Reading Detectives!

Do you have trouble getting your students to look closely at text? My students often want to rush through reading a text and then answer the questions as fast as possible without looking back at the passage to support their answers. This week I told my students that they were going to be reading detectives to find answers/support for opinions in text. We put on our pretend trench coats and pulled our detective hats low over our eyes. Our detective tools included the text, questions, clipboards, highlighters, and one of these handy dandy super spy special pens: 

My dad is an accountant and he always loves pens with extra gadgets ☺. For Christmas every year he sends out cards with these special Christmas pens. He had some extras that I was able to snag last year and let me tell you, the kids absolutely loved them! The pens have a little flashlight on the end that the kids could click on and off. 

We turned off all the lights in the room and the students got to work! My students were so focused on finding answers with the lights that they truly studied the passage (not to mention they were crazy quiet! #teacherwin) Here's a few pics of my Reading Detectives in action: