Shared Reading During the First Week of School

Shared Reading is a great strategy to use in PreK-2 classrooms during the first week of school.  It gives you a chance to share great books with your students and build a sense of community for your classroom.  Call the students to the carpet and choose a book you know the students will enjoy.  The teacher begins by reading from a big book, a story on the Smartboard, or sentence strips in a pocket chart.  As teachers read, they track the print with a pencil or a pointer.  This gives students an opportunity to follow the left-to-right-progression of words on the page.  Teachers can stop in strategic places and ask students to turn to their neighbor and tell them what they think will happen next.  When the story is finished, the teacher can question to see if students have understood the story.  Students can also pair up to retell the story to each other.

Follow-up activities can include rereading the story through Echo Reading, Choral Reading, or Fill in the Word.  Echo Reading begins with the teacher reading a word or a sentence and students echoing what the teacher has said as she points to the word.  During Choral Reading students read along with the teacher as she points to the word.  The teacher choose strategic words to leave out during Fill in the Word Reading.  This is a great strategy to use when teaching the concept of rhyming.

Some of my personal favorites for the first week of school include:  Clifford's First Day of School by Eric Bridwell; Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin; The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss; How I Spent my Summer Vacation by Mark Teague and Chrysanthemum by Keven Henkes.  Whether you read any of my favorites or have your own favorite book for the first day of school, Shared Reading is a great way to begin your new school year!  Happy Reading!!!