Flipping Picture Books for Reading and Writing

A teacher once asked me, "How do you find the time to teach everything in reading and writing?" One technique I use is called "flipping." I select a high-quality picture book that will interest my students. I'm searching for mileage. How much can I get out of one little book? A lot! Picture books are often the best written texts you can find. A great deal of hard work goes into these short pieces of writing. The end result is plenty of mileage for teaching both reading and writing.

You can flip a text the same day, or go back to a text you've used in the past. Begin using the picture book for teaching reading. What skills and strategies do you plan to teach? Where in the text can you find opportunities to stop and model your thinking using a specific reading skill or strategy? Place sticky notes on your "teaching moments" pages.

You can spend several days "reseeing" a picture book. On day one you might read the text as a read aloud in order to respond and make text connections. On day two perhaps you will focus on vocabulary within context. On day three you could use the text to focus on a specific skill (like cause and effect) or a strategy (like visualizing). On day four you might bring the text alive with a dramatization or reader's theatre. The teaching possibilities are endless.

Choose to go back into the text on the same day or next week. This time you are "flipping" over to the text as a writer. Your goal is to help children read the text like a writer and "notice" how the writer crafts their piece. A quality written text will give you ample opportunities for inquiry, or you could select a few sentences in order to focus on a teaching point. Since you spent time with the text as a reader you can go straight to the heart of the text as a writer.

Utilizing the same piece of text for teaching reading and writing not only saves you time, but it also deepens the reading experience. Analyzing text for writing craft is not as new as you might think. Writers have been undergoing this process since the beginning of the written word. Did you know Benjamin Franklin taught himself to write by copying other texts over and over again? Flipping a picture book allows young readers to see a text from both the reader and the writer's point of view. Deep analysis of a text helps children to understand the text at a higher level. Flipping texts is a great way to bring enduring conversations about great books into your classroom. Go ahead - flip a book with your class today!

Do you need ideas for which picture books to use in order to teach reading and writing? Check out our Reading Workshop and our Six Traits Writing Workshop pages. We've already done the work for you. You will find picture books listed in categories for different teaching points. We are not finished adding to these pages, so keep checking back for updates.

Pop Culture, the Jonas Brothers, and Teaching Reading

What does pop culture and the Jonas Brothers have to do with teaching reading? I recently discovered a way to my student's motivation button when I brought in a magazine article about the Jonas Brothers.

Besides getting my students excited about reading, I was able to get a lot of mileage out of one article. We began by hitting background knowledge (schema). They had it; I didn't. I learned a great deal about this three man teenage band. The kids filled me in on the Jonas Brother's hobbies, interests, music, and more. Our community based schema gathering allowed us to come up with hot button questions that set a purpose for reading.

Questioning wasn't the only strategy or skill we took from this simple, pop culture article. My class recognized text features such as pictures and captions, and learned about new text features like sidebars. They figured out the article was written like a story (what we call narrative nonfiction) with quotes (instead of dialogue) and characters (the Jonas Brothers) and setting (the article carried us through places and events).

We didn't stop there. We found three "big ideas" in the article and was able to create a summary out of those ideas. The article started out telling about the Jonas Brothers adventures during their early days of superstardom, but then it went back into time and talked about their struggles before hitting the big time. This gave my students a chance to see how an author can go back and forth in the present and past. They also learned that being a superstar requires sacrifice and perseverance, and even though there are lots of great benefits, there is also a downside to the kind of life the Jonas Brothers lead.

Our pop culture article gave us a number of new vocabulary words to tackle. We learned words like "overzealous" and "repercussions". The kids had a blast learning these big words. I put my drama hat on and acted out being an "overzealous" fan. Let's just say they will never forget what the word "overzealous" means. The article brought to my classroom a high interest, engaging opportunity for learning and laughter.

Now that I've discovered my student's hot button, I'm on a roll. Everything doesn't have to be about pop superstars, but surely we can tap into our kids interest. What about an article on skateboarding or BMX racing? The boys will eat this up. And the girls will love reading about the latest fashions, tips on texting, or other push button topics. The opportunities to meet kids where they live are endless when we choose 21st Century topics to explore as great reading material.



-Lisa Frase
Copyright 2008 Effective Teaching Solutions / Teaching eVentures