Read-alouds are...

A great way to incorporate more reading in the class An opportunity to introduce a book that students would not normally pick up A space for inquiry based discussion Great for supplementing curriculum; going deeper into a study A lot of thought goes into choosing a read-aloud book. Read-alouds are carefully chosen by theme and relevance. The following are some books that my students have read this past semester and the activities correlated with each book:

Rules by Cynthia Lord

Great book for discussing disability versus ability, difference versus normality. Students provided great discussion about the definition of these commonly used terms. Students also evaluated ways the school and local community were or were not welcoming to people with disabilities.

The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry

This book was introduced for a closer study of the rainforest, in our ecosystem studies. After reading, students brainstormed ways that they could save the environment and clumped their ideas into categories.

One Day in the Desert by Jean Craighead George

 Students continued their ecosystem research with this realistic fiction book. Because the book was also being used as a reference for the research, students split into small groups and recorded important information onto chart paper.