Reading storybooks aloud to children is recommended by professional organizations as a vehicle

for building oral language and early literacy skills (International Reading Association & National
Association for the Education of Young Children, 1998).
After analyzing my second grade students running records (small group of six students), I
concluded the following:

Overall students accuracy was high (96%-98%), but very low self-corrections

Students accuracy errors were mainly in the visual and meaning categories. Students also
made a few errors in structure, but most of the errors were verb tenses and plurals (which
is not considered an error in our district due to cultural differences). The visual and
meaning miscues were mainly due to lack of background knowledge and vocabulary.

Students overall comprehension was lower on non-fiction texts; especially the beyond
and about the text. Students did well on the within the text prompts, because they could
go back and find the answers directly in the text. When answering beyond the text
questions, they struggled using the information they learned to make connections and
inferences. When students were answering about the text questions, they struggled to
utilize the text features to support their answers.

Another key point is that the students are entering reading levels where fewer pictures are
provided during a running record. Currently, they still rely heavily on the picture clues. I
would like them to start to visualize the story they are reading, so that they can create that
mental image to rely on when answering questions.

In considering the students needs, I chose a non-fiction picture book as a read aloud. I thought it
would be a great opportunity to introduce students to some new vocabulary as well as model
beyond the text thinking. The text I chose is about an unfamiliar bird, but the topic of migration
is familiar to them. They have learned about animals that migrate in science. They also have
knowledge of the life cycle of birds because they hatched chicks in kindergarten. The author has
great word choice, providing imagery for students. Students will be able to learn new vocabulary
terms within a context that they have some knowledge base. Finally, the students will be
captivated by learning about a new animal and the journey they make. The story provides
additional facts and websites for the students to further their learning.
Before reading The Long, Long Journey to the students, I chose a few tier two words that I
would focus on; as well as a few tier three words that I would explain to the students.
Read Aloud: The Long, Long Journey by Sandra Markle
A. Planning:

a. Tier 2: journey (title), wobbly (2), huddle (4), coast (15), plump (19), route (21),
flock
b. Tier 3: trills (3), rarely (6), stroke, mingles
B. Monitoring:
I will use a variety of instructional strategies while teaching vocabulary (list from
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/vocabulary-development-during-read-alouds-primarypractices )
1.

Questioning

2.

Providing a definition

3.

Providing a synonym

4.

Providing examples

5.

Clarifying or correcting students' responses

6.

Extending a student-generated definition

7.

Labeling

8.

Imagery

9.

Morphemic analysis

C. Evaluating:
I will use informal observation of how students participate and share in the discussion
about the text.
a. What does migrate mean? What animals migrate? (activate prior knowledge)
b. Why are her legs wobbly?
c. Why do the birds need to double their body weight before fall?
d. Where do you think the young female is going? Where will she go on her
journey?
e. What does unfamiliar mean? What does unknown mean? (we have been working
on the prefix un-)
f. What makes this group of young birds so amazing?
g. What does it mean, another godwit isnt so lucky?

h. How did the young female change from the start of her journey until the end of
her journey?
i. How did the author describe land? What words did she use?
j. What did you learn about the godwit from the author? (The students will answer
this question in their journal so that I can get a better idea of their individual
comprehension.)

D. Reflection:
I chose to video tape myself reading the first part of the book aloud to the students. As I
watched the video, I noticed that the students were very excited to share their prior
knowledge. I was surprised at the questions that the students asked before we even began
reading. This is an area that I felt was weaker, so it was nice to see the great discussion
between students. In the first part of the read aloud, I should have had a map of Alaska to
show where it is in comparison with Wisconsin. I thought that students would have a little
more background knowledge about Alaska from classroom curriculum.
Students did very well at discussing the vocabulary terms and using their own
experiences to better understand the word. When we came across one of the tier two
vocabulary terms I gave each student a note card with a vocabulary word on. As they
listened, they were responsible for helping the group understand the word.
The book sparked a great deal of discussion and students were active listeners. One thing
I noticed is that I was asking most of the questions and prompting the students about
unfamiliar words. As I continue to finish the read aloud, I will try to model monitoring
strategies. For example, instead of saying, What do you think huddle means?; I could
say, Hmm, I think I have heard of this word huddle before, but I am not quite sure what
it means so I will reread the sentence to see if I can understand the word better.
When we finish reading the story, I am very interested to see how the students answer the
question of What Did You Learn. Their response to this question will let me know if the
read aloud helped or not. When they write the prompt, I will leave the note cards with the
new vocabulary out as well so that students can try to use the new terms in their response.