Beginning of the Year Read-Alouds

Like most educators, I am slightly obsessed with bookstores. I love the way they smell, I enjoy watching people browse for just the right book, I love hearing the conversations between parents and their young children as they discuss authors and characters, and I get excited every time I find perfect books for lessons I want to teach or share with the teachers with whom I work.

The other day, I was in Half Price Books and found two gems that I am excited to take with me to school this year! Elementary teachers spend considerable time at the beginning of the year building community with their classes and setting the stage for future reading success. It is important to share special books together so that students can anchor their learning to mentor texts, establish norms and procedures for working closely in a shared space, and simply adjust to their new learning environment with the presence of quality children's literature. 

Wise teachers are very intentional about the books they choose at the beginning of the school year. They read books that are funny, books with characters that help children make connections, and books that model expectations in easy, relatable ways. Teachers understand what feelings and anxieties students may bring into their new classroom and can leverage read-alouds for a positive start to the year.

There are classic read-alouds that I have always read to my kids at the beginning of the year, but I get giddy when I find new titles that I can add to my coaching room for teachers to share with their new groups of kiddos. Here are two finds that I highly encourage you to check-out!

The Book That I Love to Read by Joe Fitzpatrick. This is the cutest read-aloud ever! The main character is a boy who has found the PERFECT book. It kind of reminds me of The Monster at the End of This Book because each new page has fun surprises that primary kids will LOVE. Selfishly, I want to keep this book for myself when I do read-alouds in classrooms the first few weeks of school year to introduce myself to the kids. But, if a teacher REALLY wants it, then (of course) I will concede!

How to Read a Story by Kate Messner. This is quite possibly the most perfect book to read to kids before a lesson on choosing a Just-Right book. It is versatile enough to read at home with your own kids or to your class as you establish norms for independent and partner reading.  It is kind of a clearinghouse of all beginning of the year reading mini-lessons, as it addresses everything from choosing a place to read, to changing your voice to match the characters, to boldly exclaiming, "The End." Just precious. Amazon recommends this book for K-2nd grade, but I would read it to third graders in a heartbeat. If I had to choose a similar book, it kind of reminds me of Wolf! by Becky Bloom.

As the new school year quickly approaches, I will continue to find books to support the teachers and students I get to work alongside all year. What are your favorite back-to-school read-alouds?

I Like Picture Books and I Cannot Lie

One of the things I miss most about teaching my own class is reading aloud to kids. It would be fascinating to know the actual amount of hours I have read books aloud in my entire teaching career. When I was pregnant, my own personal children got to hear my voice ALL.DAY.LONG. as I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, and The Magic Hat by Mem Fox.

The rhythm, cadence, and magic we find in picture books does so many great things for children. Reading aloud models fluent, passionate reading, it builds classroom community, it provides children with mentor texts they can emulate in their own writing, and it builds context for the rigorous content and complex social situations that kids must tackle on a daily basis.

Who was Sojourner Truth and why does she matter? 

Let's read a book about her.

Why do I need to understand probability? 

Let's read a book about it.

What is the effect of sunlight on plants?

Let's read a book about it.

How can a poem and a caring teacher change a student forever?

Let's read a book about it.

I've tried to be sneaky and get into classrooms as much as I can to read to kids. Readingrockets.org is a great website with lots of information for parents and teachers about the power of reading. Regarding read alouds, it says, "Reading aloud is one of the most important things parents and teachers can do with children. Reading aloud builds many important foundational skills, introduces vocabulary, provides a model of fluent, expressive reading, and helps children recognize what reading for pleasure is all about." 

Isn't reading for pleasure really what it's all about?

For more information on the magic of reading aloud to children, check out the Ten Read-Aloud Commandments by Mem Fox. She's my literacy idol, introducing me to Radical Reflections, Tough Boris, Where is the Green Sheep, Reading Magic, and countless others that my kids have heard over and over and over.

Have you read to a child today?

Magical reads...

                    

More Growing Readers

I typed this post out and clicked something strange and lost 3/4 of it…grrrr…

Here we go again…
I was rereading Growing Readers (clearly the best book ever written for first grade teachers) by Kathy Collins and I thought I’d share my thoughts (not that you asked) about reading preferences in first grade. If you’ve taught longer than 5 minutes you’ve met the teacher pleaser kid. The kid that will deny how she (it’s usually a she)  really feels about something just so they can make you think they are more precious then everyone else.

It always goes down something like this in my room:

Me: We’ve been talking about all different kinds of books. Would it ever be OK for you to not like a book?
Kiddos: Nnnnooooo (a few tentative yesses)
Teacher Pleaser kid: You should always like every book because reading is fun!

In order to create a culture of diverse reading interests in a first grade classroom, I think we may need to actually directly teach the fact that it is OK (and even important) to all have different reading interests.

To drive this home for the kids, I tell them that I do not- under any circumstances- like reading books about dinosaurs. I tell them I will not do read alouds about dinosaurs (unless someone begs) and we won’t read many non-fiction books about them either. I don’t like dinosaurs. I think their names are hard to pronounce, I think they are scary looking, I don’t ever care to read a book about dinosaurs. Now, I know that most six year olds enjoy dinosaurs, so I have a dinosaur tub full of books just waiting to be read by first graders because they will not be read by me. Ever.

After this discussion (which is slightly controversial to the kids who think that teachers love every book ever printed) the kids turn and talk to their neighbor about different reading interests they have. Then we do the following activity.
The kids get a piece of manila paper and fold it into fourths (This is a lesson in itself considering it’s the first week of school!
Unfold the paper and trace over the fold lines so you have four equal parts.
I give each kiddo a strip that says: Who am I as a reader? I just cut the questions apart into strips.

Click here for download.

Then, the kids glue that strip to the middle of the page and then draw and label one thing (in each section) they enjoy reading about. It may say: space, dinosaurs, Junie B. Jones, etc. I promise when we're back in school, my projects will have pictures of the kids's work for you visual learners out there!

We share these with each other and discuss how fun it’s going to be getting to know each other as readers. This is a cute bulletin board display, too. This activity helps kiddos recognize that they are readers and we are going to work together to discover their reading likes, dislikes, and passions!

Growing Readers

I've been blogging for about five minutes, and I've never tried to link to a printable before. Let's see if this works!

Growing Readers by Kathy Collins may just be my favorite professional book ever written. Most reading books are written for elementary teachers, but this one is written from a purely first grade perspective. Love it!

My team always does her mini-lessons during the first few weeks of school to prepare the first graders for a year full of reading fun. I made up this little activity for the kiddos to do after the mini-lesson about their favorite reading memory. The kids talk about their favorite memories with family or friends and then they get to record it. There's not much writing space because we usually do this the first week of school!

Click here for the download!