Read Aloud Lessons

Read aloud has always been one of my favorite parts of teaching. When I was in college, it is what I imagined doing most of my day. Sitting in a rocking chair, reading a classroom favorite, while my students stare back at me, completely enamored by the characters and plot of a story. My ideal world, right?! 

From time to time, that was a real scene. Typically it was after lunch and my students needed to "wind down" before we could begin learning. I would always ask questions throughout when they popped up, but a few years into teaching I wanted to make this time a bit more purposeful.

I had collected mentor texts... books with depth... stories that my students learned to love and wanted to read over and over. Some days I would write post-its where I saw great questions or talking points, but after the years I would lose the post-its.

It wasn't until I had a set time period for an interactive read aloud, that I knew I wanted to make an organized scope and sequence for my lessons. All the questions I had come up with over the past years, I wanted easily accessible. 

In my own words an interactive read aloud is a planned and purposeful read aloud that encourages both deeper thinking and respectful discussion. 

I spent the past 5 months going through my current book collection, checking out book after book at the library, and ordering plenty of new paperbacks off Amazon until I could find a selection of books I thought were good enough for the skills I wanted to be sure I covered throughout the year. Then, I went through each book - hundreds of time (or so it felt) - to find my favorite stopping points and comprehension questions that really help my students focus on the skill at hand.

I have listed out the scope and sequence along with books I use below:

There are 64 books total and each one-page lesson is set up them same:

If you want to take a look and try a free read aloud lesson for the story, Officer Buckle and Gloria, just click on any of the images below and download the preview!

The scope and sequence was really to help ME plan - so feel free to help yourself and use the lessons and books however you see fit! I know a few teachers who have loved them for subs!

I really hope these can help in your planning!

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Interactive Read Aloud in 1st Grade

I recently wrote a post HERE about what an interactive read aloud is and how I use them in my first grade classroom. 

My overall takeaway about an interactive read aloud is this:

Interactive read aloud is essentially a planned and purposeful read aloud that encourages thoughtful and respectful discussion!

During our read aloud times my students sit in a circle promoting eye contact and respectful listening and together we dig deeper into some of my (and eventually their) favorite books! The picture books above and the ones in my previous post are some of my favorite books to teach about and practice certain skills!

If you have read my previous post then you will know I created a unit of ready-made, one-page lesson plans to go along with each of these books (there will be 64 lessons in all!) and I wanted to show you what the beginning of the year scope and sequence looks like:

You can see the overall theme each month, the books I chose for interactive read aloud and the more focused skill I zoom in on in each book. I wanted to show you this because I chose these books very purposefully and I also wanted to mention that I read these books (which are amazing for all sorts of reasons) don't only cover the skills I mentioned - they cover LOTS of skills and my students and I will read many of these books more than once throughout the year.

My main point in bringing this up is that while Chrysanthemum is a fantastic book for text-to-self connections, the beginning of the year, main idea, vocabulary, etc. but during my read aloud and my lesson - we will remain focused on the skill at hand and try to develop that skill throughout the entire book! I really emphasize this point to my students as well and show them that we can read books over and over while noticing "new and exciting things" each time!

That's just a little tidbit on how I hold these interactive read alouds in my room!

If you want to look at a lesson, you can download a free lesson for Officer Buckle and Gloria by downloading the preview below:

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5 Free Close Reading Ideas and Activities!

I wrote a blog post way back when that explains how I introduce my first graders to close reading and how happy I become every year when it finally *clicks*! My young students learn to go back in the text, highlight important information, circle vocabulary terms, infer meaning from the text, and go back into the text to provide evidence to comprehension questions!

To read how we do that click the image below:

Now onto some free passages, activities, and ideas to help your young learners with close reading:

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Here is a passage from my Close Reading Unit. Students will read this fiction passage, define key vocabulary terms and infer the answers to some comprehension questions!

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Close reading with poetry!

This awesome freebie is from Jennifer over at First Grade, Blue Skies. You can snag her sheet and some great poems to use it with by clicking on the image above!

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These close read bookmarks are a great resource from Fantastic First Grade Froggies and let students practice marking up their text independently. Just click the image above to grab your copy.

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This great close reading companion goes with the class favorite, Miss Nelson is Missing! Tessa Maguire of Tales From Outside the Classroom, has thought of everything for you to get started close reading with this picture book. She has stopping points, questions, and graphic organizers ready for you to use! Just click the image above to download your own copy.

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 Tara West over at Little Minds at Workhttp://littlemindsatwork.blogspot.com/, has quite a few close read units in her shop, but this penguin one is perfect for your little learners. Click on the image above to check it out!

I hope these 5 freebies have been useful to you and your students as they continue to grow as learners.

Happy teaching :)

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Interactive Read Aloud Lessons!

Interactive read aloud, do you do it?!

