Suggestions for Effective Read-Aloud Time
Make reading aloud a DAILY habit.
Spend a moment Previewing the cover - Who is the author/illustrator? If you look them up ahead of time, you might have interesting information to add.
Do a picture walk before reading, talk about what you see in the pictures.
Track your reading with your finger.
Read with expression - consider changing the tone of your voice for dialogue.
Adjust your reading pace to fit the story. You don’t have to rush to the end.
Allow your child to interject their thoughts without being pushed to complete the book.
Be willing to pause and whisper to yourself what you’re wondering about while you read a certain part. “That seems like it’s an important word/part/sentence/idea.”
Ask your child to interact with the print - "Can you find a word that starts like your name?"
Invite your child to “read” repeated, predictable words/phrases.
Ask questions about the story -
"What do you think will happen next?"
"Do you think that character made a good choice? Why or why not?"
"What do you like about this picture?"
“Do you notice any patterns?”
Bring attention to sounds of words - "What sound do you hear at the beginning/end of ---"
Ask other family members to be readers so your child has many role models for reading.
Join a boy and his dog as they use their senses of sight and touch to identify seven common trees in the snow covered forest. Lyrical text makes distinguishing different types of trees easy - even in the middle of winter, when only bare branches stand like skeletons against the sky.
Fall has come, the wind is gusting, and Leaf Man is on the move. Is he drifting east, over the marsh and ducks and geese? Or is he heading west, above the orchards, prairie meadows, and spotted cows?
No one's quite sure, but this much is certain: A Leaf Man's got to go where the wind blows.
With intricate and vividly colored collages from Caldecott Medal winner Steve Jenkins and engaging text from Anne Rockwell, Bugs Are Insects introduces the youngest readers to the fascinating world of the creepy crawly.
This is a clear and appealing science book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. An NSTA/CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book. it includes activities such as conducting an insect survey, drawing a picture of your favorite insects, and planting a butterfly garden.
From leaping, flying fish to dancing butterflies, and camels that "trollop along," Eric Carle's brilliant and colorful collage designs bring to life animal poems from such diverse sources as Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Emily Dickinson, and Jack Prelutsky, as well as Bible verses, Japanese haiku, American Indian poems and more. This celebration of the wonder and variety of earth's animals is "joyous...a book to be shared"
Explains how skin and fur colors and patterns help animals escape predators, hunt prey, and find a mate.
This infectious cumulative tale will have the young frogs you know jumping and chanting with joy.
Jump, Frog, Jump has been a winning story-time favorite long enough for it to have teacher and parent fans who first enjoyed it in their own preschool classroom.
We can be sure of this: It's a circle without end. It's pumpkin seeds to pumpkins to pumpkin seeds again! This treat of a picture book comes cloaked in the colors of fall. Bouncy verse and glowing photographs show a backyard pumpkin patch move through its natural cycle-a bug's eye and a bird's high view of seeds sprouting, flowers blooming, bees buzzing, pumpkins growing . . .and then going back to earth.
The adventure begins one evening when Martin (how do we say this nicely??) sneezed all over the dinner table! But did the adventure really start there? Oh no! It actually began more than 65 million years ago! Martin takes you on an adventure with dust, through millions of years, that ends - surprisingly - at home in time for dinner! A Dinosaur Made Me Sneeze is a children's book that takes you through the rock cycle with dinosaurs, humor, a crazy skink, sneezes, volcanoes, and more!
Let Scholastic Bookshelf be your guide through the whole range of your child's experiences-laugh with them, learn with them, read with them! Eight classic, best-selling titles are available now!
"She grazes on grass, and she likes to say, 'Moo!' I don't think that is what a llama would do."
This lovely story for children written by Nancy Tafuri contrasts the world as viewed in sunlight with the quiet night world in moonlight.
Sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch—our five senses teach us about our world. Beloved author-illustrator Aliki’s simple, engaging text and colorful artwork show young readers how they use their senses to smell a rose or play with a puppy.
This is a clear and appealing book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom.