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Thursday, April 23, 2020

Three Read Alouds for Your Library: Let's Make Them Digital

In the first days of teaching our students from our homes, the scramble began for read aloud.  I have always found the read aloud to be the glue of my classroom community, but this has sealed the deal on that.  In our remote learning environment read aloud is till holding our community together, making us laugh, leading our instruction, and mentoring our writers.

With the temporary adjustments made by many publishers, teachers are finding ways to still read aloud with their classes.  Whether it be on temporary video or in a live session, many teachers have discovered their learners love seeing them.  Read aloud can certainly help maintain connection while we are away from our classrooms.  With libraries closed and books at home limited, bringing books into the living rooms of our children's homes is as essential as reading aloud in our classrooms.

Of course, as teachers, the number of books we have at home is limited too and reading aloud every day, when it requires video recording or gathering a large group, has its challenges.  There are a variety of created materials and websites that can help fill the need for read aloud at this time.

Here are three I love for your digital library:

Saturday by Oge Mora  I was excited to find one of my favorite books of this year available in read aloud....and by the author!  That's a win.  This story talks about a Saturday that doesn't go quite as planned.  As all of us are stuck at home, I think we'd love a Saturday as disastrous as this one.  Kids will love the repetitive structure of this day that has gone wrong - but then turns right.  I found this read aloud on a post by Romper:  Famous People Read Aloud.

Of course, this post led me #operationstorytime in YouTube.  Oh my goodness!!!  So many read alouds tucked in here!!!





Big Bad Baby!  by Bruce Hale and illustrated by Steve Breen.  This one made me laugh.  I hadn't seen it before, but loved all the trouble caused by Big Bad Baby.  Sometimes a little lighter picture book can certainly help us all right now and this book might be just what everyone needs.  Who knows?  Maybe one of your students is home with Big Bad Baby right now.  Ha!

I found this one in a collection of others in this post by We Are Teachers:  The Big List of Children's Authors Doing Online Read Alouds and Activities.  Check it out!



The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach.  I stumbled on another book that I love available in read aloud.  I found this one on Brightly Storytime.  This book is about a bear, tempted by a truckload of berries, who begins on an adventure that takes him right to your sandwich.  Or was it bear that ate your sandwich?  Hmmm....

Of course, I love finding a favorite picture book available for kids in read aloud, but I also appreciated the way Brightly is able to show picture and text together on the screen.  The words are bolded as the reader reads aloud.  What a great way to give our youngest readers the opportunity to see print.  You'll find other read alouds available at Brightly Storytime.




If you have favorite stops for digital read alouds, please share them in the comments below.

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