Reading aloud to kids is one of my favorite parts of being a teacher (and a mom). A great read-aloud can win over the most reluctant reader, jazz up an otherwise lackluster lesson, start an unexpected discussion, or leave a vastly different group of kids laughing--or even crying--together. That's some good stuff right there.
I definitely have a few un-favorite read-alouds: books I've busted out in front of my class without reading them myself first, and lived to regret it! There's nothing like committing to a chapter book and realizing that, two chapters in, you're bored out of your mind, or underwhelmed by the quality of writing...but it's too late then. The kids are hooked, and you're stuck plowing through that sucker to the end. For example, I'll probably be struck by lightning for saying this, but...
...brace yourself...
...I'm not really a fan of Judy Blume books as read-alouds. Maybe I'm just holding a grudge because she almost made me "out" Santa Claus in front of a couple dozen avid believers (Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, otherwise known as The Ultimate Reminder to Preview Your Read-Alouds Unless You Want Those Kids Crying Together for a Very Bad Reason), but while they're fine books to read independently, I find reading them out loud to be long and tedious.
There. I said it.
But these 5 books? These are winners. If you're not already reading them to your class, I highly recommend adding them to your repertoire. After you preview them yourself, of course.
#1: There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar
First of all, kids love the title and are tuned in from Minute One because of it. If you know anything about Louis Sachar, though, you know his novels are more than just silly: they're clever, carefully-woven, and full of teachable moments about gazillions of things, academic and otherwise. Whether they're inferring how Bradley's feeling as he acts out scenes with his stuffed animals at home, comparing how different adults treat him, or following how his character traits change throughout the story, there's plenty of meaty, Common Core-y stuff for kids to pull out of this one.
That's not even the main reason I love it, though. Show of hands: how many of us have had That One Kid in our class who is notorious on campus for constantly being in trouble? (Picture me waving my hand high in the air and making monkey noises, as my students do: "Ooooh! Ooooh!! Mee!!!") I think we all get at least one of those just about every year, and Bradley Chalkers is their king. Kids gasp in horror when he calls his counselor ugly, they crack up at the ridiculous lies he tells, and they cannot WAIT to hear what Bradley is going to pull next. At first, it's just entertaining; but Sachar does a brilliant job of slowly making Bradley more and more of a sympathetic character, and of showing us how a kid like him might think and feel. Every time I read this to a class, they start to identify with Bradley and see their "troublemaker" classmates in a whole new light. Plus, it ties in perfectly with...
#2: How Full is Your Bucket (For Kids) by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer
I'll admit, this one is kind of cheesy, but there's a reason it's catching on at zillions of elementary schools. The simple metaphor of everyone having an invisible bucket filled with good or bad feelings is easy for kids to understand, and pretty soon they're identifying "bucket-filling" and--gasp!--bucket-dipping behaviors everywhere, all the live-long day! (If they're like my students, they're even pointing out their TEACHER'S bucket-dipping behavior when she publicly asks a kiddo to "tune in" to her lesson instead of asking him privately. "You just dipped his bucket, Mrs. M!" Oops.) When we read There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom later in the year, they are all over the fact that Bradley acts like a punk because his bucket is empty...and then they witness what happens when Carla and Jeff ignore his rude behavior and start adding drops to his bucket.
As a spinoff, lots of teachers have bucket-filling bulletin boards where kids can "fill each other's buckets" by writing compliments on little slips of paper, which is way cute. The problem is, I would totally feel the need to make sure everyone got an equal number of bucket-fillers (otherwise, realizing no one has anything nice to say about you today becomes a major bucket dipping experience!), and that would become a full-time job. I'm already tracking sight word progress, math facts progress, reading levels, 100 Mile Club mileage, AR points, Raz-Kids levels...and to be honest, I'm not always on top of those, so I just can't add one more thing to tally and keep up with! Instead, I just made a class set of slips at the beginning of the year, with each kid's name pre-written at the top of one slip. I made a bunch of copies, and once every week or so, I just pass out a set at random as a "morning work/brain break" activity. Each kiddo fills out a compliment about the person on their slip, and then they proudly deliver them in one short bucket-filling extravanganza. Everyone gets one, so it's all fair and square, and I love seeing that some kids keep them in their folders all year, or tell me they're taped to their bedroom walls at home.
Even doing the occasional bucket-filler slip for a holiday or change in season makes for a cute bulletin board, or a quick and fun activity. Click HERE to see my bundle of holiday/seasonal slips on TPT!
#3: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg
Thanks to the movie, kids are pretty familiar with The Polar Express, but they'll be surprised the author of that sweet story is capable of such creepiness! I like to bust this one out around Halloween and let them squeal and chatter over the eerie illustrations and mysterious titles left behind by the fictional Harris Burdick (who, according to the story, disappeared before he could return to give the publisher the stories that went with them). Sometimes, I run 10 copies of each illustration and let students pick one as a story starter afterward; other times, we just read it together and stop to share ideas of what each story could have been about. Either way, it's a great way to tap into kids' imaginations! I was crazy-excited a couple of years ago to learn that Van Allsburg had gotten a bunch of brilliant authors to write their own stories to go with his illustrations, which are compiled into The Chronicles of Harris Burdick. This one isn't necessarily kid-appropriate, but read it yourself and enjoy stories by Sherman Alexie, the aforementioned Louis Sachar, and (swoon!) Kate DiCamillo. Which brings me to...
#4: The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
I adore Katie DiCamillo, and Because of Winn-Dixie is another one of my all-time favorite read-alouds. (It would pair rather awesomely with Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons if I ever teach upper grades again--they have similar themes and writing styles--but I'd risk using up the entire world's supply of Kleenex in the process. Plus, I'm not one of those people who look pretty when they cry.) Both Winn-Dixie and Despereaux have been made into decent movies, but they're absolutely no match for the books. Beautifully-written characters, figurative language galore, and plenty of cliffhanger chapter endings make this a story kids beg to hear "just one more chapter!" from every day...and there is nothing this teacher loves more than to hear kids begging to read more!
#5: Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
Aaaand we've come full circle. Seriously, I'm not on Louis Sachar's payroll or anything, but this was one of my favorite books as a kid, and gave me one of my all-time favorite teacher moments: while student-teaching, I read the chapter about Paul pulling Leslie's pigtails to a third-grade class who laughed SO hard that they literally had tears rolling down their faces. It was completely hysterical, and those kids (and every class I've ever read it to) loved scouring the classroom and school libraries for more Wayside school books after that. Just beware of the chapter about armed gunmen coming to the classroom, which was completely ridiculous and silly at the time it was written...but not so much now. I always skip that one.
So there they are--5 read-alouds this teacher couldn't live without.
Do any of the books on this list make yours?
Are there awesome ones you can't believe I've missed?
No comments:
Post a Comment