As teachers, we are often caught in the struggle of trying to fit so many things into our school day, and when time gets tight, it can be tempting to cut out read-alouds in your classroom. However, there are so many benefits to daily reading aloud to your students, so please Don’t Cut Your Read Aloud! Books are a wonderful resource for teaching every subject and have value in your classroom regardless of your grade. You can fit in your read-alouds in your classroom by integrating great children’s literature throughout the school day, and there are so many great read-alouds to choose from! I’m going to share some of my favorites with you today!

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Read-Alouds in Your Classroom
Incorporating read-alouds in your classroom can spark excitement for literature, allow for cross-curricular opportunities, and enhance students’ language skills. Here are 6 ways to use read-alouds in your classroom:
1. Math
I loved using picture books in math! It is so important for students to be able to see math in the real world, and books can open up that world for us! If you’re looking for a good place to start, you will love using Zero The Hero to teach your students about the importance of zero as a placeholder! I even have a free Zero The Hero Math Craft you can grab HERE!

2. Reading
While this seems like a no-brainer, books are a powerful tool for teaching the many critical skills in each of the five main pillars of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension). Pulling out a picture book to teach a skill is such a meaningful way to teach reading! There are so many great books to teach reading skills, but a few of my all-time favorites are Suddenly! By Colin McNaughton to teach making predictions and The Old Lady Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant for teaching pronouns! Elephant and Piggie Books were my favorites for many things, but they are great for teaching kids fluency—especially how to read with expression for those punctuation marks!

3. Writing
If I wanted my students to become great writers, they needed to see examples of great writing! Books as mentor texts are a powerful tool for growing writers. Some of my favorite writing books I used to teach the writing process in first grade were Ralph Tells A Story and Look, I Wrote A Book! And You Can Too!

4. Cross Curricular Content
Do you teach science, social studies, or even STEM? Guess what? There are excellent books in each of those areas! Books that will bring your subject to life and engage your learners in new ways. Try kicking off your next science lesson with a book! Do No Lick This Book is a great book to kick off a lesson on germs. All Of My Friends Are Planets: The Story Of Pluto is a great book for a space unit, and Worm Weather is a fantastic book for a weather unit!

5. Social-Emotional Skills
This was one of my favorite ways to use books! Stories can be used as transformative tools. For example, we often tell our students to be kind, but they must also be taught kindness. In books, they can see important values like kindness modeled and connect with characters in meaningful ways. Books can be the key that unlocks the door to important discussions we need to have with our kids. If you’re having difficulty finding time to read these kinds of books, try reading one during your morning meeting time so that it happens first thing in the day.
There are so many great books available, like the book Fair is Fair about what fairness really means (a personal favorite!), The Color Monster for teaching emotions, and Jabari Tries for not giving up! Julia Cook is always one of the first authors I ran to when I needed a good social-emotional skills book! The Tattle Tongue, My Mouth Is A Volcano, and Decibella and Her 6 Inch Voice were ones I read to my students every year!

6. Read for Fun
Every day I tried to read a book for fun to my first graders after lunch. (If after lunch does not work for you, try the end of the day or another time that works for your schedule.) The book we would read after lunch was a story that wasn’t tied to an assignment because reading for fun is an important part of reading, too!
If we tie every book to an assignment, students will begin believing that the only reason for reading is for a grade. And reading is so much more!! Also, do not be afraid to bring the books you read to life—laugh and enjoy the books with your students, use voices when you read, and discover new characters and plots together. Countless adventures await your class on the pages of a book!
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