5 Ways to Use Mrs. Wishy-Washy for Guided Reading:

                                                                                         1.  Onomatopoeia I chose this book as my first to share with you because my kindergarten students absolutely LOVE onomatopoeia, and I knew this would be a favorite. If you aren't familiar with onomatopoeia, it refers to “the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of a sound associated with it” (Merriam-Webster). It's a game-changer when introduced during kindergarten Writer's Workshop. Students love adding "sound words" to their writing, and I suspect that they love saying the word “onomatopoeia” every time they notice it being used in a story.

2. 

Teacher’s Notes

 Another great thing about this book is that it has “Teacher Notes” at the back... hello, Guided Reading groups! The back page of the book gives the teacher suggestions for before, during, and after reading, and also has suggestions for making meaning, analyzing the text, and taking things to the next level. They call this Cracking the Code and point out rhyming and compound words.                                                                                                                                                                                                                In my previous school district, we had an entire room dedicated to storing our Guided Reading books. Unfortunately, my new district does not have the same resources. Last spring, I described the steps of a Guided Reading lesson to a teaching partner, and we wished our books had a tool like this embedded into them.

3. Group Lessons

 I'll tell you a couple of different ways I would use this book in my ideal world. I love using big books in my classroom because kids can actually see the text and the illustrations,

even if they are sitting at the back of the rug. One way to use this would be to do a whole group lesson with the big book version of the story. I would still use some of the before, during, and after reading ideas, but spread it out over 3-5 days of instruction. I love reading half of the book on the first day and saving the other half for the second day. Kids absolutely beg for the second half of the story! By day 5, most of the kids are reading along with the big book, and they are also able to read it on their own during our literacy stations.

4. Guided Reading Groups Another option for using this book, in my ideal world, would be to purchase six-packs of the small versions of the books to have on hand for Guided Reading groups. The before, during, and after reading Teacher Notes at the back are set up perfectly for small group instruction.

5.  Other Text Features Any way you read this book, I love the text features you can point out. Punctuation, rhyming words, onomatopoeia, and compound words are part of our everyday instruction in kindergarten.

I'm so happy that I've found Mrs. Wishy-Washy again, and can once again share her magic with my Kindergarten students! 

This is a guest blog post by Becca Ross, who usually writes over at Love, Laughter, and Literacy. To read more from her, come back here often for more posts from her, or check out her blog!  

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