1st Grade Reading Curriculum Interactive Read Alouds | Empowering Little Readers

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First grade teachers, are you looking for something to make planning for your whole group literacy block or Reader’s Workshop time easy and fun? These 1st grade interactive read aloud units contain everything you need to teach foundational skills, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, story elements, shared reading, and vocabulary.

The Empowering Little Readers First Grade reading curriculum is based on the close read model for interactive read alouds – each week you will focus on one book and going deeper within that text.

Each week contains 5 days worth of lesson plans for you with foundational or phonemic awareness activities, shared reading with weekly poems, whole group reading lessons, independent work, vocabulary, literacy crafts, original nonfiction books, comprehension checks, mentor sentences with grammar mini-lessons, and directed drawings.

What is included in each unit?

• Literacy Lesson Plans for 4 weeks
• Phonemic Awareness lessons and activities
• Shared Reading Poems
• Poetry Notebook Pages
• Poem Paper Reader
• Posters and Anchor Charts
• Daily Writing Response for Comprehension
• Vocabulary Picture Cards
• Vocabulary Movement Cards
• Vocabulary Interactive Notebook Pieces
• Vocabulary Practice Pages
• Original Nonfiction Book
• Mentor Sentence Study
• Crafts
• Directed Drawings
• Comprehension Quiz

What if I don’t teach Aug-May?

These can be taught whenever you are in school! I personally begin teaching in September and we will start with the August unit. You can teach the books out of order, but I suggest not moving the foundational skills/phonemic awareness lessons as they will build on each other. BONUS BOOKS can be swapped in where you want or used to extend the year.

Books needed:

August

• Mae’s First Day of School
• Giraffe Problems
• Jabari Tries

September

• A Bad Case of Stripes
• Applesauce Day
• The Goose Egg
• The Little Red Fort

October

• Bats
• Runaway Pumpkins
• I Need My Monster
• The Scarecrow’s Hat

November

• Time for Cranberries
• Llama Destroys the World
• The Golden Acorn
• A Plump and Perky Turkey

December

• Owl Moon
• A Sled for Gabo
• A Loud Winter’s Nap
• The Lion Inside

January

• The Koala Who Could
• Cinders
• Flight School
• Blizzard

February

• Each Kindness
• Love Is My Favorite Thing
• Luke Goes to Bat
• Dr De Soto

March

• That’s What Leprechauns Do
• The Fearless Flights of Hazel Ying Lee
• The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
• Lizard From the Park

April

• Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit
• Cloudette
• Coqui in the City
• The Honeybee

May

• Hattie and Hudson
• Inky’s Amazing Escape
• Follow the Moon Home
• Fireflies

First Grade Grammar Curriculum:

August:

• Nouns
• Verbs

September:

• Sentences begin with a capital letter
• Sentences end with punctuation – periods
• Review nouns and verbs
• Adjectives

October:

• Adjectives
• Nouns and Adjectives
• Questions
• Asking vs Telling Sentences

November:

• Singular and Plural Nouns
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Exclamation Marks

December:

• Common and Proper Nouns
• Pronouns I and me
• Pronouns he, she, they

January:

• Possessive pronoun my
• Irregular plural nouns
• Adjective synonyms
• Verb synonyms

February Grammar for 1st Grade:

• Shades of meaning
• Antonyms
• Possessive pronouns his, her, their
• Suffix -ed

March Grammar for 1st Grade:

• Suffix -ing
• Verb tenses
• Capitalization and commas in dates
• Commas in a series

April Grammar for 1st Grade:

• Conjunctions
• Conjunctions
• Compound sentences
• Contractions

May Grammar for 1st Grade:

• Shades of Meaning
• Homophones
• Homonyms – multiple meaning words
• Affixes – prefixes

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What are the benefits to using 1st grade interactive read aloud lessons in your classroom? Interactive read alouds give your read alouds purpose! They allow you to meet standards in an engaging way while using picture books as mentor texts to teach 1st grade comprehension strategies. They also give students a connection to new vocabulary words.

These books seem too hard for my 1st grade students! You, the teacher, will be reading these books to students whole group. They will be working on comprehension strategies while listening to the story. These interactive read alouds will not take the place of your phonics instruction or small group reading instruction.

How would you suggest fitting these interactive read alouds into my ELA block? These 1st grade interactive read alouds would take place during your whole group reading curriculum (classroom read alouds). This might look like:

• Phonemic Awareness Mini Lesson – 5 minutes
• Shared Reading – 5 minutes
• Empowering Little Readers Lesson – 20 minutes
• Students complete independent practice from the lesson (this is their ticket to centers) – 5 minutes
• Literacy Centers and Small Group Reading – NOT in this curriculum
• Phonics Lesson and Practice – NOT in this curriculum
• Vocabulary Mini Lesson – 5 minutes
• Mentor Sentence and Grammar Mini Lesson – 5-10 minutes

What are the benefits to using mentor sentences in 1st grade? Mentor sentences allow first grade students to work on concepts of print, fluency and reading with expression, and grammar skills while relating to their read aloud.

Do these 1st grade reading units include comprehension tests or assessments? Yes, there is a comprehension check quiz about the text at the end of the week. This assessment is optional.

What do the first grade vocabulary lessons look like? The 1st grade vocabulary lessons are short mini lessons. Each week will focus on 4 vocabulary words that come from the interactive read aloud, which will give students a connection to the words. Students will learn the vocabulary words with hand motions, define and illustrate the vocabulary words, relate the vocabulary words to their own experiences, and use the vocabulary words in sentences.

What does shared reading look like in 1st grade? Shared reading is first grade poetry. All 1st grade poems included in these units are original poems written by me! Each day, you will read the first grade poems together for fluency. Students will receive their own poems to put in a poetry folder or notebook. They will also receive a paper poem book for each poem.

What do the 1st grade phonological and phonemic awareness lessons look like? These are quick, teacher-directed phonological and phonemic awareness mini lessons. They are scripted for you. Some weeks include a game and/or worksheet, but not every week.

Questions? Email me at [email protected]