Flushing the Issue of Notice and Notes with Struggling Readers

The sixth grade teachers I started working with this month have been using the book Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading  by  Kylene Beers, Robert E Probst. The book does a great job of explaining how to get kids close reading and gives strategies for reading fiction books. The signpost lessons teach students to look for specific details in the books they are reading, such as when a character does something that contrasts with what you expect or when a situation shows up in the book "again and again".

The Sixth Grade students I am working with are reading the book Flush by Carl Hiaasen. The English teacher assigned a chapter each week and it was the students job to find these details and use them to fill out a worksheet. My job working with the special Ed consultant, was to find a way to help the student I work with take these notes on his own. 

Because I found myself constantly pointing out these parts of the book I thought if I could show him where they were, he would be able to figure out the importance of the detail given.
I did what I do best and thrift shopped a $2.00 hard cover version of the book and highlighted each "Stop, Notice and Note" section in its own color. I also underlined any difficult words that he may find unfamiliar and could show up on his class vocabulary sheet.

I made and highlighted the students note taking sheet with these same colors and made a bookmark to help remind him what each color meant. 

I added pictures for important events so it was easy for him to go back and see what happened in previous chapters. I eventually stopped drawing the pictures and allowed the boy I worked with to imagine and draw his own pictures,

After several weeks of helping him master the Notice and Note taking strategies he was able to fill out sheets on his own and was excited to share with the class.