Freddy’s Favorites compile TextProject’s recommendations for read-aloud books for struggling and beginning readers. The Common Core State Standards bring increased focus to what it is that students are learning in schools and what they need to know. Through read-alouds, students can be introduced to topics and genres that they might otherwise not be able to read independently. Our list of Read-Aloud Favorites can be searched by grade level, genre, format and subject.
To read more about the importance of reading aloud in a classroom, please read this blog entry in Frankly Freddy.
Extreme Animals
In a style much like their other book Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionable, author and illustrator Nicola Davies and Neal Layton return with a new book on the necessities of life. This is a fascinating book about how different animals have the same basic needs in life: finding food and water, staying warm or cool, living in the right atmospheric pressure, and breathing air. For any living creature, plant, insect or mammal, not having enough food or being too cold is a tremendous stress on the body. Though the pencil-drawn illustrations are not sophisticated or technical, they will certainly appeal to kids. Students who may have studied polar bears and penguins before may enjoy reading about these animals in this approach. These new facts may also stay with the students longer, as these animals are presented in comparison to the human body. For examples, human beings do not have feathers or eight legs, but they do share the need to stay warm and find food and water.
Discovering Nature’s Alphabet
This is not your typical alphabet book. Instead of a picture of an apple next to the letter A, Castella and Boyl use photograph of objects that are shaped as letters. For example, the letter P is a picture of a part of a flower where the tip has curled around. The authors state that none of the pictures were staged and were found in the form that is show in the photographs. Which makes me wonder how many letters I have missed on my last walk. The result is a book that makes it interesting to trace the letters of the alphabet. It also encourages students to look and find letters in not so obvious places. The engaging photographs can lead to lots of art and/or letter recognition lessons.
Dear Miss Breed
Dear Miss Breed is a book about a San Diego Librarian, Clara Breed and how she stayed in touch with a group of Japanese children and teenagers during the years following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Oppenheim pieced together all the letters that were sent to Miss Breed while the “children” were interned at Poston, Arizona. Though, very little of what Miss Breed sent to the children survived, this book does include articles or excerpts of what Miss Breed wrote for various news or magazine organizations. In addition, throughout the book Oppenheim sprinkles testimony from the 1981 congressional hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, photos, political cartoons, quotes and letters from people at the time, such as Eleanor Roosevelt. This book is an in depth snapshot of what United States was like during this time for a group of children whose only crime was being Americans with the Wrong Ancestors.
Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other Silly Dilly Songs
Kids love silly songs or silly poems. Many years ago, I had a chance to order some books for a kindergarten class. One book I got was called Andrew’s Loose Tooth. It was an instant hit and they just about wore out the tape and the book. Part of the appeal was the silliness of the story. Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other Silly Dilly Songs is a collection of songs or poems—depending on the student’s familiarity of the original song— that are twists on many of the childhood song we all know, such as “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” The words have been changed but the rhythm and meter of the original song is still there, so that the students can still sing the poems.
Katz also released a book of poetry (OOPS!) on March 1, 2008 that looks like it might be another a student favorite.
Pío Peep!
Similar to Merry Navidad! Christmas Carols in Spanish and English, Pío Peep! is a collection of nursery rhymes that originated in Spanish-speaking countries. Just like Merry Navidad!, Pío Peep! contains English versions of the nursery rhymes. To make the English versions flow like poetry, the English poems are not direct translations.
When the book was first published in 2003, it did not include a CD. In the 2006 version, Pío Peep! includes a CD with eight nursery rhymes from the book. The nursery rhymes, both in English and Spanish, are sung with music like songs.