Reading Crew Summer Blog Hop: Best Books for Kindergarten

I'm so happy to be linking up with the Reading Crew to share our favorite books!  I love reading books out loud to children!  In fact, I make up voices for the characters and probably get a little to into it!! I channel my inner actress into read alouds, and kindergartners are a very forgiving audience.

I had so many favorites, I organized them into three categories.

Books that are great for the first week of school!

Classic Kindergarten Favorites!

Books with Awesome Characters (that are in multiple books)!

This article from Reading Rockets is a great reference to help teachers implement intentional interactive read alouds in the classroom!!  Another resource I enjoyed was Unwrapping the Read Aloud.  It was focused on choosing books to inspire children to become readers and writers in the classroom.  It was published before Common Core, but the ideas are very aligned with Common Core.

The main theme throughout the book is choosing intentional read alouds based on the outcomes teachers want students to learn and the potential each book holds.  What is most striking about the book is the fact that Laminak doesn’t just explain why read alouds are important, he teaches how to read aloud stories by calling attention to specific language which impacts the craft and structure of both informational and literature texts.