The Wide-Ranging Positives of Read-Alouds

Storybooks and vivid illustrations can spark so much imagination and creativity. Reading is a treasured pastime of many and a vital skill for all. It is a big part of many classrooms, too. One way to spark an interest in reading with young learners is with read-alouds.

Aside from the soothing, calming effects of being read to, research on the importance of reading aloud to children from an early age finds that read-aloud experiences not only expand children’s vocabulary but also help develop their social and emotional and creative and critical thinking skills.

Choosing meaningful texts, sometimes referred to as mentor texts, and being intentional with read-aloud selections can help create these rich, engaging, skill- building experiences, as I found with kindergarten students.

When selecting a read-aloud, it’s helpful to think about the learning objectives that you need to teach and see where there may be overlap with the story. It’s also a good idea to find interdisciplinary connections in picture books to see how those can be used in nonliteracy subject areas.

For instance, the book The Doorbell Rang, written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins, is a story about subtracting cookies as more visitors keep arriving at the house. This book could be great for an introductory subtraction lesson in telling students about “taking away.” (Ages 2–8)

Extending the impact

Extension activities, any activities related to the book that cross into other disciplines, can enrich and facilitate learners’ skills development. Examples of extension activities include art projects or crafts, songs, movement games, math or counting activities, shape hunts, dramatic play or reader’s theater, and make-a-book writing projects.

You can design units or lessons with as many extension activities as you see fit. Using a graphic organizer web or creating a bulleted list is a way to organize ideas for extension activities that you can use for a given book or series or to have a list of ideas to pull from when lesson planning. For The Doorbell Rang, a teacher may brainstorm ways to extend the story in a bulleted list, which may look like this:

• Make paper cookies with subtraction facts on them as an exit ticket.
• Practice writing numerals and crossing out cookies as they are eaten/subtracted on dry-erase tablets.
• Practice writing sentences about the cookies in the book.

Here are some of my favorite read-aloud selections with intentional extension activities for meeting multiple learning objectives:

Some additional examples

When I read Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes, by Kimberly and James Dean, illustrated by James Dean, to my class, we worked on learning objectives for subtraction, rhyming, asking and answering questions about stories, and counting with one-to-one correspondence. While reading the book, I asked my students questions about the text and to tell me what rhyming word pairs they heard on the pages. After reading, we looked back at the pictures and practiced counting and writing subtraction facts.

Students explained how they solved the math problems, too. Some activities we did after reading included creating our own cupcake crafts, pantomiming certain parts, using manipulatives to represent the subtraction of the cupcakes, and reading the book Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, by Eric Litwin and Kimberly Dean, illustrated by James Dean, which also focuses on the topic of subtraction. (Ages 2–6)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, written and illustrated by Eric Carle, allows for discussion about season and weather changes, life cycles, and the food groups and nutrition. The story also offers a reinforcement of the days of the week. When sharing this book with students, some extension activities that I used included the following: making Hungry Caterpillar crafts, singing our days-of-the-week song, cut-and-paste activities to sort healthy and unhealthy foods or to sort foods by food groups, sequencing cut-and-paste activities for retelling the story and putting the events in chronological order, and pantomiming eating the various foods from the book.

We also discussed what we see and hear in springtime and described the weather. A writing extension activity that I taught with this story was writing a class book where each child made a page that finished the sentence starter “If I were the very hungry caterpillar, I would eat _____” and illustrated the page. (Ages 2–6)

The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin, written by Joe Troiano and illustrated by Susan Banta, is a book I loved reading with my class in October. I would read the book and ask comprehension questions about the story. I then had the class dictate a summary that I scribed on chart paper. My students created their own pumpkins like those in Spookley’s pumpkin patch using different shapes and colors. We created a class pumpkin patch and displayed it in the hallway with the summary.

The students shared their pumpkins and told about the shapes they used and the colors they chose. This lesson connected the story with writing and summarizing, verbal communication skills, geometry and colors, and fine motor skill development. (Ages 2–6)

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade, written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet, was popular with my students before Thanksgiving. We would read the book as a class after I showed short video clips of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Then, we would discuss the text features of the book and look at the award-winning artwork. We discussed nonfiction and fiction and the vocabulary words used in the story, which meets multiple literacy-related learning objectives. Then, we tied in social studies with talking about how the character Tony Sarge was a real person and discussing facts from his life. Next, we would design our own parade floats. (Ages 4–7)

This was a STEAM activity where students would draw and label a design and then create their idea with actual balloons and craft supplies. Often it resulted in a parade around the school to showcase the floats.

These are just some examples from my classroom experiences of using a picture book to springboard lessons and to create purposeful literacy integrated experiences. They can be adapted for your students or to fit with other picture books.

The main goal is to ensure that the books you pick for your students are engaging and exciting to them while also fitting with the curriculum you are teaching. Using mentor texts can be a great way to teach and reinforce skills learned in the classroom. Happy reading!