Read Aloud

It was during my sophomore year in college, in Children's Literature class that I fell back in love with some of the most wonderfully written books of all time. This class re-iterated the importance of reading aloud in our future classrooms.

I took this with me when I student taught last year. My students were on the edge of their seats for The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. It was a tale of adventure, and it took us three months to read... but as we finished it on my last day in Tennessee, I remember gasps of excitement at the way that the story ended. It was well worth the time spent!

Well when I took the Kindergarten job that I currently have, my thoughts on the importance of read alouds did not change. However, the length of them did. I read many picture books to enhance the lessons that I am teaching. But after three weeks, I decided to take a leap. Why couldn't my students comprehend a chapter at a time over a few weeks of reading? Why couldn't we share in the excitement of our own adventure and the thrill of trying to guess what could possibly happen next? So I asked my students if they would like me to read a book in little chunks like that. They voted with a hearty YES!
So we read:

I know that this book is something that most students don't read until the third or fourth grade, so there are lots of big words... but who can big words hurt? They are learning so much! And they are so excited to follow William as he discovers a knight in his toy castle that comes to life (Shh, my kids haven't gotten to this part yet). 

Here is the big wow in all of this. It comes with a little background knowledge:

Yesterday was the 100th day of school. In Kindergarten this is a huge celebration! We counted 100 items using our ten frames, we ate a mixed snack of 100 edible items from each student, and we even dressed up like we were 100 years old. It was a big day! And one of my students was absent. He was sad about it, for sure! But today I found out that he was really worried about missing was the read aloud yesterday. I got choked up for a moment when he raised his hand this morning and asked, "Mrs. MacLeod, did I miss the book?" It took me a minute to figure out what he meant... but then I just smiled. This is why read alouds are so important! My five-year-olds have already figured this out!