These are my favorite, and most effective, ways of teaching writing to elementary students. You may decide that teaching writing is
Find an extensive list of primary Mentor Texts for Common Core Literature Standards to help compliment your lessons in the classroom.
Have you been searching for a quick reference of mentor texts to support you in teaching comprehension strategies? Take a peek here...
When we teach the various comprehension strategies (making connections, asking questions, visualizing, inferring, predicting, summarizing, etc.), it is best to model these strategies ourselves. This is as important for the primary grades as it is for our older students. As students get older we sometimes shy away from picture books but there are so many […]
Need to teach theme but not sure where to start? I've gathered my favorite mentor texts you can use to teach theme in literature! Check these out!
Get a list of books to teach main idea to improve literacy and increase engagement in your early elementary grade classroom here!
Learn how to start effectively using mentor texts for writer's workshop to help boost all of your kindergarten, first garde, and second grade students.
Examples of mentor texts for teaching students to write engaging
Since it is summertime and so many of us are already in planning mode for next year, I wanted to utilize my Mentor Text series post this month to share books to help you teach your students about THEME! If you like any of the books you see in this blog post, you can click […]
Check out my 14 picture book recommendations. These are the best mentor texts for teaching personal narratives.
Mentor texts help upper elementary students improve writing in all areas. Start using mentor texts for writing instruction in your classroom.
Narrative Writing Mentor Texts This year our 1st grade team has transitioned to using Mentor Texts to teach and guide students through our writing genres. It’s my first year knee-deep in ment…
Use picture books personification examples as mentor texts for your writing workshop in the classroom at home to introduce figurative language.
This is my first time linking up with Collaborative Cuties for their Mentor Text Linky , so I'm pretty excited! I read all the fabulous ...
There are so many great plot structure mentor texts out there! It was incredibly difficult to narrow it down to these. In an effort to keep the post short, I
Use mentor text children's books to teach sensory description and model for our kids how good writers use all their five senses in their writing to show, not tell.
ideas for teaching sequence in upper elementary
Understanding story elements are important skills in both reading and writing. In lower graders, we often use the words beginning, middle, and end. We even briefly talk about describing the characters. But in upper elementary, we need our students to begin understanding that there is MORE than just these simple words. What is rising action? […]
Read on to see my list of the 12 best mentor texts for teaching fictional narratives to 3rd grade students. You'll love these picture books!
Teaching a narrative nonfiction unit in the upper elementary grades is so engaging with mentor texts and paired passages!
This book makes a great mentor text for a personal narrative genre writing unit! Kids can relate to Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe and use some of the strategies she uses to revise their writing workshop stories. Read this post for mini-lesson ideas, an anchor chart, and freebie for Show, not Tell! Great for kindergarten and first grade.
Looking for the right picture book to teach inferences? Check out my list of making inference mentor texts for the elementary classroom!
Read aloud these mentor text picture books to find simile examples and metaphor examples that show growing writers about figurative language.
Are your students stuck for ideas to write about? Are you teaching using the 6 traits and need a great mentor text? Using mentor texts can help to spark some idea generation for students who have difficulty coming up with ideas to write about. Read on to check out some of the best read alouds […]
Learn about narrative nonfiction writing and how to teach it using my favorite narrative nonfiction mentor texts in this blog post.
Teaching themes in literature made easy and effective! Read how I teach theme and the theme activities I use on this post, free resource included!
If you took a poll of current educators, one of the top things that teachers would tell you they need is more TIME. Although I can’t give you more time in your day, I can help you maximize your time! One struggle with time is being able to teach the many standards WELL in a […]
This making inference activity and lesson plan will help all of your readers succeed at making inferences and inferring as they independently read in your upper elementary and middle school classrooms. Making inference mentor text included.
I love teaching author's purpose...maybe it's the cozy PIE image it conjures up, or maybe it's the fact that for most kids, this is a concept that they "get" for the most part (with a little bit of explaining and some hands on practice). It's kind of the opposite of long division that way, if you know what I mean! Read more about Author's Purpose and how to teach it in this post by The Teacher Next Door.
Personal narrative writing is always a great place to start the year because it allows your students to write about a topic they are familiar with--themselves!
Do you ever read your students' writing and go, "Ummm... I wonder what language this is written in, because it's sure not English." I ...
I absolutely love to embrace the chaos of the Christmas season and tie the holidays into my December lessons! I love to find ways to make learning engaging for my students and still focus on my grade level reading standards. Below are a few books that are perfect mentor texts for teaching various reading comprehension […]
If you are looking for theme mentor texts or read alouds for teaching theme, this post shares 6 read alouds with summaries and possible themes for each.
Need to help bring text structure to life for your students? Check out these unique mentor texts that I've picked out just for you!
I am beyond passionate about writing. I truly believe that writing is the corner stone to all thinking. Through writing children gain higher level thinking, use their creative talents, strengthen their reading and speaking abilities, and so on! Writing is POWERFUL! I have one rule in my classroom (okay well maybe more than one) but ... Read More about Writing with Mentor Texts
These books are the perfect mentor texts and books to teach main character and character traits in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade.
I'm linking up with Amanda and Stacia for their Mentor Text Linky Party! This week, the subject is language arts and I'm going to share one of my favorite favorite favorite books with you: The Tiger Rising! Source - Amazon If you haven't read it, The Tiger Rising is about a boy named Rob who finds a tiger in the woods behind the motel he calls home. He then meets a girl who is new to town (Sistine) and feels compelled to tell her about the tiger. She tries to convince him to let the tiger go and, as luck would have it, the keys to the cage are presented to Rob. I won't ruin the end for you, but your students will have some very lively discussion about what Rob and Sistine should do and about how the author chooses to end the book. I use this text to introduce symbolism to my students. There are pretty heavy, and somewhat obvious, symbols used throughout the book. My students love talking about "the cage" and Rob's suitcase. In the text, the cage is an important image and students can discuss the characters who feel trapped in the story. Rob's suitcase is an imaginary place where keeps his feelings and "not-thoughts" tucked away. Here is an organizer I used with my class to keep track of the symbols that popped up throughout the novel. Click HERE to grab it! There's SO much you can do with this book. It's great for inference, character analysis, simile and personification! I'm working on editing the reading response sheets I used with my class and compiling all of the mini lessons we did so I can share them. Hopefully I'll be done before I'm ready to read it to my next class! Update: I'm done! I just finished compiling the unit and I'm SO proud of it! The Tiger Rising Unit and Novel Study on TpT This is an 83 page product filled with resources to help you teach the novel The Tiger Rising. Included in The Tiger Rising Novel Study, you will find: - Chapter by chapter notes for the teacher about the characters, symbolism, examples of literary technique and possible extension activities - Comprehension questions for each chapter. - Quoting text mini lessons and text based evidence transitional phrases - Vocabulary for each chapter, a graphic organizer for finding word meaning in context and a sheet for writing definitions and meaningful sentences. I've also included cute, themed word cards for your to use on your word wall! - Symbolism poster and graphic organizer - Compare/Contrast mini lesson support; many of the prompts require the students to compare and contrast, so I've included posters for this topic. - Reading Response Questions: these questions are more indepth and promote higher order thinking than basic comprehension questions. There are 18 pages of questions with space for student responses. -Character analysis graphic organizers: one organizer for each of the main and supporting characters in the text. Students will use the character's words and deeds to support a trait chosen. -Figurative language mini lesson resources to help you teach author's craft - Fact and opinion sort Check out my TpT store to see the unit! Have you read The Tiger Rising with your class? What did they think?
