Picture books offer rich experiences for readers of all ages. One thing that I LOVE about using picture books as the base to all of my reading plans, is that it offers such great opportunities to study, compare, contrast and make inferences about a wide variety of characters. We get to have real conversations about the “why” behind a character’s actions or motivations, we can dissect how each character influenced the story’s plot etc. I’ve also started including digital/ virtual anchor charts for strategies and skills we cover in class. I currently have 2 students who are full-time virtual learners, and having this resource for them to refer to and contribute input to has been awesome! This is an example of one of the anchor charts on character growth and development that I used with my class.
We followed up this discussion with a week long reading workshop on character growth and development with, you guessed it, a focus on picture book mentor texts. The books that go along with this workshop are some of my absolute favorite!
Day 1: The Raft by Jim LaMarche
Day 2: A Train to Somewhere by Eve Bunting
Day 3: An Angel for Solomon Singer by Cynthia Rylant
Day 4: Albert by Donna Jo Napoli
Day 5: The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
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