I’m a great big fan of genre study, and genre study relies on genre immersion (reading the genre throughout workshop: read alouds, guided reading, independent reading, etc.). One of the best ways to expose students to a new genre is though daily read alouds.
Teachers love sharing awesome picture books with students, but sometimes the the purpose of read alouds become muddy. Are read alouds meant to mini lessons? Are they like a whole group version of guided reading? Are they just for fun? The first step to planning an excellent read aloud is to remember what read alouds are for.
What Are Read Alouds FOR?
It’s useful to refer to read alouds during mini lessons and vice versa, but the two shouldn’t be confused. A mini lesson is where you explicitly teach grade level skills. A read aloud is when you read a mentor text aloud, demonstrating reading behaviors and generating discussion.
Sure, the two are very much connected. You’ll generate discussion around topics you’ve taught in your mini lessons. But you don’t want to fall into the trap of always doing a mini lesson/read aloud hybrid where your mini lesson is no longer “mini” and your read aloud doesn’t involve much “reading.”
Some goals of read alouds are:
- expose students to grade-level texts.
- model good reading behaviors.
- model reading strategies in real-time by thinking aloud.
- generate discussion around personally and instructionally relevant topics.
When you and your class engage in read alouds, you’re reading and comprehending a single text together. It’s like reading practice, so you don’t want to belabor it with too much teaching (save that for the mini lesson).
Here’s a little reference sheet I created for my Guide to Read Alouds & Genre Study:
Have you started a read aloud and found yourself lost in too much teaching or discussion? Are you planning to incorporate more read alouds into your reading workshop? Here’s a (free) versatile template for creating read aloud discussion guides ahead of time.
