I have been in the teacher program for one semester which means I am currently completing Curriculum. For Curriculum I have to complete twenty hours in the field and do eight different compositions. One composition requires a read aloud. I have already completed my read aloud and am happy with my success. I am in a third grade class so I could not choose baby books, but at the same time I could not choose chapter books. I ended up choosing "Kermit the Hermit" written and illustrated by Bill Peet. The students in my class have been doing an author study on Bill Peet which I thought was cool and they all seem to like his books very much. I personally have never heard of Bill Peet books before, but I will forever read his books to future classes of mine. I love how his books rhyme and are so funny. I think it is really neat that Bill Peet usually always writes stories on animals and illustrates his own pictures. The pictures in his story are great to look at and he always has a great moral and lesson to his stories.
I was very nervous before reading for the first time to the class. I did a lot of research on Bill Peet the night before and decided which questions would be the best to ask about my story. I wanted to focus on the author since they had been talking a lot about him lately so I asked who had read any of his books. I was elated to see that almost all the students in the class had. I asked them to mention some things they had noticed about all his books and all the students had something to say. They said that Bill Peet illustrates all the pictures in his books and he uses interesting adjectives. The adjectives Bill Peet uses is another great thing about his books. I wanted to elaborate on this as well so I told the class to listen for all the neat adjectives he used throughout the story. I wanted them to be listening carefully to them so they could discuss them with me and eachother after the story was finsished. Hopefully they will put the adjectives they heard throughout the story to good use in their own papers they write.
I was so releaved when the students looked excited about the story and were participating. My nerves calmed down and it was so comforting to see them know so much about Bill Peet and adjectives. Mrs. Rollins has done a very good job with them and they made my read aloud experience go very smoothly. Also I wanted to talk a little bit about the story's plot, theme, setting and characters. I think all these aspects are very important for the comprehension of the story and it helps them be successful in the future with reading. I really enjoyed the read aloud experience because I felt like it was good pratice for me as far as being a teacher in the furture. I felt like I actually taught them a lesson just through reading a story to them by asking questions and elaborating on certain things they need to know to read better and write better. After it was all over I realized more than ever that this is what I want to do. I loved it!