World Read-aloud Day - A Day Late.

In a French Immersion classroom I think reading aloud is vital to help students learn the flow, feel and rhythm of language. They also help students get beyond decoding and deciphering to feeling and hearing the stories. So for World Read-aloud Day (well the day after actually) I decided to look at ways I can get more read-alouds in my day.

My favorite lesson of the day ended up being about reading with expression. The kids had fun and so did I .  I learned playing with reading is as much fun as reading sometimes. 

I read them the story: Sortez de mon livre! by Nick Bland. 

When I started reading I read with no expression at all. The students looked at me strangely but Mme often does strange things so they waited. Then, I read the next few lines with expression.

I asked students what the difference was between the two and which they liked best. They all agreed they liked the second way best. They had great ideas about how it was different.  My favorite was the little guy who said "Les mots tombent et grimpent et vont partout." “The words fall and climb and go everywhere.”

I showed them some sentences on the smart-board and I asked them to partner up and read the sentence to their partner. Kids took turns spinning the spinner and then they would read the sentence again to their partners. They used the emotion on the board to decide how to read the sentence. Finally we would read the sentence “properly” as a class. We laughed a lot and enjoyed ourselves.

Click here to download the smartboard file

I ended the session by sending the kids off to read a book from their daily 5 bins to their partner . They were told to practice reading with the "right" emotions. The students were really excited to be reading. The room was abuzz with expression, emotion and sound.

What did I learn at school today? Playing words and emotions is fun and got my students excited about reading aloud.