Shared Reading: An Introductory Mini-Lesson
An Introductory Shared Reading Lesson
Book Choice: Wishy-Washy Day by Joy Cowley
Script for Shared Reading Lesson:
Introducing the Text
Alright class, today we are going to start reading a new book called Wishy-Washy Day by Joy Cowley. This book is about a woman named Mrs. Wishy-Wasy and all the animals that live on her farm. In the story, Mrs. Wishy-Washy is trying to give each one of her animals a bath in ONE day, but whenever she tells them to get in the tub they all run away and hide in different places. As I read the story, pay attention to the different types of animals on the farm and where they run-off to! I wonder what kinds of animals we will see and where they’re going to hide? Do we get any helpful clues from the cover page?
Great guesses! Let’s get started so we can see what happens in the story, I think it’s going to be really fun!
Read the Text to Students (First Read):
I am going to read the story first, as I am reading you all will need to is sit quietly and listen carefully so we can figure out where all Mrs. Wishy-Washys’animals are hiding, then we will re-read the story together. [during the reading I will point out difficult words or phrases students may struggle with when reading the text]
Read the Text as a Group (Second Read):
You all did a great job listening to the story! Let’s read together now, be sure to keep everything we learned from our first time reading the story in your heads, it will help you while we read. You can also use the pictures in the story to help you know which animals are hiding where!
Class Discussion Over the Story:
Great job, you all! Which animal do you think had the best hiding spot? Turn and talk to the person sitting next to you about which spot you picked and why!
Alright class, let’s lower our voices and turn our listening ears back on! Would someone like to share which hiding spot they thought was the best?
You all did a great job listening to and reading the story! I heard a lot of great conversations as well! We are done reading Wishy-Washy Day for today, but we are going to come back to this story for our shared reading tomorrow, so keep thinking about all those animals and brainstorm some other fun places they could hide on the farm!
Rationale for Lesson Script and Structure:
The script and lesson plan I have provided above is for an in-class shared reading activity. This is an introductory lesson, or day one of using a new book for shared reading, the goal of which is to help students build their background knowledge of the story and the vocabulary used. For this lesson plan, I utilized skill and strategy teaching, an instructional method that involves students using context clues within the text, illustrations, or familiar words, to problem solve and decode the unknown words they encounter while reading (Mooney, 2000). I kept this teaching method in my mind as I wrote my script and structured my mini-lesson. I started by introducing the students to the book Wishy-Washy Day by summarizing the book and prompting my students to make predictions about the story based on the illustration on the cover page. This opportunity to practice using context clues to make inferences about the story will introduce students to this skill, the focal point of this lesson, and help them when we revisit this story and they have to use the pictures within the text to decode words. Next, I will read the story to my students, they will not read along with me, instead, they will sit quietly and actively listen. Reading the text to my class independently before we read as a group gives me an opportunity to model how to read the text correctly, this includes the pronunciation and inflection of certain words, and highlight specific words or phrases they may struggle with, it also builds student background knowledge of the story, which aids reading comprehension. After we will read the story again, this time I will invite my students to read the text with me and remind them to use their background knowledge and context clues if they get stuck on a tricky word, highlighting the skill being taught during this lesson again. When we finish the shared reading I will prompt my students to reflect on the book and discuss their favorite hiding spots with a buddy and later share their answers with the class, ending the lesson with this discussion will help students consolidate and internalize key pieces of information from the story, which will assist them when they revisit and decode the text later on.
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