texts

A SHORT TEXT SET AT YOUR FINGERTIPS: PICTURE BOOKS

Written by Julie Wright & Elizabeth Keim

By design, picture books combine the wisdom of the words with the visual power of the illustrations to convey the story.  Beginning with the earliest readers, picture books create building blocks that promote a lifelong love of literacy.  

We love picture books because they can be read multiple times and for multiple reasons. We love to share picture books with students.  Sometimes we read aloud to students for pure pleasure or to showcase fluent reading.  Other times, we use shared reading as a way to dive into a book with students so that we can unpack the story and co-construct meaning together. 

Shared Reading

If you liked our Short Texts at Your Fingertips: Picture Books (Fiction), we think you’ll love these ideas about taking one short text about a favorite picture book and expanding it into a short text set.  Just a reminder:  If you don’t have this book at your fingertips, swap it out for one you do have  and imagine other short texts you can pair with it to create a short text set.  

TRY THIS

Step 1

Some children may need some historical background to understand this book.  Consider both the background knowledge the children already have and their developmental age when you introduce this book and texts that support this book in the short text set.

Start by sharing Who Are Your People?, written by Bakari Sellers and illustrated by Reggie Brown.  As you share the book, spend some time talking about the opening page.  Use this excerpt from the book to launch an authentic conversation about the people who have shaped you/us. 

Who are Your People?

Then, as you read the rest of the book, consider:

  • Listening to Who Are Your People? read aloud by the author, Bakari Sellers.

  • Leaning into the illustrations (check out Reggie Brown’s website) and references to the figures in the book which includes:

    • Muhammed Ali

    • Maya Angelou

    • Stacey Abrams

    • Martin Luther King, Jr.

    • Harriet Tubman

    • Barack Obama

    • Serena Williams

    • Jackie Robinson

    • Kamala Harris

    • John Lewis

  • Talking about the proverb in the book that says, “it takes a village to raise a child.”

  • Discussing the call to action at the end of the book that reads, “So what will you dream, and how will you change the world?”

Step 2

Sharing this picture book can lead to other reading, writing, and talking opportunities, especially when you curate a short text set that includes picture books and other short text types like the example below.  Take a look.

Picture Books

Use this short text set during whole group shared reading, with small groups or give students individual opportunities to read the texts to learn more about civil rights, Black heroes and resistance stories.  

In addition, you could:

GOING DEEP & WIDE

Looking for more titles and short text types that add to and expand your text set?  Check out these titles:

Hero's Books

STAY TUNED!

More about short texts and short text sets coming soon!

Short Texts at Your Fingertips: Images & Pictures

Written by Julie Wright & Elizabeth Keim

We offer you Short Texts at Your Fingertips. Twice each week, we provide teaching ideas around a different type of short text that is easily found in the home, so that no family feels under-resourced. These ideas can integrate into virtually any curriculum and pedagogy, from Workshop to basal. If you are a caregiver, teacher, or curriculum director, these brief but mighty texts and lessons are our way of saying thanks. And our way of giving children authentic and enjoyable reading and writing engagements each day. 

SHORT TEXTS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS: IMAGES & PICTURES

If we want students to read the world around them, we have to expand the types of texts that we ask them to read, inside and outside of school.  Said another way—our kiddos deserve to read texts everyday that go beyond textbooks and test prep passages. In addition, they deserve to spend their learning time doing things that boost their curiosity, creativity and ingenuity. 

Have you ever scrolled through your camera roll and found pictures that bring back great memories?  Or, have you ever noticed a picture you don’t even remember taking? Images and pictures can be found everywhere and are great short texts to explore.  They can be found in family photo albums, books, wall calendars, game board boxes, packaging from a recent delivery, or online. There are also lots of credible sources that share photos of the day or week.  Here are a few examples:

TRY THIS!

Step 1

Grab any image or picture that you find in your house or online and ask:  

  • What do you notice?

  • What do you wonder?

  • What do you think this image / photo is about?   

  • Does it have a title or caption?

  • Who is the author?

Step 2

Take a closer look at the image / picture and discuss:

  • What does this image / picture make you think about?  

  • What connections can you make?  

  • How does this image / picture make you feel?  

  • When do you think this image / picture was taken?  For what reason?

Here’s an example of an image we love.  

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Here’s what we noticed:

  • This looks like a bee hive or a wasp nest. 

  • it was hanging from a branch, but fell to the ground.

  • No bees or wasps are living in it right now.

Here’s what we wondered:

  • Is this a bee hive or wasp nest? What’s the difference?

  • How many bees or wasps would typically live here?

  • How long do the bees or wasps stay here?

  • Is this dangerous to be around?

Step 3

Look for other reading, writing and talking opportunities using this short text type.

