Intentional Interactive Read Aloud LAE 4424/6427 (adapted from Reach Associates 2016 & Children’s Literacy Initiative)

Determine the type of text (fiction or nonfiction) grade level standard(s) that you will be targeting during the interactive read
aloud lesson. Plan the instructional language to introduce the learning target (Moss, Brookhart and Long, 2015)
● PST pre-reads and plans intentional stopping points during the read aloud. PST plans intentional stops to support
the teaching of the identified standard(s) and by ‘putting him/herself into the head of the learners’ and thinking
about what in the text will be challenging for the learners or what she/he hopes the learners will walk away
knowing about the text.
● These stops are not questions for students to answer. PST shares his/her thinking (the whats, hows and whys of
his/her thinking) and then invites learners, through an open-ended prompt/question, to respond, first to
themselves, then through a turn and talk with the person next to them, and then through a ‘sharing out’ with
the class.
Resources for choosing books and planning lesson: 1- F & P Literacy Continuum 2- Ramped up Read Aloud

Name: Abigail Whitmore

Learning Standard(s): ELA.1.R.2.2: Identify the topic of and relevant details in a text.
Primary Literacy Objective:
The main literacy objective is for students to identify key details
within the text. They will be using illustrations within the text in
order to support their findings of key details.
What resource(s) did you use to plan this lesson? Adapted lesson idea from: Walther, M.P. (2018). The Ramped Up
Cite! Read Aloud. Corwin Press.
1-Read Aloud Book/Author Squirrels Leap, Squirrels Sleep by April Pulley Sayre (2016)
2-Rationale: Why did you choose this book for your
students? Why did you choose this book for your This is a rhyming text, which will help support engagement with many of
learning goal? (This should address your primary literacy my students. The book is also about squirrels which are very familiar to
objective.) my students, so they will already have some prior background
knowledge. My students thoroughly enjoy drawing; I want them to
understand they can use drawings to help them remember key details.
My students enjoy illustrations in books, but often forget the illustrations
provide them with more information about the main idea. This book will
allow me to focus on the skill of using illustrations to identify key details
in the text that support the main idea.
Language Supports ● Show pictures of the items (acorn and jaw) for contextual support
Plan language supports so all children can understand ● Use the vocabulary words in a sentence
and participate in the lesson (ESOL; ESE) ● Have translations of the words when appropriate
*scaffolds, representations, and instructional strategies
that teachers intentionally provide to help learners
understand and use the language they need to learn
Ex- what scaffold will you provide? what will you model?
Will you use sentence stems? etc...
Vocabulary Words Child-Friendly Definition
Choose tier II or III vocabulary words to explicitly teach. Jaw -A jaw is the lower part of your mouth (I will point to it on my
● 3-4 words Acorn face). Most animals have a jaw too.
● words that are necessary to understand the Leap -An acorn is the seed of an oak tree. All the acorns you see on
story the ground outside are seeds that might grow into an oak
tree one day.
-When someone leaps, they are suddenly moving or jumping
B Essentials: What will you say? Use the prompts as a guide
E ● Explain what you are going to teach and how it 1- Opening Conversation/ Creating Meaningful Learning:
F will help the children as readers or writers. ● “The book we are reading today is called Squirrels Leap, Squirrels Sleep.
O ● Explain the connection between the book & the What does it look like the squirrel on the cover of the book is doing? It
R purpose does look like he is jumping. Another word for jumping is leap, like the
E Options: title of the book says-squirrels leap. Have any of you ever seen a
● Offer language supports squirrel leap before? I know I have seen squirrels leap many times! By
● Activate or build background knowledge looking at the illustration on the cover, it helps us to know more about
R ● Model and/or elicit predictions the words in the book.”
E ● Introduce vocabulary ● “There are a couple of other words we will see in today’s book that I
A ● Chart want to talk about. (Points to jaw) This is called a jaw. Like people,
D many animals have a jaw, even squirrels. It helps us to open and close
I our mouth. Lastly, (holds up an acorn) this is an acorn. Have you ever
N seen a squirrel eating an acorn before? An acorn is the seed of an oak
G tree. When it falls on the ground, it might one day become an oak tree
if it has everything a tree needs to grow.”
● “From the title of the book, what do we think this book is all about? I’m
thinking it might be all about squirrels too. But I’m wondering if there
are other things that squirrels do that we will find out about in the
book. Let’s be sure to pay attention to the illustrations and the words
to find important details in the book about squirrels.”
D Essentials: Pages 1 & 2-
U ● Engage the children  “I am noticing that each thing the squirrels can do, wrestle, leap, climb,
R ● Build and check comprehension and sleep, are shown in the illustrations. Each picture is showing me
I ● Model fluency what the author is writing about. Please pick one of the actions the
N The teacher engages learners in active ‘meaning squirrel is doing, either wrestle, leap, climb, or sleep. Find the area on
G making’ while reading the text by the picture that matches the action.”
modeling/describing/‘thinking aloud’ the  “We can draw pictures to help us remember the key details in the
metacognitive behaviors of visualizing, making book. Pick one of the actions on the page, then draw a quick picture in
R inferences, stopping and restating, asking questions your book.”
E and/or making predictions he/she is using to Pages 3 & 4-
A process and make meaning of the text.)  “The author is telling us about four different types of squirrels. Pick
D ● Include stops with pg. numbers and what your favorite squirrel on the page, then turn and talk with your partner.
I you’ll say. Include standard as appropriate. Tell them which squirrel is your favorite, then describe your squirrel
N using the illustrations.”
G Pages 5 & 6-
 “I’m noticing that the author is telling me about different ways that a
squirrel uses it’s tail. I can see that by all of the illustrations on this
page.”
Pages 9 & 10-
 “What body parts did we just learn about on the last 2 pages?”
o Possible answers: Nose, paws, or eyes.
 “For your next picture, please draw a picture to describe one of the
details we learned about. Make sure you include what it is used for.”
Pages 21 & 22-
 “What did we learn mostly about on the last couple of pages?”
o Possible answers: seeds, gathering, climbing.
 “If we go back a few pages, we can see that these pages told us mostly
about acorns, the seeds that squirrels collect. Please draw a picture of
what those pages were about.”
At the end of the book-
 “Pick another detail from the book you remember and draw a picture
of that key detail. It can be anything about the squirrels that we
learned in the book that you have not already written about.”

A Essentials: 1- Explicit and deliberate closing and reading response aligned to student
F ● Discuss & respond to the text needs and standard. What will you do and why? Provide a full explanation and
T ● Check for understanding: Ask questions (text- rationale for how it aligns to standard and student needs.
E dependent & open-ended)
R ● Restate objective “Friends, today we were able to identify the main idea of the book which was all
● Reading response to bring it all together (what about squirrels. Then as we read, we were able to find out so many interesting
R is the standard? and how does the reading things about squirrels and what they do. Those are of our key details that told
E response give you information about how they us more about squirrels. The illustrations helped to support out understanding
A met the standard?) of what the author was telling us.”
D
I Reading response
N ● “All of your key details you learned were shown in your pictures. Just
G like the illustrations in the book, you drew pictures to show some of
the key details you learned about.”
● “You are going to use the pictures you drew to write a short story. Use
your pictures to remember what the key details are. Remember, you
first need a topic sentence, which would tell us what your story is going
to be about. Think about the main idea of the book for your topic
sentence. Then use your pictures as your key details. They must be full
sentences.”