I have to admit that when my school district made interactive read alouds a focus for our reading instruction this year, I was worried. I was worried about taking the direct instruction time away from my struggling readers. I was worried that I would never make it through all of our reading standards. I was worried the repeated interruptions during reading would cause my students to lose focus and become disruptive. Boy, was I wrong.
During our interactive read aloud time, my students are more engaged than any other part of the day. They love sharing their thoughts and connections. They love learning about each other and finding common ground with peers, building stronger relationships. They love to dig deep into new vocabulary and ideas.
Research backs this up by demonstrating that the most effective read-alouds are those where children are actively involved in asking and answering questions and making predictions. Not only are interactive read alouds something students enjoy, but they model fluent reading, boost vocabulary, improve comprehension and depth of knowledge, build community and the biggest thing of all-motivates students to read on their own by developing a love of books.
One of my goals this year is to make interactive read alouds as easy as possible for my 2nd grade team. Each week, we pick one book to focus on in order to dig deep into the vocabulary, allow for student conversation and a wrap up activity. I also worked hard to pick books that would be important teaching points for our students such as friendship, growth mindset/perseverance, self worth and social justice.
I developed a template for each book that includes:
- Vocabulary cards
- Questions that can be printed on a sticky note and placed on the books pages for easy questioning
- Individual post activity
Please follow this link to my Teachers Pay Teachers Page for some of my favorite interactive read alouds. Please keep checking back. More will be added weekly!
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