Read to us!

In the day and age of testing and the endless roll out of new standards, some times we forget the simpliest things... Yesterday I read a picture book to my 5th graders. They so enjoyed it, and today they asked if I could read to them again.

Fear not, Standard Sticklers, I made sure to pick a good mentor text which led to a lot of rich discussion and the practice of some essential CC skills. 

Wednesday's pick...

• Grace is a wonderful character to analyze for traits based on her thoughts, actions, and feelings. 
• Good text clues in which to make inferences
• A great story for determining theme
• Has a very positive message about self-confidence and perseverance

Thursday's pick...

• This book is great for inferring Grace's feelings and thoughts; not just what they are, but why she has them
• There is opportunity for self-to-text and text-to-text connection as concepts of family and divorce are discussed
• A few opportunities for predicting
• A great story for determining theme
• Seeing a "known" character on another adventure allowed for deeper character analysis 
• It would be easy to look at story events from another character's perspective (ie. her dad's or stepmother's)