Teachers,

I hope that we always remember to allot times in our busy weeks to read aloud to our students, or to share meaningful stories with them, even personal testimonies. When I taught, my time reading aloud with my students was never wasted. Also, some of my most precious times was sharing stories from my childhood experiences.

There are many proven benefits from purposefully planned Read-Aloud opportunities. The Read-Aloud Handbook, 7th edition, by Jim Trelease and The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie founder of Read Aloud Revival are two books I highly recommend as resources for discovering the value of reading aloud to children. Also, these guides include lists of age appropriate books and brief summaries to help you quickly select suitable books to read aloud to children, no matter how young or old.

If you are teaching writing skills, picture books are excellent as mentor texts. I mentioned last year, that I had participated in Reforemo. This month, I am participating in Reforemo (Reading for More Research) for the second year in a row. As an aspiring picture book writer, I find this to be a wonderful opportunity for me to discover new mentor texts, plus it is a good way to connect with people in the child literature community. As a teacher, you may benefit greatly from the new Reading List. Here is a link to that list. ( You may want to print this list for future reference.)

Reading for Research

On the first of March, we were introduced to recently published picture books which are helpful to use for bibliotherapy. I was introduced to the book, Giraffe Problems by Jory John.

It is a humorous story about a giraffe and turtle who are self-conscious about the size of their necks. Anyone who has ever battled with self image problems could relate to this story.

Teachers, please comment regarding your favorite Read-Aloud Books or Mentor Picture Book Texts. Or you may like to share about a special read aloud experience…how a child or student was impacted.

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