Finding the Right Books

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Tell students that it's important to figure out which books are just right for us. This helps us to pick books that help us to grow as readers. We want books that aren't too easy (we wouldn't learn anything) or too hard (we wouldn't be able to understand what we read).
• Explain that one way to find just right books is to see how many tricky words are on a page. If there are more than five tricky words on a page, it might be too hard. If there are five or less, it might be just right.
• Model how to read one page of a book aloud. Write down any words that are tricky to read. Then count how many words there were in all.

Guided Practice

• Project the selected page. Pair students up and have them work together to read the text aloud.
• Have students count how many tricky words they encounter, then share their results with the class. Have students come up to the front of the class and point to or circle the tricky words they found.
• Count how many tricky words were found. Determine if this would be a page from a just right book for the class. (Note: Make sure you are talking about the level for the class, not individual students or pairs).

Independent working time

• Pass out the Picking "Just Right" Books worksheet to each student.
• Read aloud the directions and model how to use books to complete the worksheet.
• Instruct students to go to the classroom library and find books to use when completing the worksheet.
• Have students keep at least one of the books they identify as "just right" on their desks to read. As time permits, have students read the books.