Scripted Programs Limiting Your Read Alouds? Here's What Works!

In Part Two of my S5E21 @schoolutionspodcast conversation,  literacy expert Maria Walther focuses on the power of the read aloud. This episode offers more teaching strategies for educators and builds on our Part One conversation. Discover how incorporating read aloud stories and read aloud books can enhance reading instruction and foster a love for storytime in your classroom.

What You'll Learn:
✅ The Monday-Friday Sandwich Strategy for integrating picture books with curriculum
✅ How to plan strategic read-alouds (before, during, after reading)
✅ Why real books create bonds that videos cannot replicate
✅ How to select and teach tier-two vocabulary for active learning
✅ Planning 3-5 strategic questions instead of interrupting every page
✅ Reading books across multiple days for deeper student participation and attention in class
✅ Connecting read-aloud to writing workshop and oral language
✅ How caregivers can support education at home through read-aloud

💫Check out Part One (https://youtu.be/q-E19vZ1XCk) if you missed it on Monday

Some Resources Mentioned:
📚 The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
📚 Isabel Beck's work on tier-two vocabulary
📚 Maria Walther's website with book lists and PD protocols

Chapters
0:00 - Welcome to Part 2: The Power of Read Aloud
01:00 - Why Read Aloud Is NOT a Luxury
02:00 - Recap of Part 1 & Today's Focus
03:00 - The Monday-Friday Sandwich Strategy
05:00 - Where to Find Picture Books: Library & Resources
06:00 - Grade-Level Planning & Joyful Book Selection PD
07:00 - Strategic Read Aloud Planning: Before, During, After
09:00 - When to Pause: Reading Student Readiness
10:00 - Why Real Books Beat Video Read-Alouds
11:00 - Building Connection Through Read Aloud
12:00 - Selecting Tier-Two Vocabulary Words
13:00 - Connecting Read Aloud to Writing Workshop
14:00 - Reading 3-5 Books Daily: Making Time for What Matters
15:00 - Strategically Savoring: Pre-Planning vs. Pure Joy Reading
16:00 - Leading vs. Facilitating Conversations
17:00 - Maria's Dream: Read Aloud in Every Classroom Daily
18:00 - This Week's Challenge: Try the Strategies
19:00 - Next Week Preview: Writer's Play Shop with Katie Kier
20:00 - Wrap-Up & Resources

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Transcript

Olivia: [00:00:00] Welcome back friends. If you're joining me for the first time today, listen to part one of my conversation with Maria Walther first season 5, episode 21. I'll wait right here. For those of you who are back for part two, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. In part one, Maria and I dug into shared reading and how to shake it up using picture books you already have. It was so good. But today, today we are talking about read aloud. I know what some of you might be thinking: Olivia, I already know about read aloud. I read to my kids. But here's the thing. Are you reading real books in your hands or are you pressing play on a video? Because there's no time for anything else.

Here's what Maria is going to help us understand today. Read aloud is not a luxury. It's not an add-on. It's not something we do when we have extra time. It's a critical part of our day. [00:01:00] It's a gift that builds vocabulary, comprehension, and the kind of connection between you and your students that no curriculum or program can replicate. We're going to talk about how to strategically plan read alouds even when you're working with a published curriculum. Maria's going to share her Monday and Friday sandwich strategy that's going to blow your mind. And she's going to remind us why holding a real book in our hands and reading it to children matters more than we might realize. So settle in and let me reintroduce you to the power of read aloud. Here's part two of my conversation with Maria Walther.

This is Schoolutions Teaching Strategies, the podcast that extends education beyond the classroom. A show that isn't just theory, but practical try-it -tomorrow approaches for educators and caregivers to ensure every [00:02:00] student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. 

Hello, listeners, I am so excited to be back with our Friday part two. I am here with Maria Walther. If you have not listened to part one of our conversation, please pause this episode, go back, it's below this one, and then come back, uh, to this conversation. Maria, you kicked off part one by explaining why we need to shake up shared reading. We also danced between the bridge from interactive read aloud to shared reading and gave listeners that bigger picture.

