Education Booklists

Grades: K-1
This guide provides effective strategies for selecting books and using read-alouds to develop children’s oral language, vocabulary, concepts of print, alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and comprehension. The authors take teachers step by step through planning and setting goals for read-alouds, as well as reflecting on each lesson to inform future instruction.

Grades: K-5
The author suggests that the read aloud for students can be one of the most potent instructional moments of the school day, but thoughtful planning is required. Intentional read alouds require purposely selecting texts and times with the intent to inspire students to read and write, invest in students’ language and understandings, and instruct across the curriculum.

Grades: K-3
The author shares two-page read aloud plans for 101 picture books to help teachers consider what to notice, say, and wonder in order to bolster students’ literacy. The intention is to spark instructional conversations around each book’s cover illustration, enriching vocabulary words, literary language, and the ideas and themes vital to young learners.

Grades: K-3
One easy way to provide content area instruction to very young readers is by scaffolding beneficial learning subjects within memorable read-aloud activities. This book offers teachers and librarians over 700 content area connections through carefully selected children’s trade books, including both fiction and non-fiction titles.

Grades: K-12
The sixth edition of this work imparts the benefits, rewards, and importance of reading aloud to children of a new generation. Supported by both anecdotes and the latest research, the author offers techniques and strategies—and the reasoning behind them—for helping children discover the pleasures of reading and setting them on the road to becoming lifelong readers.

Grades: K-6
This book illustrates how teachers can champion purposeful listening and help students better understand their language strengths and needs. It offers a practical framework that shows the value of recording and sharing the ideas of others; provides opportunities to identify the norms and conventions associated with oral language; and frees students to listen more attentively, organize their responses, and watch for the subtle cues that are an important part of listening.

Grades: 3 -5
Use thoughtfully chosen multicultural mentor texts, such as We are the Water Protectors, Dreamers, and Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, to build classroom community and honor the identities of everyone in your class. Companion mini-lessons offer reading strategies, discussion questions, and carry-over coaching prompts designed to hone students' comprehension skills, including character analysis, determining themes, and exploring perspectives. A must-have resource in every classroom!

Grades: K-2
A teacher and an actress, the author explains her 10 principles for best preparing and presenting read-alouds to elementary and middle school students. Each chapter focuses on a specific guiding principle that is drawn from the arts and is meant to spark engagement, provoke inquiry, and inspire deep thinking.

Grades: K-5
Award-winning children's author and acclaimed educator Lester L. Laminack provides guidelines, lessons, and resources for making every read-aloud experience intentional and instructional to engage students in deep thinking about fiction and nonfiction books. Central to Laminack's message is his breakthrough thinking about the value and importance of "Best Friend Books"--a small, carefully curated collection that you repeatedly turn to for specific teaching purposes. You'll also find: Step-by-step lessons for "first visits" and "return visits" to recommended Best Friend Books--clear guidelines for digging deeply and enriching students' understanding of content and craft Links to an online resource bank that contains "Spotlight on Lester" videos, graphic organizers for you, and downloadables for your students "What the Research Says" boxes that point to studies supporting Laminack's professional advice An annotated and alphabetized list of Laminack's favorite Best Friend Books "Home Visit" boxes that contain tips and tools for welcoming families into the work

It’s true – this is a picture book with no pictures. But the reader has to say every silly word that’s on the page, no matter what…even if it’s “BLUURF”.

When a little boy throws a coin into a wishing well and asks for a pet unicorn, he has no idea what kind of trouble he’s in for. Unicorns make the absolutely worst pets: they shed, they make a big mess, and they poke holes in your ceiling!

It’s okay to need some help. It’s okay to be a different colour. It’s okay to talk about your feelings. Todd Parr shows lots of ways in which it’s okay to be different – you can probably think of even more.

Everyone gets a little nervous on the first day of school – including the school! What will the children do once they come? Will they like the school? Will they be nice to him?

Every Sunday after church, CJ and his grandma ride the bus across town. But today, CJ wonders why they don’t own a car like his friend Colby, and why doesn’t he have an iPod like the boys on the bus. Each question is met with an encouraging answer from his grandma.

Pig, Chicken and Cow think their barn home is perfect. The only thing that isn’t perfect is Dog, whose drool makes it feel as if it’s raining in the barn. One day, Pig and Chicken decide to go exploring, leaving Cow behind. When Dog tips the barn over, Pig and Chick must make a daring rescue.

When Leo is playing ball in the courtyard, he runs into Mr. Zinger, a man with a hat who makes up stories. Together, they build a new story, with Mr. Zinger providing most of the plot while Leo fills in the details.

His mum is a spoon. His dad is a fork. And Spork is a bit of both of them. He never gets chosen to be at the table at mealtimes until one day a very messy … thing arrives in the kitchen who has never heard of cutlery customs.

In the time before animals were as they are today, Raven and Loon were both white. Raven spent his days swooping through the sky trying to fight off boredom, while Loon spent her days in her iglu sewing. One day, too bored to even fly, Raven visited Loon and suggested a sewing game that would give their feathers some much-needed colour.

Saddened by her classmates' and teacher's mispronunciations of her name, a girl is empowered by her discovery that names are like songs when she and her mom celebrate the musicality of African, Asian, Black-American, Latinx, and Middle Eastern names.