The "Critical Thinking and the Art of Close Reading" series (which includes this column and three others) focuses on some of the most basic understandings necessary for close reading (Paul & Elder, 2003). To read well, in addition to having these understandings, students must be able to identify the big picture within a text, to determine the key ideas within the text early on, and to see the scaffolding that connects all the ideas within the text. In other words, they need to develop structural reading abilities. Moreover, students need to see that there are generalizable skills one must develop to read sentences and paragraphs well. In addition, students must develop reading skills specific to reading certain kinds of texts, like textbooks, newspaper articles, and editorials. This column focuses on the theory of close reading, discussing "structural reading" first. It then makes some basic points about the art of reading sentences and paragraphs and concludes with some domain specific theory. The guidelines in this column are written directly to the student.