My first Read Aloud with my kindergarten class went really well! At least, in my head I think it went well. I read "Sheila Rae, The Brave" by Kevin Henkes, and it's about a little girl who thinks she's brave and gets lost, taking a long route home. My co-teacher gave it to me, and it was the first time I'd ever heard of the book. So I quickly scanned through the book, and thought the story was very cute and that many kids would be able to comprehend the story. I also felt confident enough to lead an introduction with "who knows what it means to be brave?" I think it was a good lead-in because the kids responded well. At least half of the kids raised their hands to give examples of someone they knew who was brave.
I also feel good about reading the story with "silly" character voices and other varying voices to make the story livelier. I'm slowly letting myself be silly, and I can see that the kids respond better when I am silly and energetic.
So. There are also areas that I need to work on for next time. One big mistake I made was that I didn't thoroughly read the book. I didn't even notice that Sheila Rae's little sister was hiding and following her on the way home. A couple of kids yelled out, "I see a tail!" I had no idea why they said that! Turns out, it was the sister's tail and she was hiding. I also feel like I could have asked more questions to assess their understanding, like ask for predictions and if they understood vocabulary.
Overall, I am glad with the experience, and I am looking forward to my next Read Aloud.
It sounds like your students were reading the pictures and noticing the tail in the story. Ahhhh, let the adventures begin! Stopping along the way to ask questions and probe for meaning is a good way to start the journey. Who are the main characters? How do they feel? Have you ever felt that way before? The good news is, you are not alone. You can ask kids to "pair share" with a partner sitting next to them to summarize what they heard in the story. I recently lead a guided writing lesson. What fun I had! Read my blog post entitiled, "Painting Pictures with Words."
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Guided writing is one way for teachers to model expectations and to include students in the ebb and flow of our follies. They see our human struggle to get our ideas down on the page, to make decisions on the fly that impact, word choice, voice, how a poem looks, how it sounds and how it feels. Does that make sense? What should I say next? I need to be more specific, adding detail will help. According to Routman, R. (2005) asking questions along the way may prove valuable. “Let’s reread and see if we want to change anything? Is it clear and interesting for the reader? Do we need to move anything around to make it easier to follow?” Including kids in guided writing scaffolds learning and engages them in the process. A the end of a lesson, I celebrate student success and I validate students in the language which I choose to use “Poets, Writers, Scientists, Mathematicians.” Students grow to see themselves as competent and capable writers. Read-a-louds empower kids to believe in themselves, full to the brim with self-confidence.
I had a similar experience when I was doing a read aloud with my kindergarten class. I had read the book ahead of time, but like you I didn't notice all the details in the pictures like the students had. I realized I was a little rusty at reading the pictures. As an adult I have been so focused on the text that I often just glance at the pictures when I'm reading an article.
ReplyDeleteLike you I learned a lot from this experience and am definitely expanding my read alouds, so that when the kids say "I see a tail" I'm beginning to feel more comfortable having that discussion on making predictions and modeling to the class, stopping in the middle of a story and critically think about what is going on.