I just started teaching 1st grade this week. Every day I do a read aloud with the children. This week I have just read a child selected book. However, I would like to start reading a chapter book/novel that would be ongoing, a chapter a day perhaps. Last year I did this with my 2nd graders (James and the Giant Peach, Charlotte's Web, etc). Does anyone have any good ideas/recommendations for appropriate selections for 1st grade? I have a wide range of reading/comprehension levels and obviously want all children to be interested and comprehend.
My kids like Judy Moody books by Megan McDonald and the books by Suzy Kline ... they are funny and sometimes my kids even talk about them outside of read aloud time.
Any Beverly Cleary or Judy Moody books Consider your class makeup too... do you have more boys or girls?
They LOVE Junie B. Jones. I don't like reading them all the time... but we read Junie B. First Grader at the beginning of the year. It was perfect. Right now we are doing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which they are so excited about. I have never read the book before so it's fun for me too.
I would consider getting them into quality literature. My Father's Dragon is a great one. The Hundred Dresses is another good one. I think Charlotte's Web is appropriate for first graders as well...the first grade teacher at my school read it to her students and they had so much fun with it...doing character webs (spider webs about the characters) and other fun responses.
My kids love Junie B. Jones, Beverly Cleary, Judy Moody, Tomie dePaola chapter books, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Charlotte's Web. I teach both first and second. Some of those books, I read in second. In second, I also read The Doll People.
I second Charlotte's Web. I read it to my class at the beginning of the year to talk about friendship.
