Before Reading
The first thing that I did was show Katie the front of the book. I told her to notice all of the bright colors that were on the front cover. She then picked out her favorite of all the colors.
Teacher Candidate: Katie, have you ever read or heard the book Elmer?
Katie: No mam.
Teacher Candidate: Well today we are going to read it. Just by looking at the cover of the book, can you guess what the book is going to be about?
Katie: I think it might be about a colorful quilt!
Teacher Candidate: Alright, so you think the book will be about a colorful quilt. What makes you think that?
Katie: Because I have a quilt that looks like the front of the book with all of the colors!
After we discussed and made predications by observing the cover of the book, we took a picture walk together. I told Katie that we needed to pay close attention to the pictures to see what she thinks will happen in the story and if we might need to change her predictions. We stopped on pages: pg. 3, pg. 7, and pg. 13. Katie and I stopped on these pages because on one page all the elephants were laughing and it showed the difference between Elmer and the others. On another page it showed Elmer running off. I stopped on this page to ask Katie what she thinks has happened on this page. On the last page that I stopped on, I stopped because it showed Elmer rolling in berries, which leads to him trying to alter his appearance.
After we experienced the picture walk, I asked Katie if she would like to change her prediction of what the book was about. She said yes and that she would like to change it to elephants!
During Reading
Seeing how Katie is a kindergarten student and has yet learned to read, I read the book to Katie while she followed along with her finger. The first thing I pointed out to Katie was the author of the book, David McKee. This is where I explained to her what an author of a book was. As we were reading the book, I would stop periodically...