For our Kevin Henkes author study, we did this comparison chart.
The comprehension strategies/skills that we focus on during this author study are:
- Check for understanding (while reading all the stories, we stop to check for understanding. I model with “think alouds” and give the students chances to check for understanding as well.)
- Making connections (text to self)
- Characters
During our author study, we read Wemberly Worried. Click here to see our feelings chart we made to go along with the story on the first day.
After reading Chrysanthemum, we played Chrysanthemum Bingo with our names. This is a common activity for the first week, but I made my own BINGO card to share:
This doesn’t really have anything to do with comprehension, but it’s a good ‘getting to know you’ icebreaker activity during the first week.
Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse is a great book to read to reinforce rules in the classroom. Students can also make a connection to this story when thinking of a time they were excited to share something in school with their friends, or a time when they got “in trouble” at school. I always end the discussion by telling them that no matter what, their teachers always still love them, just like in the story.
Later we read Julius, the Baby of the World (which also has Lily) and described the character Lily. I use this to introduce our Reader Response notebooks. Students write a sentence about Lily in these notebooks. They glue these into their notebooks:
You could also use this printable if you don’t have reading notebooks.
I especially love the book Owen because my 1 year old son is named Owen. 🙂 After reading that book, we all talk to our “elbow buddies” about something special we have (or had) like Owen’s blanket. Here is a worksheet you could use for that.
With each author study we talk about the author’s style, purpose for writing, and common themes. I just love Kevin Henkes books!
You can download all of these graphic organizers and worksheets for free here.
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