My Favorite TIme of the Day is...
Read Aloud!
The best time of the day in my classroom is read aloud time. For my class, we have read aloud right after lunch each day. We never skip. It is the time my students look forward to everyday.
I am sad to say that this didn't used to be the case. It used to be the first thing to go when I would get stressed about curriculum and testing and testing and testing... you get the idea. But now I would never consider bumping it for anything else.
Here are a few of the reasons why I love read aloud:
1. It builds our classroom community. We all have a shared experience that is tied to our love of the book we are reading. I love the conversations that we have about what we are reading. I love the shared emotions that we experience as a group when I read to them.
2. I love to share special books from my childhood with my students. They enjoy hearing books that their teacher read when she was a girl. It is a relationship builder.
3. I love to choose books that are part of a series or that introduce them to a new author. This often times causes my students to seek out other books in the series or by that author to read themselves.
4. Read aloud is great practice for visualizing. I stop at least once a day and ask them if they can "see" the picture/movie in their mind.
5. It's fun for everyone!
I usually read for about 15 or 20 minutes each day. And it is guaranteed that each day as I finish reading and start to close the book, the chorus of "noooo's!" and groans ring out. (This is always followed by me reading just a page or two more...)
Here are a few of my favorite third grade read alouds!
The best time of the day in my classroom is read aloud time. For my class, we have read aloud right after lunch each day. We never skip. It is the time my students look forward to everyday.
I am sad to say that this didn't used to be the case. It used to be the first thing to go when I would get stressed about curriculum and testing and testing and testing... you get the idea. But now I would never consider bumping it for anything else.
Here are a few of the reasons why I love read aloud:
1. It builds our classroom community. We all have a shared experience that is tied to our love of the book we are reading. I love the conversations that we have about what we are reading. I love the shared emotions that we experience as a group when I read to them.
2. I love to share special books from my childhood with my students. They enjoy hearing books that their teacher read when she was a girl. It is a relationship builder.
3. I love to choose books that are part of a series or that introduce them to a new author. This often times causes my students to seek out other books in the series or by that author to read themselves.
4. Read aloud is great practice for visualizing. I stop at least once a day and ask them if they can "see" the picture/movie in their mind.
5. It's fun for everyone!
I usually read for about 15 or 20 minutes each day. And it is guaranteed that each day as I finish reading and start to close the book, the chorus of "noooo's!" and groans ring out. (This is always followed by me reading just a page or two more...)
Here are a few of my favorite third grade read alouds!
Bunnicula by Deborah and James Howe
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L.Konigsburg
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
Frindle by Andrew Clements
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
What are some of your favorite read alouds?
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