Reading  Ideas  

  • Read/watch information about bees for a mini-inquiry study focused on one or more of the following ideas:

    • Bee swarms

    • Bee hives

    • Bee lifespan

    • Importance of bees to our environment

    • Bee stings/allergies

    • Products made from bees

  • Explore the Cincinnati Zoo and learn more about bees.

  • Watch a short video from National Geographic about bees.

  • Search, sort, and read infographics about bees.  Examples can be found here.  

Writing  Ideas  

  • Create a two column chart.  

    • In the left-hand column, write things you think you know about bees.

    • In the right-hand column, write things you are wondering / things you want to know about bees.

  • Write/draw some ideas related to bees focused on one or more of the following ideas:

    • List of questions about bees

    • Create a top 10 list of bee facts

    • Draw the relationship between hives, bees, and flowers

    • Make your own informational bee book

  • Write bee and bug jokes.

  • Draw some pictures of bees.  Use crayons, colored pencils, markers, or watercolors to add color.

Talking  Ideas 

  • Discuss the different types of bees and hives after watching All Things Animal TV about bees.

  • Read and talk about The Good of the Hive project by Matthew Wiley.  Check out the About page for some background information.

  • Talk about bee idioms (the bee’s knees, busy as a bee, have a bee in one’s bonnet, queen bee)

  • Have a conversation about honey.  Note: This conversation may lead to more reading, writing and talking.

    • Do you like honey?  Why or why not?

    • What are the major honey companies?  Where are they located?

    • What types of recipes include honey as a major ingredient?

    • Are there honey festivals?  If so, when and where?

    • Why are honeycomb cells hexagonal?

Step 4

Look for other images / pictures that you find and read those too! 

FOR MORE RESOURCES, CHECK THESE OUT!

  • The Bee Book by Charlotte Minor

  • Enjoy some jokes about bees and bugs here.

  • Look at Burt’s Bees and talk about the company’s purpose, People, Profit, Planet.  

    • What do you think?

    • What ways could you go out and change the world for the greater good?

  • Explore bee poems (Do a quick search and lots of bee poems can be found.  Reminder to preview them before sharing them.)

COMING SOON!

Short Texts:  Mighty Mentors That Move Readers and Writers Forward by Julie Wright & Elizabeth Keim (2022)

From Ed Consultant to Teacher Mom: Reflection #5

Creating a Text Set Using a Chapter Book & Short Texts

I love books.

I love the smell of them. The feel of them. The stories and information inside them.

Additionally, I love texts — all shapes and sizes.

Some people say friends are tucked inside of books and texts. I agree that is true for some, but for me they are guides more than they are friends. Books and texts guide me to appreciate the familiar and experience the new or unfamiliar. They teach, mentor, provoke, inspire, and guide.

Books and texts have a dual role in my literacy journey. I can consume them [read, watch, view, listen] and I can produce them [write, sketch, make, create, design, perform]. In turn, when I’m working with school leaders, coaches, teachers, and kiddos, my goals always include creating similar learning opportunities where we consume and produce books and texts.

Taking It Slow

For the past two weeks or so, my boys and I have been joining together once a day for some book club time. As I mentioned in this blog post, we started reading Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech. Besides the fun conversation about the book, it’s characters, and all things donkey — the best part is that we are taking it slow. We have found that our pace doesn’t matter. We aren’t racing a clock, we aren’t trying to get to the end, we aren’t hurrying so that we can jump to the next thing. We are lingering and it feels so good and so right. It’s just what we need right now.

Using Text Sets to Inspire More Reading & Writing

When we put texts together that have something in common with one another, we create a text set. In this case, we put both long and short texts — and texts of different shapes and sizes — together to create a text set. As mentioned, we are using this chapter book to jump start some reading and writing tied to our interests. In addition to reading Sharon Creech’s Saving Winslow, here are some reading and writing opportunities that we created with and for one another.

Note: There was no magic in what we read or wrote and/or the order in which we did them. We let our conversations and our inquiries lead our decision-making. Together, we:

  1. Read a few reviews of the book.

  2. Previewed Sharon Creech’s website. We went back to this site multiple times for different reasons.

  3. We read and watched different texts to increase our knowledge of donkeys.

  4. We wrote in our notebooks to ask questions, noodle ideas, and hold our thinking.

    • Reflections and wonderings after reading chapters from the book

    • Interesting and intriguing donkey facts

    • Sticky notes filled with old and new ideas

    • Questions we have for Sharon Creech

    • A letter we co-wrote to Sharon Creech

    • Addressing an envelope and a self-addressed envelope for the letter we wrote

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We aren’t finished with this study yet, but I’m excited to see where we head in the days to come!