Do you want to engage your students in interactive, meaningful, and engaging experiences? Then you need the perfect shared reading lesson plan!

Shared reading is a piece of your reading block where reading skill instruction happens in a magical way. As you share a specifically chosen mentor text with your students, you are modeling how to be a good reader. They will be hanging on your every word of your shared reading lesson plan! They know that if they try to think and talk about text like you, they will grow to be a good reader LIKE YOU!

Our students soak up everything we do. Therefore, this is our opportunity to show them good reading habits and what it looks like to use these reading strategies teachers are always talking about to fully dive into a book and enjoy the wonderful experience of reading it!

Parts of a Shared Reading Lesson Plan

Connection to Real Life in your Lesson Plan

This is the hook where you are grabbing your students’ attention. You are making them excited to jump into the whirlwind of the shared reading lesson plan. There are two ways that you can do this:

• Concrete Connection- “Last night when I got home I could smell the most delicious smell! I could tell there was some chocolate, sugar, cinnamon in the air. I made an inference that my daughter was baking chocolate chip cookies because I know that her cookies have those smells! I make inferences at home just like we do while we read. Today we are going to practice inferences while reading ___”
• School Connection- “This week we are reading about making inferences. While we read ___ (book) we will use our good reader skills to make inferences to help us understand the story.”

I have used both types of connections. The concrete connection, I’ve noticed, not only brings the reading skill to life but also grabs your students’ attention! I mean who doesn’t love a good story about chocolate chip cookies…

Name the Teaching Point

My teaching points always incorporate mentioning the Comprehension Crew character that we are using to learn the skill. So it sounds like, “When Shane the Synthesizer is cooking, he needs to think about all the possible ingredients. He needs to mix together the right ones to make the best meal possible. Readers mix together their thoughts, feelings, opinions, ideas, connections, and evaluations like ingredients to cook up their best understanding of the text. Good readers synthesize all of these parts of their thinking while reading.”

If you are not using the Comprehension Crew you could say, “Readers mix together their thoughts, feelings, opinions, ideas, connections, and evaluations like ingredients to cook up their best understanding of the text. Good readers synthesize all of these parts of their thinking while reading.”

Think Aloud Modeling during your Shared Reading Lesson

The most important part of your shared reading lesson plan is the think aloud modeling. This is where you are showing your students your thought process for using the comprehension strategy.

When I do this for synthesizing it sounds like:

“I now think Brandon might be sick because he doesn’t want to eat his snack either.” Then ask the students “Did you notice how I used my idea about what was happening and my connection about not eating to synthesize that Brandon might be sick?”

I am using our Shane the Synthesizer sentence frame “I now think… because …” while explaining what about the book prompted these thoughts.

Interactive Practice

Now it is the students’ turn! This is when all that work you put into creating your shared reading lesson plan transform into magic that shines though!

The key to this part is that the students take turns using the same sentence frame that you did to apply the reading skill.

Read more about how much time I allocate for teacher modeling vs. student practice here.

Closure

For synthesizing I would say, “Today we learned that you can synthesize your thoughts, feelings, connections, evaluations, and opinions about the text to help you best understand what is happening.”

The closure is the part of the shared reading lesson plan that I reiterate what our focus was and what the skill means.

The Steps to Plan a Shared Reading Lesson Plan

So now are you ready to plan your own lesson?!

Follow these steps and you will be on your way to an amazing experience with your students! Start with a shared reading for 10- 15 minutes at the beginning of the reading block. I separate a picture book over the 5 days so we can really dive into it during each session.

1. Pick a mentor text
2. Divide that book into 5 days. I count the number of pages but I also look for where parts in the story have a natural pause or if there is a suspenseful moment I can stop at in order to get students excited for the next day.
3. Plan the think alouds to model implementing reading strategies for your students. The first day I use most of the time to model and five a short amount of time for student interactive practice. As the week goes on I spend less and less of the time modeling the think alouds myself. See my time break down here.
4. Be confident and ready with sentence frames. When you use consistent wording, your students will use consistent wording! Side story- One time I called on a student to make an inference and they started telling me how the dog in the picture looked like their dog so I just simply redirected and said remember inferences start with “I can tell…” and they said “oh right I can tell that the boy is feeling sad because he is looking down at his feet not at his friends.” I was like WHOAAA the power of sentence frames!!! It keeps students so focused on the skill you are practicing!
5. Use a routine to ensure you are modeling then students get interactive practice time. I use the terms “my turn your turn” while leading so that it is clear. They know that until I say it is your turn to make predictions that they are listening, noticing what I say, and thinking but not speaking yet. If you have to keep telling them to put their hands down they will feel discouraged. These guidelines really help them prepare for that moment when I say it is your turn to make predictions while I read.

It’s important that the interactive student practice is the bulk of how the time is spent. This is the part of your shared reading plan that ensures your students will remember what an inference means. Your students will then be able to apply it to text independently.

Are you are feeling like this would be amazing for your students’ little minds and little hearts? Are you also feeling overwhelmed with how to plan that perfect shared reading lesson plan? Well I have two solutions for you!

1. Check out my Comprehension Crew resource where I have prewritten lesson plans for each reading skill. This resource can be used with ANY text! My Making Connections resource is free!
2. Join my email list where I weekly send tips and tricks to help you reach your little learners. You can also email me directly and ask me any questions you want!