Engaging 1st Grade Read Aloud Lesson Plans for the Entire Week
Let’s bring back the read aloud! And let’s do it by using read aloud lesson plans to fill up the entire literacy block time for a whole week of first grade.
In this blog post, I’m walking you through how I use just one children’s picture book to plan an entire week of literacy lesson plans. And our weekly routine is the same each week which makes it easy for me to plan each week, plus predictable for the kids–which we all love!
Let’s use one of my favorite Fables, The Boy Who Cried Wolf to walk through our weekly read aloud lesson plans and routines!
Monday: Tier 2 Vocabulary
Monday is our first day to introduce the book! The focus is to read and break down any barriers to understand the story. So that means that vocabulary words are the focus!
We work through our Tier 2 Vocabulary routines, which you can read more details about here. But basically, I select 4-6 tier 2 words to explicitly teach BEFORE reading. We do some digital slides to teach the words and practice them.
Once we finish the interactive slides, we are ready to read the story. We stop each time we get to one of our tier 2 vocabulary words in the story and revisit what it means.
After reading the story, kids complete the Tier 2 vocabulary printable for their writing time. They match vocab words to their synonyms, practice writing the words, and then write a sentence including a vocabulary word and illustrate it. We use this as the writing part of their literacy block!
Tuesday: Fiction Story Elements
On Tuesday, our read aloud lesson plans include revisiting the story and focusing on the elements of fiction!
We start by quickly reviewing our vocabulary words from Monday with our carpet partners. Then, we teach or review (depending on how many times you’ve done this routine) the story elements of fiction: characters, setting, problem, and solution.
We do some kind of whole group activity to practice identifying and differentiating between the elements. For The Boy Who Cried Wolf, we do this by sorting generic cards that aren’t necessarily related to our story into 4 categories: characters, setting, problem, and solution. You could also do a 4 corners activity with this for kids who need more movement!
Once we have mastered what the 4 elements are and what the differences are, we are ready to reread the story. I like to take time on this day to emphasize that, “Good books are worth reading again and again!” We also talk about how we can have many reasons for reading a book. It sounds something like, “Yesterday, we read to learn new vocabulary words. But today, we are reading for a new purpose! We will identify the key story elements of our fiction story!”
While reading, we pause intentionally to identify characters or setting or talk about the problem or solution.
After reading, it’s time for our writing time! For story elements day, we will be working on our elements graphic organizer. Depending on how many times you’ve done this with kids, you may need to work on it as a whole group. Or, if they have more experience with this activity they could work in groups, or even independently to complete the story elements graphic organizer.
Wednesday: Retelling the Story
By Wednesday, we have read aloud our picture book twice and the kids should be super familiar with the story–and ready to retell the story!
We start by talking about what key details are and what it means to sequence events. I usually use some example about how when I brush my teeth, if I start spitting first, then brush, then put the toothpaste on, that would be super weird! The sequence matters! 🙂
Then, we reread our story. I try to focus on any order or transition words the author might use to help us understand the sequence of the story.
After the read aloud, we practice sequencing the story as a whole group. There are all kinds of ways to do this! For The Boy Who Cried Wolf, we worked in groups to sequence sentence strips and turn them into a sequencing chain!
Finally, we are ready to write! During our writing time, they cut and paste pictures into the correct sequence and write a sentence under each picture using order words. Again, this could be done as a whole group if it’s new to your class, or they could do this independently if they have a ton of experience–or any iteration in between depending on your kids!
Thursday: Content Connections
By Thursday, I like to add a little science or social studies connections into our stories. One reason is because squeezing in science and social studies is HARD in 1st grade. And this is one easy way to do that. Another reason is that it helps bring some non-fiction literacy practice into our literacy block!
For The Boy Who Cried Wolf, we learned about shepherds. What is the job of a shepherd? How do they do it? And how has the job changed over thousands of years? We use a digital slideshow/digital book for this.
Then, we reread The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and we compare the boy–a fictional shepherd–to real shepherds.
After reading, we fill in a Venn Diagram together to compare the boy to real shepherds as our writing activity!
Friday: Craft & Writing Prompts
By the end of the week, we are ready to get heavy into paragraph writing with our read aloud lesson plans. We have spent all week reading and rereading the book, discussing and analyzing the story, and connecting it to real life content.
We start by focusing on writing a paragraph to answer a prompt about the story. Depending on the story, we may focus on narrative, opinion or informative writing! For The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the kids write what they might do differently if they were the boy. We review the narrative writing graphic organizer, and then spend most of the literacy block letting kids write independently. As they finish, we edit it one-on-one.
Once they are finished, and I have “okay-ed” their writing, they start on the craft. For The Boy Who Cried Wolf, they make a sheep. This is a fun way to focus on fine motor skills, art standards, and celebrate the end of our read aloud!
Where Can I Find Read Aloud Lesson Plans?
You can find the read aloud lesson plans for The Boy Who Cried Wolf here! And I hope to add a bundle of all of my read aloud companion packs soon. If you aren’t already, join my email group to be the first to know about new read aloud companion packs!
