One of the things I miss most about the classroom is reading to children. There is such power in telling a story well, and read-alouds afforded me the opportunity to use all those skills I learned in high school speech and performance classes. An enjoyment of reading, paired with a well-written children's book can set the stage for a host of learning opportunities, as well as (and equally as important) provide a warm, special experience between a teacher and her class.
Read-alouds build classroom community, provide common experiences, provide models for fluency and comprehension, and are just plain fun.
Reading Magic by
Mem Fox is one of my favorite books for adults that sheds light on the importance of read-alouds. In it, she talks about the classroom read-aloud and how it's ultimate design is to mimic the loving shared reading experience between a child and parent. Over my years as a classroom teacher, I've accidentally been called, "Mom," over a hundred times, and I truly do believe in the power of books that are read aloud by a trusted adult.
Every so often, a read-aloud comes along that makes me ache to have my own classroom again.
A Squiggly Story by
Andrew Larsen did just that. It came up in my Amazon list of books I should (of course) want to buy and I fell in love with the believable story line, the darling illustrations by
Mike Lowery, and the myriad classroom implications. As the co-director of the
Central Texas Writing Project, I am always on the hunt for books that highlight and celebrate the writing process of children who are not yet writing conventionally. This book is now one of my very favorites, and I cannot wait to share it with teachers this summer.
I borrowed a kindergarten class at the campus where I am the instructional coach so I would have a chance to try this book out with real children. After reading
A Squiggly Story (which the kids LOVED by the way), we brainstormed a list of things that the kids may want to write about. In the book, the main character's older says, "It's easy, just write what you know." During this time, I modeled stretching out words and spelling phonetically since kindergartners often get hung up on writing because they want you to tell them how to spell everything.
I am so thankful I work with teachers who open up their classrooms and share their learners with me.
I had such a fantastic time in kindergarten this week!
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