A Little Time for Read Alouds

One of the "sacred" times in my classroom is our end of the day read aloud.  I feel like it is *such* a great way to get the students involved in literature that they wouldn't necessarily choose themselves as well as help to create a community of readers out of those students.  Each day, as the class comes to a close, we all gather around on the rug, listen to the same story, and discuss it together.  But more importantly, we *enjoy it* together.  It is that enjoyment that helps to build our community.  They really do look forward to it (if for some reason we can't read one day, they ask incessantly about it.  Really.)

So, I thought I would take this post to discuss some of my favorite read alouds and then open it up to you to discuss your favorites!  

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo

If you follow me on Facebook, you know how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.  I talked about it quite a bit when we were reading it this year.  It is just such a great book that the kids really get involved in.  The writing is different than most books we read in class in that the narrator talks directly to the reader, addressing us by name and making it such a personal story.  This is the perfect story to get lost in...and the kids really do get enveloped in the fantasy, the themes of good vs. evil, and the separate/intertwining stories of the characters.  Fabulous story to help build a community of readers.

There's A Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar

Out of every story I read aloud to the students, not one has as much impact as this tale does.  This story takes us along the journey of a boy who is a bully with no friends, even his teachers and members of his family don't really like him.  By the end, he has changed so much that we are rooting for him to win.  Believe me when I tell you that as the story reaches about the halfway mark, a pin drop could be heard in the classroom as all of the students are hanging on every word I read.  (I actually read a portion of this in the library one day when we had some extra time and the librarian couldn't believe the students' reactions...she promptly ordered 3 copies for the library!)  There are such lessons and takeaways from this book, too, that I feel it is a MUST READ in all upper grade rooms.

The Complete Wreck (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Books 1-13) by Lemony Snicket

Now, this isn't a great work of literature or filled with fabulous themes and messages, so if you are looking for a book like that, this one isn't for you.  However, this is a series...and allows the kids to really involve themselves in the story over a long period of time.  They get invested in the main characters and grow to care about what happens to them.   One year, my students and I read the first 6 books of the series together because they just kept wanting to know what happened to the children in the story!

So there you have it.  Three of my favorites that I love to read aloud.  Now it is your turn.  What are your favorites and why?  Let's make a list so that we all can help to build lifelong learners and a community of readers!