5/14/2025 – End of the Year Book Give Away

Today I had a very special reading event for my Pre-K class. I normally read with kids one at a time, but today I read with the whole class. And, each child in the class got to take home their own copy of the book that we all read together!

The Book:

Picking one book to give away to all students is a tricky business. To start with, you have to give the same book to every student. If you try to give out different books to kids, things won’t end well. So, you have to pick a book that you think all the students could be interested in and get something out of. This is tricky at this age because there’s such a wide variation of reading skill in the class.

Having said all that, A is for Apple fit the bill perfectly. For one thing, this is a lift-the-flap book, and what kid doesn’t love a lift-the-flap book! So, it appeals to everyone from the get-go. The topic of the book is ABCs which I’ve found are universally appealing to pre-school kids. I think kids like ABCs because they feel a sense of mastery over the subject.

The Process:

Here is how the process went: First I (re) introduced myself to the whole class. Many kids in the class I know very well and others I hardly know at all. I told the kids that it was an honor and a privilege to get to know them and read with them this year. The kids loved to hear that and practically beamed with pride! This honestly choked me up a little bit so I quickly moved on…

I held up one copy of the book and introduced the book to the kids.  I showed them how the flaps open. I told them that the flaps can be hard to open the first time especially for young people whose nails are short, so I told them to raise a hand if they need any help. (This actually worked well. We had only one ripped flap that day which we remedied with tape.) Then I explained how we would hand out the books and read them together.

Next, we handed out a book to each child. The classroom assistant wrote each child’s name on the book. In the future I might get a bookplate for this purpose to make it feel more official. For those children that weren’t in school that day, we wrote the child’s name on the book and set it aside for them.

Then we started reading the book together, one page / one letter at a time…

I would say, “A is for Apple, and ___?”

Then the kids would say the A word matching the picture under the flap… “ant!”.

If the word might be unfamiliar to them, like “Vase” or “Yacht”, I would explain the word.

This book worked great in a large group because all students could get involved and respond to the prompt. Since the answer to the prompt is only one word there was no concern about kids talking over each other.

After the first reading through the book, I started over. I showed the students how to trace the ‘grooves’ in the book with their finger to learn how to write the letter (see picture below). That’s a little something extra that the more advanced students could do over the summer.

And then we played a game where we thought of other words for each letter, eg. “A” words, then “B” words etc. for each page. We didn’t go through the whole book on the second reading, but I have done this with smaller groups (playing the word game).

A second chance to Read Together:

For the past 9 months I have dedicated myself to one Pre-K classroom. There were 16 children in the class ranging in age from 3 years (especially at the beginning of the year) to 5 years (towards the end of the year). There is a huge range of skill level in this age group.

Once a week, throughout the school year, I read with kids one at a time - sometimes 2 kids together if they were older. For this age group I believe its most effective to focus on one child at a time. This one-on-one time with a student is actually quite rare and special. Teachers and assistants seldom get to spend dedicated one-on-one time with a student.

Over the course of the year, I read with 7 of the 16 students in the class. The students who didn’t read with me this year mostly weren’t ready (yet). Their time was better spent practicing basic skills and letting themselves grow up a little. But many of these students will be coming back to the same classroom next year – so I will have another chance to read with them! At the beginning of this school year, I felt guilty that I didn’t have enough time to read with all of the students. I’m feeling so much better now that I realize that I’ll have a second chance to read with them next year.

So that’s another reason why interacting with the entire class today was so important. I got to introduce myself to the children again and invite them to come read with me next year. And I gave them their own book to practice with and learn from over the summer. My hope is that, in the Fall, these students will be more comfortable with me and ready to get started reading right away.