You even explained how to take a read aloud experience and nurture it into a shared reading experience, a short burst. So listeners gotta listen to part one. Part two, I asked you if you could go much more in depth with read aloud. Read aloud for teachers that have published curricula options they have to use, uh, what do we [00:03:00] do when we're planning a read aloud? We need read aloud to be back on people's minds. Um, it is the heart for our children to connect. So thank you for joining me for part two of our conversation. 

Maria: You're welcome, Livi. All right, my, this is my favorite topic, so here we go. So, here we go. 

Olivia: So here we go. I'd love for you to take listeners through a Monday through Friday of how you can marry your favorite picture books with a published curriculum.

Maria: Okay. I've been doing a lot of this work with teachers using many different published curricula, and what we have found that works the best, is to select a picture book for Monday that you would use to introduce the concept, the topic, um, or the big idea or theme of that week in the curricula. And I've done this with kindergarten teachers, fifth grade teachers picture. You can find a picture book to illuminate just about any topic or concept. [00:04:00] Read that picture book as your introduction to the week, then continue with what the program says for Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, find a different picture book that you can compare and contrast with the main text for that week. And that offers benefits for students, um, to synthesize their understandings. 

It, it offers you, if you chose to, they can do some kind of a compare and contrast, you know, a Venn diagram or H chart, but by sandwiching the curricula with picture books, you're giving students an opportunity to see a wider range of vocabulary concepts related to that theme in the curriculum. 

Olivia: Ah, that's, so, that is really helpful. And you know, uh, it's impossible to ask you to go to one author or one picture book recommendation. What resources though, publishing [00:05:00] company-wise, do you recommend? Like how are you gathering these text ideas? 

Maria: To gather the text and ideas? I read. Thousands of picture books. 

Olivia: I know. 

Maria: So my go-to place is the library. I'm very fortunate that I have our local public library right here with within walking distance and they pull books for me all the time. I think you have to know books to be able to strategically select them for those different experiences. Um, I try, you know, on my website I have book lists. And I try to support teachers and that work as much as I can. Um, but I think, you have to read the books. 

Olivia: Yeah. And I'm wondering too, like, I, I'm just thinking of grade level planning time and teachers, their prep is so sacred and, but oh my gosh, this, this work is so worthy. And so even if you take like 10 minutes of a prep and each read different picture books and then share with each other, it's really joyful first of all. And second of all, you build that [00:06:00] um, little curated library for yourselves is a grade level too, so I could picture that happening. Um, and just we need as much joy as possible these days. Maria. 

Maria: I call that read aloud pd. So there's no protocol for that on my website because that's a great, a great PD experience.

Olivia: It is. I what I will do, listeners, just to make sure you know, I will tuck in your website links. Maria, I will put in links to your books and resources. Your website is magnificent. I also was saying to you, I'm loving following you on social because you're doing these little reels of goodness. And I'm saving every single one of them. And 60 seconds that keeps me going and plant seeds. So please keep doing those reels. Um, 

Maria: Yeah, I will try. 

Olivia: Yeah. Keep doing them. Uh, so let's go now since we have that bigger picture of Monday through Friday, what I'd love is if I'm sitting down to plan, I really wanna be strategic. Every moment counts with kids. And so what does it look like? [00:07:00] That I'm doing with the book before, like how can I interact with the cover? How am I capturing kids' intellect as I'm reading? And then what do I do at the end? 

Maria: Alright, so before reading. The cover, as you said, is a, a great place to start. And when thinking about as you're planning what to notice on the cover, my answer would be everything. There is so much to notice on the cover, and not only on the cover, but the back cover, taking that book jacket and pulling it off and seeing if there's a case cover underneath. But once you've done that, you wanna invite students into that conversation by asking, you know, what do you notice and how does what you've learned from exploring the cover and the back cover, how is that going to help to support you as you're reading the text between the covers? 

And during reading, um, because the, the magic of the read aloud is in the creation, you know, the words and the illustrations that these wonderful creators [00:08:00] have given us. So I don't want to interrupt the book too much with questions. So I try to plan three to five questions that are very focused on whatever the learning target is for that particular book, and you know, I put those on sticky notes or put those in the book and just ask them now, oftentimes we know that students’ noticings and questions will lead, lead you in a different direction, and sometimes we just go with that. And then after reading, um, you know, what happens when you close the book? Uh, sometimes nothing.

