Shared Reading in Kindergarten

When I first started teaching kindergarten seven years ago, I was introduced to balanced literacy in my school district.  Being new to the elementary level, I was very nervous about the new expectations set upon me - especially the responsibility of getting students reading on grade level.  As I learned more about the balanced literacy model I took in all of the information and was excited to implement it and use what I learned in my classroom.  However, shared reading was still daunting.  With no explicit lesson plans or guides on what to focus on or how to use a specific book, I was honestly lost my first year.  What books do I use?  How will I know if they are too hard?  What literacy skills do I focus on?  What strategies best fit this text?  Needless to say, I was confused.

What is Shared Reading?

So what exactly is shared reading?  Shared reading is an interactive reading where students join in (or share) the reading of the text with the guidance and support of the teacher.  During this time, the teacher explicitly models the skills of a good reader, including the use of reading strategies, fluency, comprehension and expression.  Typically a big book with enlarged pictures and text is used for the entire week, with lessons focused on different reading skills each day.  It is recommended that the text used be about one grade level above where your students are reading independently (typically this means levels A - E in kindergarten).

Why is Shared Reading Important?

As stated above, shared reading is an opportunity for teachers to explicitly teach a specific literacy skill.  Whether it is retelling a story, identifying characters and setting, using MSV to solve an unknown word, or recognizing punctuation and using it to read with expression, teachers are able to model and instruct on necessary literacy skills important for reading success.  While read aloud is the teacher reading independently, and guided reading is the student reading independently, shared reading is a joint effort - the role of the reader is shared.  Throughout the week, as students are sharing the reading responsibility with the teacher's guidance (all while learning skills necessary to be proficient readers), reading responsibility shifts to provide more student ownership of the text - eventually leading to fluent reading.

What Helped Me

Throughout the week, I learned to stay in a routine of what literacy skills I covered each day.  By keeping the order of which specific literacy skill I was focusing on each day, it helped both myself and my students organize our thinking throughout the week.  I recently found this line up of skills that was recommended by Jen Jones from Hello Literacy and I have found it to be an even better way to help guide my teaching each week.

Literacy Focus by Day
Monday: Comprehension
Tuesday: Word Solving
Wednesday: Word Work
Thursday: Fluency
Friday: Confidence

Solving the Problem

By using a routine, I found it MUCH EASIER when planning out shared reading lessons.  It gave me the direction and guidance I needed to focus my instruction  --> I'm definitely a Type A personality, I can't help it!  Now that I had a structure to use when planning my shared reading lessons, half of my struggle with teaching it was solved.  Then, I needed text.

I don't know about you, but if you have ever priced big books you know they can be EXPENSIVE.  A complete shared reading set from a company?  An even crazier amount of money!  Often districts - mine included - do not have the funds to purchase these resources.  As the need for a variety of big books grew in our district grade level, I began creating.  I eventually made an entire school year's worth of big books for the kindergarten level, along with accompanying activities and black and white versions for our district team.

As the last few years have passed, these shared reading sets have received many face lifts.  Books that I once loved have been replaced with better versions.  I have added additional activities, updated clip art and fonts when needed and worked to provide weekly lesson plan to take the guess work out.  I am continuing to work on updates even as we speak (good teachers NEVER stop improving!)

Shared Reading Sets - What is included?

Each one of my kindergarten shared reading sets come with 4 core components:
1. colored big book
2. black and white student version of the book
3. additional activities and worksheets to support the development of targeted literacy skills
4. detailed weekly lesson plans

The colored big book provides clear, easy to read text that progresses in difficulty over the course of the year.  To blow up the pages to make it a true 'big book', when printing, change the paper size to ledger paper.  Then back the enlarged pages onto 12 x 18 construction paper and laminate for durability.  This also provides a dry/erase surface for you and students to be able to circle or point out specific literacy skills you may be focusing on, including word families, rhyming words, and other phonic skills.

The black and white student version of the text is probably my favorite part.  By providing students their own copy of the text (typically on the last day of the week when students have learned the necessary literacy skills and are reading the text independently) - the students are able to gain confidence in their ability and now have a familiar reading book to either keep at school during read to self or take home to read to their families.  We love to celebrate successes during this time and the glow when students are able to read the text by themselves is why I went into teaching.  :)

When my students read their black and white copy the first time, we typically read it together - again, sharing the reading - and we look for specific words, letters, blends, digraphs, patterns, etc. that we focused on during the week.  Students can highlight, circle or underline the focus and it helps call attention to previously learned skills during repeated readings.

The additional activities and worksheets vary from text to text although each shared reading set targets specific sight words and include worksheets that practice fluently identifying, writing and reading the word.  Other activities include sentences from the story in pocket chart form to help with sentence structure (these are mostly in the lower leveled shared reading books), as well as phonics, parts of speech, and comprehension activities to support literacy skills taught within the text.

Take the Guess Work Out!

If you feel like I did and struggle with shared reading, not sure where to go or how to plan - or even if you want to save planning time, I would love to take the guess work out for you!  My kindergarten shared reading sets can provide you with the text, activities and lesson plans all in one place - saving you MAJOR TIME!  In my store, you can find each set sold in a variety of ways. Weekly shared reading sets are sold both individually and bundled into monthly units.  To save the biggest amount of money, however, you can get ALL of my kindergarten shared reading sets in a yearlong bundle - that's over 40 shared reading sets for kindergarten in one place!

If you would like to check out my shared reading sets for yourself please click the picture below!  *PLEASE NOTE!  I AM CURRENTLY UPDATING ALL SHARED READING SETS TO INCLUDE EVEN MORE ACTIVITIES AND GUIDED DIRECTION FOR TEACHERS!  ALL UPDATES WILL BE COMPLETED BY OCTOBER 31ST*

If you have any comments or questions regarding how to set up and teach shared reading in your kindergarten classroom, I would love to hear them!  Drop me a line in the comment section and I'll be sure to get back with you!

Happy reading!