Ideas for Teaching from a Chapter Book

January 15, 2019

Ideas for Teaching from a Chapter Book

I love to read a class book, a chapter per session, lots of discussion and focused lessons are great ways to cover a wide range of subjects and still install a love of reading. In my store I have many lessons for books which require no prep and are ready to go. However today I am going to show you how to create your own lessons from your class book and at the same time cover all the areas of English you may need.

Choosing the book

I absolutely love David Walliams! He is fantastic for children to read. He has real appeal to all ages and his books are extremely well written. You can choose any children's book to read with your class but I recommend that you choose one with chapters to make it easier to block your lessons.

A book the majority of children haven't read yet is also a good idea to allow lots of discussion and predictions

Topics to cover

Once you have chosen your book you need to think about the topics you would like to teach.

I like to decide these right at the beginning and then assign each subject to a chapter in the book. This early planning allows you to work through each lesson with a clear view of where you will be taking them in the next and subsequent lessons.

Some of the topics I like to teach using a book are:

Comprehension, speaking and listening, instruction writing, diagrams in text, poetry, dialogue, settings, character descriptions, dictionary work, persuasive writing, grammar, paragraphs, play scripts and many more.

I give each chapter a focus and build the lesson around that topic.

Putting your lesson together

With your book chosen and your topic set out now you need to decide how to put your lesson together. I like to start each lesson by reading the chapter together as a class, you can do this by reading to the children or depending on ability have the children read parts.

Once the chapter has been read it is a good idea to spend a few minutes discussing things that have happened and what we think will happen next.

Then onto the meat of the lesson, explain the concept and then give children the chance to practice it. Some good ways to relate it to the book could be using the characters, for example with letter writing: they could write to or from the characters, diary writing: They could write as the characters.. etc.

I really enjoy these types of lessons and I find them extremely effective to not only engage the children but also encourage a real enthusiasm for reading.

Please take a look at my book units which have detailed lessons for each chapter of popular children's books. If the book you are interested in is not there please let me know, I am always looking for new ideas.