Sometimes silence as students take in what just happened in that book. Sometimes students clap, but the after reading questions are really, when you prepare those, you wanna draw them back to that beginning purpose statement: Why are we reading this book together and what have we learned from this experience?

Olivia: Yeah. You know, it's also making me think that [00:09:00] during the reading, those pause points, I appreciate so much that we do not wanna be stopping on every page, even every other. I actually, in my time with K through five classrooms, I almost wait, there's a moment where it feels like they're bubbling, almost bursting to say something and it would be negligent to not stop and hear what they're saying. So when you're, even if you have multiple points mapped for yourself, it's okay to keep reading beyond if they're not quite there yet. Because when you have them talk and engage, you want them all like mostly there with you ready. Um. It's also okay I think to pause and offer wait time because our children need time to process just like we do.

So just, that's why it's so important that we read aloud [00:10:00] to our children instead of pop a book up on the screen behind and have someone else read. I keep going back to a moment, Maria at NCTE. When you were, you first of all pulled the jacket off and there was this gorgeous book cover and you actually had to open the whole book up because the art covered the front and back. But then you also did take the time to say, a lot of these curricula options come with a video where you can just press play. And there is such value in a grown up reading aloud to children. Can you just illuminate that a little bit more? Like why, why do we need to read aloud to kids? 

Maria: Um, I think we need to read aloud real books because as you just said, you can explore a real book in your hands with children close by, and it develops a bond that the video read aloud does not give you. Every time you sit down and read aloud [00:11:00] with students, you're creating this connection among, with, among students themselves and with you and the, and the students. And as far as, you know, research goes, there are, I could go on forever about the research proven benefits of reading aloud books with kids. And so I think we, we just, we can't let that slip away. 

Olivia: No, we can't. And even, I mean, we're speaking for teachers right now, but holy cow, for caregivers as well. Reading aloud with your children, before they're even born reading aloud, building that library. And, um, it's just that, that idea of vocabulary and enriching development is, it's everything for kids to be exposed. I go back, Maria, I remember when I first moved to Ithaca, Jim Trelease came and presented at Cornell and I, I have the signed copy of The Read aloud Handbook. I thought, oh my goodness. And just hearing the significance of children being, um, [00:12:00] steeped in language around them before they are even saying their first word. It's so important. Um, so then let's talk vocabulary because how are you selecting certain vocabulary or terms or phrases to highlight when you're reading aloud? 

Maria: Um, prior to the read aloud, when I'm looking at a picture book, I'm thinking about three keywords in each picture book, and I learned that from Isabel Beck and her colleagues. You know, just thinking about those Tier Two words. So words that students can define or describe using concepts they already know, and those words that they're going to see in many of the books that they'll be reading. And so that's, I also look at the words if I, you know, once I've found those Tier Two words to see if they're repeated in the text or if students can def define them using the context of the sentence that they appear in or the, the, the pictures that [00:13:00] are, um, with them. So just really thinking about the words that are going to give them the most, the most utility, words with the most utility. 

Olivia: I love that. And then I think too, helping them transfer and practice applying those words during writing workshop. Or that writing time of day. And so there's this beautiful thread from phonics into shared reading that we're bridging. And then also thinking of read aloud vocabulary into just oral language usage, but also writing. These parts of our day are not silos and we, I think, silo them unintentionally for children. But the more we break those barriers down, our children see those threads connecting for them. And it's just endless possibilities.

And again, we need more joy. And you can see our faces if you're watching, like we love this because we see children thriving and just feeling successful and [00:14:00] joyful in the stories of characters that are like them. So then how do we savor read alouds? Because if we're saying Monday, we're introducing a read aloud potentially. And, uh, you know, I appreciate Monday/Friday, but as a teacher, I read aloud every day. I read different picture books – multiple - throughout the day because that's, we make time for what we value. But also I think it's hard for teachers right now because even if you do value read aloud. Your time, you are being told often to do something that may not match your values.

Maria: The Monday/Friday would only be if you're really struggling to fit that in. With a published curriculum like you, I mean, I read aloud three to five picture books a day, right? Every day I kept track, uh, kept a read aloud tally. So I, I'm a huge proponent of a lot more read aloud than that. Um, how do we strategically favor? One thing I wanna be clear about, so the readouts that we've been discussing today are [00:15:00] joyful, yet pre-planned. And many times, uh, we might just, we might just pull a book off the shelf and read aloud for pure joy, but in our days, we really have to have these strategically planned, interactive read alouds.

