There are some key points to remember about shared reading; including using it with beginning readers, thinking out loud while you read, not necessarily requiring students to answer questions during reading, and using it to build a love of books and different types of literature. When I work with students with complex communication needs, I plan to read the same book for the week (5 days), with a different language based purpose each day. Karen Erickson talks about building a love of books, as setting purposes like knowing when to turn the page, following the words on the page, pointing out a part the student likes or doesn’t like. In addition to exposing kids to reading of a variety of fun books, I’m usually looking to build language skills like categorizing, describing, comparing, sequencing, retelling.
Head over to kidzlearnlanguage blog to get the free shared reading handout.