In my first grade classroom I used to have the class sit down after lunch/recess and I would read them some of my favorite books – Junie B., Flat Stanley, etc. It was a time to calm down, enjoy a good book, and get ready for an afternoon of learning. I wanted to save and protect this precious time when the talk of “rigor” and “time on task” would come up often in professional discussions. A little planning can put this read aloud time to good use and prove to be academic as well as enjoyable!

Interactive read aloud is essentially a planned and purposeful read aloud that encourages thoughtful and respectful discussion!

An interactive read aloud has your students actively thinking about one certain skill during a read aloud. It is a skill that the teacher will model and that students will discuss throughout the read aloud. It takes your basic read aloud and turns it up a notch (or two!). I would always ask comprehension questions throughout my regular read alouds, but I found that when I really research and plan my questions and stopping points before hand, I could provide a deeper discussion for my students!

I figured since I was planning out all these lessons around my favorite books, I would start writing down my stopping points and questions in case other teachers wanted to use them as well!

I created a scope and sequence of skills that I teach throughout the year and found some of the best classroom favorites to help teach those skills. Each book has a convenient, 1-page printable lesson plan for you to reference as you read. 

Some of the focus skills addressed are:

- Illustrations & Text relationship
- Concepts of print
- Character traits
- Setting and story elements
- Making connections
- Problem & Solutions
- Cause and Effect
- Main idea/Theme
- Non fiction text features
- Character changes
- Reading a variety of texts
- Inferring
- Point of view
- and more!

I have a free one here for you to try that goes with the book Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann I use this book at the beginning of the year to help teach the concept that illustrations can give readers more information than the text!

{Just click the image above and download the preview to print this lesson easily!}

In my first grade classroom, I actually have a specific interactive read aloud block, but if you don't you can see that the read alouds can easily be used in your guided reading block, small group, or even to print out and add to your sub plans!

If you think these read aloud lessons can be used in your room, check out my unit below to get a better idea of what is included:

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An Example of Our Day in 1st Grade!

Our day in first grade is long! We have extended hours from 730-330 so we have plenty of time to teach what we need to get our first graders on grade level. I thought I would share a little about a day in our life:

Before school:
My alarm is set for 4:38 am. I wake up and get to the gym by 5am. I workout and watch the news then shower and get dressed at the gym. I am outta there by 6:15! I stop at Starbucks and show up at school around 7am to write our morning message and get everything in order before the bell at 7:28!

7:30-7:50: Morning meeting

Every morning when we come in, we meet on the mat in a circle and follow a morning meeting routine. We first greet one another using eye contact and a handshake of some sort (sometimes a "pound it" and sometimes a secret handshake). Then we complete the interactive morning message which reviews what we have been learning in class!

7:50-8:20: Phonics

My class has been reviewing our digraphs before we go back and review consonant blends. We have been adding plenty of poems to our poetry journals to help us read with fluency! We will always start on the mat blending words with that digraph, then students go back and receive their poem to read, whisper read, and buddy read. The next day, my kids get their real or nonsense page to decode more words with that sound!

All these poems are from my Phonics Poetry unit.

8:20-9:25: Reader's Workshop

We have been inferring all sorts of things about our characters lately and using that sentence stem to help us talk about our text. We spend about 20 minutes reviewing and doing my guided lesson. Then, my students practice the skill through some turn and talk before going back to their reading spots to read independently for 20-30 minutes. Lastly, my students do some buddy reading and we close the lesson!

During independent reading, I pull my small guided reading groups. We have been focusing on close reading as we get ready for 2nd grade. We have been reading, re-reading, and answering questions using evidence from the text.

9:25-9:40: Morning recess

(self explanatory)

9:45-10:20: Writer's Workshop:

Our writer's workshop is set up the same basic way as reader's workshop. I will do a guided lesson and add my focus skill to my teacher writing. Then, my students will share how they will incorporate that skill into their writing with a partner before they go back and write independently.

We have been publishing our reviews and my goodness they are SO cute! I love reading all their reasons for why they love something.

(We followed my Writing Reviews unit to produce these!)

10:25-10:50: Science/Social Studies

We receive FOSS science kits at our school, so whenever we don't have a science kit, we teach a Social Studies unit. Currently we have received our insect unit and we are learning all sorts of insect facts before our meal worms arrive!

(They are completing a little sentence scramble from my insect freebie: HERE)

10:55-11:35: LUNCH/RECESS

(self explanatory)

11:40-12:20: Handwriting/Interactive Read Aloud

I don't have pictures of this, but we use Handwriting without Tears for the first 20 minutes and then the second 20 minutes, we do an interactive read aloud. An interactive read aloud is a planned, purposeful read aloud in which we use a mentor text to practice a certain skill and have stopping points to discuss! This is when we capitalize on our accountable talk:

12:20-1:20: Calendar/Math Workshop

We start with calendar, move to a "math warm up" which I usually have us quickly practice our math facts through Quiz-Quiz Trade with flashcards or a game of I have, Who Has? Then move to our guided lesson. We have currently been learning about 2D shapes, their sides, corners, how to sort shapes, where we see shapes, etc. After I teach  my lesson, my students do math tubs to reinforce the skills we have learned.