And so how do I strategically savor? And that's by knowing the book. So I have to, as we talked about, go in and really know that book. And that is the work that I've done in a lot of my books. Spent time getting to know that book, so that. I can match that book to my curriculum, my standards, and also so I can, not that I want to lead students' conversations 'cause they're gonna take it where they wanna go, but, so I can kind of bring those conversations back to that learning target. So I think we strategically savor by really knowing the book and making a, a clear plan for how we might do that interactive read aloud. 

Olivia: Well, and I, I appreciate that because there is a difference between leading and [00:16:00] facilitating, I think. And so that facilitation is drawing the learning out, drawing the conversation out, making sure that conversation is balanced and we're hearing all voices and, uh, you know, navigating turn and talk versus that pensive just one by one. So yeah, everything you're saying is just so, so critical and important. 

And then to wrap part two, Maria, I really would love to know what are your dreams and hopes for the future of read-aloud? What advice would you give to a teacher tomorrow or for Monday planning read aloud instruction. 

Maria: I think what I would say to teachers is when you pick up a picture book that you love and bring students close to you and read that picture book, you're giving them a gift. And that gift is, um, you know, obviously the skills and strategies that they're learning, but that shared experience of conversing about a book is so powerful. So my dream for the future is that [00:17:00] we are reading aloud in every single classroom, every single day, and hopefully more than once a day. 

Olivia: I, dream of the same. And, um, I just, I appreciate you, I appreciate the legacy that you have crafted and created, um, that will just follow you for many, many years to come and your dedication, endless dedication to children is just, it's spectacular. So I, I am so happy to have captured your brilliance in a conversation and, um, just thank you, Maria. I appreciate you so much. Oh, you're welcome. 

Maria: Oh, you’re welcome, Livi. This was wonderful. It's always great to chat with you and to talk about our favorite topics. 

Olivia: Yes, yes. All right. Take care, friend. Okay, can we just take a moment? Maria just reminded us why we became teachers in the first place. That connection, that [00:18:00] bond, that moment when you're holding a book and a child's eyes light up and you think this, this is why I'm here. I hope you caught Maria's Monday and Friday sandwich strategy. Start the week with a picture book that introduces your theme. Follow your curriculum Tuesday through Thursday and then end Friday with a comparison text. It's so simple, and yet it's so powerful because it gives you a way to honor what you know kids need while still doing what you're being asked to do. Most importantly, we need to follow our curriculum options with integrity, not just fidelity.

Here's what I hope you may try this week. Choose one picture book you love. Read it across multiple days instead of one sitting based on your time limits. Plan just three to five strategic questions instead of stopping on every page. Notice what happens when you give your students time to sit with this story, to return to it, [00:19:00] to let it marinate.

And then, and this is important, share what you noticed with a colleague. Pull them aside at lunch or during planning and let them know what you tried based on this episode. That's how we change the culture in our schools. We take risks, we try new things, and then we share how it went. 

Next week, I have another incredible conversation coming your way. I'm talking with kindergarten teacher Katie Keier, about Writers Playshop and how she transforms five-year-olds into confident authors from day one. No prompts needed. If you teach kindergarten or early elementary, you are not going to wanna miss this conversation. 

Until then, go read aloud to your kids. Hold those books in your hands. Create those connections. And remember this work matters. Schoolutions Teaching Strategies is created, produced, and edited by [00:20:00] me, Olivia Wahl. Thank you to my older son, Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background. You can follow and listen to Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube. Thank you again to my guest, Maria Walther for helping us re-envision and center the power of shared reading and read aloud as practices within our classrooms.

If this episode helped you in any way, share it, tag someone who needs to hear it, leave a review so other educators and caregivers can find it. And check out the show notes for links to Maria's website and other resources we talked about. Don't forget to send me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com to let me know what you're excited to try next.

And tune in every Monday and Friday for part one and part two of my guest conversations with the best research-backed coaching and teaching strategies that you can apply right away to better the lives of the children in your care. [00:21:00] Look for your 60 second bite-sized piece of learning on Wednesdays from our conversation to share with a colleague. Take care and thank you for forever getting better with me. See you next week.