In today’s classrooms, students often read to complete an assignment—not to comprehend deeply. This professional development training helps teachers transform reading into an active, engaging, and meaningful process. Through close reading strategies and the use of purposeful, text-dependent questions, educators will learn how to guide students toward deeper comprehension, stronger critical thinking, and more confident, evidence-based discussions.
Designed for K–12 teachers across content areas, this training equips educators with tools to guide students through complex text while developing essential skills in analysis, inference, and evidence-based thinking.
Educators will explore how to use close reading and questioning techniques that help students slow down, notice details, and make meaning from what they read. Participants will learn how to:
By the end of the training, educators will feel equipped to make close reading a consistent and effective part of their instruction—helping students improve comprehension, think critically, and engage with texts in meaningful ways across content areas.
Lifetime access to a ready-to-use collection of classroom resources, templates, and tools that help teachers apply the training with confidence.
A step-by-step workbook with key takeaways and reflection activities that support ongoing implementation.
All participants will receive a certificate documenting their completed PD hours.
Explore the research that highlights the connection between strong reading habits and long-term academic and life success. Learn why close reading is essential for developing deep comprehension, critical thinking, and college- and career-ready skills.
Gain a clear understanding of how to evaluate and select appropriately challenging texts. This module breaks down how to use qualitative, quantitative, and task-based measures to choose texts that support growth while meeting students where they are.
Learn what close reading looks like in practice and why it works. Discover the key instructional moves that make close reading successful, and how to build lessons that promote student ownership, engagement, and meaningful analysis.
Break down the close reading process into four clear, manageable phases that guide students from surface-level understanding to deeper interpretation and reflection:
Introduce annotation as an essential tool for close reading. Learn how to model and teach strategies that help students highlight key ideas, ask questions, and track their thinking to support comprehension, vocabulary growth, and writing skills.
Help students become confident, thoughtful communicators through structured academic conversations. Explore tools like Socratic Seminars and Accountable Talk that support meaningful discussion, listening, and collaboration around texts.
Design meaningful, interactive lessons that empower students to become independent close readers—and apply those analytical skills to various forms of media and real-life situations.
Wrap up the training by planning how to bring close reading into your classroom. Walk away with ready-to-use templates, scaffolds, and sample tasks that support a range of learners, including multilingual students and those needing additional support.
Schedule one of our highly interactive, customized training sessions for your next teacher in-service day.
Have one of our consultants provide in-person professional learning within your staff’s PLC schedule.
Let one of our consultants provide training during a faculty meeting either before or after school.
This training is also offered online—same great content, accessible anywhere.
Share your questions and staff needs below, and a Strobel Education consultant will reach out to you.
