Themed Read-Aloud

In my classroom, I have started taking over the afternoon read-aloud. In this read-aloud, I select a picture book to read to the class that has an “author message”. These messages are themes that the students have to pay attention to and argue with evidence support from the text. The themes/messages that we are focusing on are: believing in yourself, honesty, accepting others’ differences, overcoming a challenge, and always be nice to others. The themes were pre-selected by my teacher but I have found that these are ideas that the students are encountering on a daily basis. The themes fit into the criteria of selection from Book Club Plus!, “A good classroom theme explores big ideas that are appropriate to the age level of the students. Themes are not arbitrary or superficial; they invite real discussion. (pp. 105)” The themes that we discuss as a whole group are easy for the students to relate to. Along with making self to text connections one of our goals of this read-aloud is to practice using evidence to support your claim. These are skills that we will be working on for the rest of the year (in Literacy studies and in science!).
First I read the book, while asking questions throughout the text, then we discuss. I have had the class discuss in a think-pair-share setting which proved to be not as beneficial for the class. The full group discussions are good. The students are able to relate back to statements said by their peers, and provide evidence from the text. On occasion, some of the students have said one thing and then, with further discussion and evidence, changed their opinion on the theme of the book. Our discussions are very similar to the ideas from Book Club Plus factors of a good read-aloud (118), “Discussing literature in lively, invitational, thought-provoking ways to encourage personal responses as well as the exploration of connections to self, between text, and linkages within and among texts.” In the next few days I want to start doing textual comparisons. Especially, in cases where some of the books have overlapping themes.