 One tub is our pattern block shape fill-ins from Investigations!

 Another tub includes my free composing 2D shapes cards.

We also use these geoboard task cards from First Grade, Blue Skies.

I also have some of my higher students work on our new Higher Order Thinking Tasks!

These last two tubs come from my friend Laura's, new pack: Shape Soup.

My kids thought it was SO fun to pick out the shape vegetables and sort them into the right soup can!

1:25-2:30: Specials/Prep time

Students go to one of the following specials:

Library, Gym, Art, Music, Dance, or Safe & Caring

2:35-2:45: Snack

School provided snack.

2:45-3:25: Intervention/Acceleration Block

During this time, all the students in 1st grade are split into ability based groups among the teachers and all our interventionists. This times is dedicated to teaching homogenous, smaller groups the skills they need to work on to either catch up to grade level or continue accelerating their learning.

My small group has been loving DeeDee and Deanna's Guiding Readers units. We have been using the phonics portions every day to help practice and review long vowels!

3:30- Dismissal!

And there you have it... that is what our day looks like!

Happy weekend :)

Link up with Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Times so I can see what yours looks like!

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Making Inferences Lessons and some FREEBIES!

Last year, I taught inferencing for quite some time. With such an emphasis on close reading, I wanted my students to read between the lines, to dig deeper, and to find out the answer to the question, "what is the author really trying to say?!" 

I spent a lot of time researching and reading picture books to find ones that would work well for my class. After test-driving each of these, I continuously referred back to them when discussing inferring and so did my kids.

These four books made for great focus lessons when we were learning what an inference is and how to make one! We started with a clear definition of an inference:

This helped guide us in our lessons.

After we defined an inference, I started by reading Duck on a Bike by David Shannon. It is a simple book with interesting illustrations and my 6 & 7 year olds just love that this duck is riding a bike. It's the simple things....

I read most of the story normally. Letting my kids take in the illustrations and giggle at what was happening in the story. Then, we came to this page towards the end of the story:

I made quite the point to say, "WOW, it seems that David Shannon didn't write any words on this page! Do you think he wants us to just skip it?!?!?!" (Imagine it being said in the most teachery "I'm making a point here" type of way). 

Most of my kids just look at me all crazy, but they know the answer is "no!" of course we don't skip the page! I let them know that this is the perfect time to make an INFERENCE! What is David Shannon trying to tell us on this page?! What are the animals thinking!? My students look at their facial expressions, they use their schema and what they've already learned from the text to create their own inference as I record them on the board. It is perfect.

The next day, I review with my students what we learned:

Just because the author didn't write anything on a page, he might still be trying to tell us something! I then let them know they will be challenged to make another inference today and we read, The Stray Dog by Marc Simont.

You can make lots of inferences in this book. I tell my students that while I am reading they can put their thumb up in front of them if they have an inference to make. I look around after each page and if a student has an inference and can back it up with their schema and evidence from the text, we write it on the board. There are plenty of pages in this book without any words so many of my kids know they will have to make an inference on those pages. However, I also like to stop on pages like this:

Here there are clearly words, but there is also something the illustrations are letting us know. I ask my students aloud, "Hmmm... Willy was in a big hurry... why was he in such a hurry?" and they all say "Duh, Mrs. Jones, he's in a hurry because that man has net and is trying to catch him!"

I challenge them and say, "Yes, it seems you might be right but Marc Simont didn't SAY that! Where is it in the text?!? HOW do you know this?!" That is when they give me evidence from the story and what they know using their schema to prove their answers to me. I then let them know that they are all little geniuses and to be proud of themselves because they were making inferences that whole time without even knowing it! Now, they make lots of inferences on purpose.

I made this little freebie page to help us document our inferences. I use it a lot when I am first teaching the skill so my students can really draw what they see on the page. They can show me their evidence:

I have them include their inference in the writing portion at the bottom using our inference "equation" [schema + evidence = inference].

The other 2 books I included on my list are two Mo Willems books, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and I Love my New Toy! If your 1st graders are anything like mine, then they are obsessed with the genius that is Mo Willems. You can make so many inferences in these books to determine how the characters are feeling and Mo Willems does a great job with his illustrations to allow the students to see the facial expressions of the characters and find the evidence in the text to support their inferences.

I also included in my freebie two pages from my Mo Willems author study that highlight the skill of inferring:

 

Once my kids become pros at inferring, we start practicing the skill in short stories that don't have illustrations. I create fiction passages in my close reading units that deliberately require students to infer and provide evidence to support their answers! It is amazing to see their growth throughout the year and watch them turn into thoughtful, purposeful readers.

Thanks for sticking with me through this never ending post! To download any of the freebies, just click the images of them above!

What are some of your favorite books for teaching inferences?!

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