Once a week our youngest students gather together for their own read-aloud during the school-wide reading time. Some of them are just beginning to learn to read. Others have developed some reading skills and are just beginning to read independently. They all enjoy listening to a good story together, sharing their thoughts and questions about it.

Our theme this year is friendship. We began the year with a dog named Buddy and a hedgehog named Earl in Buddy and Earl and Buddy and Earl Meet the Neighbors. Frederick is about a mouse and his brothers who gather supplies for the winter, some of which are surprising. You may know Dav Pilkey for his Captain Underpants books, but we read some of his books about Dragon, a sweet, endearing, and silly character who gave us lots of opportunities to laugh. Several of Patricia Polacco’s books are about friends. We read Appelemando’s Dreams, Holes In the Sky, and John Philip Duck. Some other books that we read that have ducks as the main characters were Make Way for Ducklings and Chibi, A True Story from Japan. We read about siblings in Jamaica Tag-Along and in “The Pudding Like a Night On the Sea,” from The Stories Julian Tells.

We still have other friends to read about in the coming months, among them those two great friends, Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin.