How to Use This Blog as a Resource

 "Children need many opportunities to listen to texts read aloud by adults. The interactive read aloud with accountable talk provides time for the students to listen to and talk about wonderful books that are mots likely beyond their independent reading levels. Because the teacher is doing the reading, children can concentrate on using strategies for comprehension and having accountable conversations about the text." (Kathy Collins, Growing Readers, p. 37)

Need an awesome Read Aloud text to compliment your unit of study? As a first grade teacher I often find myself scrambling for ideas with few resources for which texts to use and which texts not to use. There are so many purposes for a read aloud within differing units of study, and this blog will share suggestions based on three years of read aloud practice and research.

Blog entries will be organized into Units of Study, or Read Aloud themes. In each blog entry I will provide several suggested Read Aloud titles for each theme or Unit of Study. I will provide a summary of the text, purpose for using the text, and suggestions for quality read aloud lessons.

When designing my Read Aloud curriculum I have planned lessons and units that follow the Balanced Literacy Framework from Columbia Teacher's College. The Read Aloud texts that I select for this blog lend themselves to Interactive Read Aloud lessons with Accountable Talk opportunities for students.  According to Lucy Calkins, in "The Art of Teaching Reading," elementary aged students must be read to each and every day so that good reading is modeled for them, and so that a love of reading is nurtured. Through Interactive Read Alouds, students will partake in meaningful discussions using scholarly dialogue and conversation prompts to guide their speaking.

For classroom library and read aloud lists suggested by Teacher's College, please visit the following website that is stalked with fantastic suggestions from the experts:

http://tc.readingandwritingproject.com/resources/classroom-libraries.html

If you are seeking ideas for meaningful Read Aloud experiences, please enjoy this blog!