Reading Workshop Mentor Text-Chris Van Allsburg

Happy Sunday! It is time to link up with Collaboration Cuties for their Must Read Mentor Texts. I shared last month about one of my go-to authors for Reading Workshop, you can read more about it here.

 

Today I want to share another one of my favorite authors; Chris Van Allsburg. He is well known by my students for writing The Polar Express, and Jumanji but most of my students don't know his other work. I enjoy all of his books, so much so that we use most of them throughout the year in Reading Workshop. The Stranger and The Sweetest Fig are probably my two favorite.

 

I use them both to teach synthesizing, questioning, and inferences. Both of the stories are great for these skills. The start of making you ask questions, and then make you change your mind as you read. This years class loved The Sweetest Fig so much that they started to ask me for it (I keep my mentor texts behind my desk) during reading time so they could reread it.

When I am teaching synthesizing I use this bookmark to help my kids. It is free from my TPT store. I have my kids use the bookmark as a bookmark during the first week that we are learning synthesizing, then we tape it into our reading notebooks as a guide. Some of them really need the visual reminder of what synthesizing is before the really understand.

Who are your go-to authors when you teach synthesizing?Be sure to head over to Collaboration Cuties for more great mentor text ideas!