We begin our literacy block with an interactive read-aloud. Reading aloud to children has been an important part of primary classrooms. However, children were generally expected to listen, to not make any comments or only to ask questions at the end of the story. An interactive read-aloud encourages children to make connections between the story and their personal experiences so they can make sense of the text. The teacher carefully chooses a book, prepares an introduction to the story, poses questions throughout the reading to maintain the level of engagement, and pauses to point out new or unfamiliar vocabulary.
Favorite books are reread several times and are sorted by the children into labeled book tubs.
The tubs are easily accessed by the children for their independent reading time. Since this is a first reading of the story, I begin by asking the children what they knew about owls. We look at the book jacket and the end papers to see what they can deduce from this information. At one point in the story, the mother owl is shown flying down towards her babies. The illustrator designed the picture so that the owlets look very small.