry on conversations in the margins of their texts, whether through margin annotation or commenting features. Students can flag questions for the teacher or ask for clarification from classmates. Those who have taken more readily to annotating a text can share their work to help others who are struggling with the concept.

Close reading techniques aren’t just useful for language arts classes, and that’s why many schools are emphasizing close reading across the curriculum. Digital tools enable students and teachers to curate nonfiction and fiction reading across the curriculum, and engage critically with news articles, personal essays, short stories, reported pieces, poetry, and more. Doing so can help students practice applying what they’ve learned about close reading to the texts they engage with on their downtime, and learn critical thinking skills that will serve them well all their lives.

Virtual tools can make learning close reading techniques easier for students, as they allow classes to engage with textual material through annotating and discussing it, asynchronously and in real time. With careful tutelage now, students can develop close reading skills throughout their academic lives, and go into the world with the critical thinking skills they need to evaluate the many sources of information they’ll encounter in their professional and personal lives.