Learning to Read a Book Three Ways

Kindergarteners want to learn to read. I begin by teaching them that there are three ways to read a book: read the pictures, read the words, and retell the story. I model these three ways in whole group shared reading time over three successive days. Over the course of our first three days of school we used the book Hairy Bear, reading it in each of the three ways. On the first day we read the pictures, using the illustrations to figure out what the characters are experiencing and predicting what may happen from page to page. On the second day I read the text, and to their delight many of the events they described through the pictures were very close to the text words. On the third day we retold the story in our own words, adding more details and elaborating on the plot. In this way children begin to learn the power in using the illustrations to support their reading and that reading the words is not the only way to read a book.

Shared reading is a powerful learning time as I introduce many reading strategies and skills. As you will see in this collage, on the last page the children added their own text to the story, which I wrote with a wipe off marker. They were curious about the "word bubble" in the text showing what a character was saying. As a class the students decided to add other word bubbles to show what the other characters may be saying. I used this teachable moment to show them that when they write their own narrative stories they, too, can use word bubbles in their stories.  I was thrilled to see their excitement and thirst for learning reading skills.