Here, however, is a book that can be read, shared, and followed by kids still at the picture book stage. Of course, kids will probably see their teachers following the steps that Messner talks about, but not always and often not until around 3rd grade. We take it for granted that we and our kids automatically know how to do read a book once we learn how to read, but there is so much more to reading. And when you get to the end of Step 10, you can start all over again. Steps 5 through 10 are all about reading, how to make reading aloud to your reading buddy exciting and interesting, sharing the pictures, sounding out new words and guessing what they mean based on the pictures, reading with feeling to make the exciting parts sound exciting. Step 4: Look at the Book's Cover shows our hero and his buddy trying to guess what the book might be about based on the cover and title. Step 3: Find a Cozy Reading Spot shows our hero testing different spots, and finally settling on one both he and his reading buddy like. A reading buddy can be anyone at all, even the family dog (maybe even a favorite stuffed toy) Step 2: Find a Reading Buddy shows our hero approaching different family members and has suggestions about what to look for in a good reading buddy. Step 1: Find a Story begins with a little boy surrounded by books about all kinds of things and suggests picking one that is about something he likes. Each step elaborates just what is involves.

In How to Read a Story, Kate Messner outlines 10 simple to follow steps for really reading a story. Sure, your young readers may already know how to read, but do they really know how to read a story. Other than that, though, it's a nice little 'instruction manual' for kids, and would probably be pretty fun read aloud itself. To me, this seemed like something that should've been done at the beginning, perhaps even before Step 1! How are you supposed to choose a book if you haven't even looked at the cover? Step 1 is 'Find a story.' Step 2 is 'Find a reading buddy.' I won't spoil Step 3 for you, but moving on to Step 4, we have: 'Look at the book's cover.' This is so you can figure out what the book might be about. However, I thought the first few were a little bit mixed up. The book is laid out in a series of ten steps, with good explanations for each. The illustrations by Mark Siegel are really cute, and tell their own story within the story. If you're looking for tips on how to read novels while doing your best imitation of a hermit, you'll be disappointed but if you're looking for a cute manual about reading books out loud with a friend, then this is just the thing. Perhaps this should actually be titled How to Read a Story Aloud.

How to write a story by kate messner