Close Reads are a popular topic right now with the Common Core and in my school/district.  As a Title I teacher I only have 30 minutes with my reading groups and the majority of our time is spent working on a close read.  I do switch it up every now and then with different skill based games but most of our time is spent building skills with comprehension, vocabulary and fluency. I know there are many different ways/aspects to close reads and I have heard many variations but I wanted to share how they are working for us!  I do not claim to be an expert on the topic by any means, this is just simply what has been working for my kiddos. First, I find some quality short reading passages.  This can be a book but I have found that a whole book (even smaller leveled readers) typically take too long to read and hit all the skills I want to hit in 30 minutes.  So, I have created some and searched far and wide on TPT to find some quality reading passages (and all come with comprehension que...