Riveting Read-Alouds for Middle School: 35 Selections to Spark Deep Thinking, Meaningful Discussion, and Powerful Writing

by Janet Allen, Patrick Daley

Why read aloud to students in middle school? Reading aloud exposes them to a wide variety of text types and genres, builds background knowledge, models effective reading behaviors, and more. The selections in this book have been carefully chosen to appeal to diverse students and boost their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Each selection comes with a teaching page that includes discussion and writing prompts and more. A powerful way to cultivate students’ love of reading!

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Dolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled on this book and am so grateful I did! I read aloud to my 10 and 11 year old kids and they love it. But it has gotten harder and harder to find ideas of what to read that will span everyone's interests and comprehension, and some recent squabbles about what to read have endangered our precious family read-aloud tradition. So, we discovered this book just in time! It hits the sweet spot. There are selections here which I will read aloud and others which prompt ideas of longer works which I will seek out to read aloud. And, I appreciated all the educational ideas that accompanied each reading. I am not a middle school teacher so these ideas were great for a parent who might not intuitively think of the questions and discussion prompts. This book will keep us happy and busy for a while!

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Already ordered my own copy of this. Short and short-ish pieces (a mix of fiction, memoir, nonfiction, speeches, poetry, etc) , along with suggestions for teaching each of the pieces in a reading class: elements to focus on, vocabulary exercises, writing and discussion prompts, extension activities. I'm planning to start my year with some of these passages, until I figure out what novels are available and being used during the school year.