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Wonder is a heartwarming novel about a young boy named August (or Auggie) Pullman about a boy who has facial deformities and his experiences in school. This book inspired the "choose kindness" movement and is an excellent addition to any fifth-grade classroom for a read-aloud and will benefit student's sentence composition after reading this in class. This novel would fall under the very complex category of the text complexity rubric because it contains time shifts, multiple storylines told through multiple points of view, the sentence structure vary greatly and contain subordinate clauses and transition words as well as dialogue among characters, This text would expose students to different verb tenses, punctuation and addressing characters directly through use of dialogue. It will get students familiar with reading longer text filled with complex sentences. This will translate into their writing by being exposed to these things so they can practice using them in their own writing. You could pair a writing activity as the follow-up to this read aloud and have them write a page about what kindness means to them and have them give example scenarios using dialogue about how to demonstrate kindness to one another.

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The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.

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The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.

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The One and Only Ivan is a easy reader novel that details the life of a gorilla named Ivan who lives at a circus inside a mall. This book would be a perfect read-aloud in a third- grade class to help support fluency, foundational literacy standard 5. This text would fall under the very complex category of the text complexity rubric. This is due to the time shifts throughout the novel, the subplots, the experiences that the characters have are very different from anything students have experienced themselves and the theme is implicitly stated and revealed throughout the entire novel. This text would help support fluency because it is a lot more content for students to listen to and read at once which will expand their skills because they have much more context to use to understand unfamiliar words. A good activity to pair with this is to have students choose a passage they find compelling or important and then share that passage out loud with the rest of the class.

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Otis is an endearing story about a little tractor named Otis, and his friendship with a little calf and the fun ways they spend their days together. This book would be appropriate to read-aloud to a kindergarten class when teaching fluency, foundational literacy standard 5. This text would fall under the somewhat complex category on the text complexity rubric because the sentence structures are mostly simple, the storyline is straightforward and the vocabulary will be familiar to readers. This text would be a great way to practice their reading fluency and comprehension skills because of the easy to follow storyline, along with the simple sentence structure and use of pictures that students can use as context to understand the storyline. You could have students predict what they think will happen half way through the story then have a whole class discussion after to discuss why they made the predictions they did.

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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett

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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett

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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a hilarious picture book about a town called Chewandswallow that has a very unusual weather pattern that rains, snows and hails different foods and drinks for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This would be a great read-aloud for second-graders when teaching vocabulary acquisition, foundational literacy standard 7. This text would fall under the moderately complex category of the text complexity rubric because there are multiple storylines, the story is hard to predict at certain points and there are unfamiliar vocabulary words in this text. This would be a great text to use when teaching students how to use sentence and story context to figure out the meaning of different words such as "Sanitation Department", "downpour" and "necessities". There are a few compound words in this text, which would present students with a good opportunity to break those compound words down into individual words to predict the meaning of the compound word. You could pair a compound word activity with this book that has students practice this.

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Tomorrow I'll Be Brave by Jessica Hische

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Tomorrow I'll Be Brave by Jessica Hische

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Tomorrow I'll be Brave is an uplifting picture book that details all the positive and good things a young rabbit plans on doing the next day. This would be appropriate to read-aloud to a kindergarten class to help support their sentence composition, foundational literacy standard 6. This text would be classified under the slightly complex category of the text complexity rubric because the language used is familiar, the sentence structures are simple and the organization of the text is clear and easy to predict. This would be most beneficial to help students recognize frequently occurring nouns and verbs in conversation and shared activities by exposing them to these nouns and verbs through text such as this one that uses repetition of frequent nouns and verbs. One activity you could pair with this is by having students pair off with each other and share what they will be doing the next day through conversation and hopefully will get to practice using those frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

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I Hear a Pickle is a bilingual picture book that focuses on all the different things you do with your five senses and provides the Spanish translation for each English phrase. This book would be most appropriate to read-aloud in a kindergarten class when teaching phonics and word recognition, foundational literacy standard 3. This text would fall under the slightly complex category of text complexity because of its familiar vocabulary, simple sentence structure and explicit/ straightforward meaning. This would be a useful text for introducing high frequency words by sight through repetition. One activity you could pair with this lesson is having students fill out their own "I see", "I hear", "I smell", "I taste", "I touch", activity using their classroom environment and having them spell out the best they can. This will reinforce those high frequency words and allow students to apply those words to other objects and context for reinforcement.

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There's a Hole in the Log on the Bottom of the Lake by Loren Long

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There's a Hole in the Log on the Bottom of the Lake by Loren Long

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There's a Hole in the Log on the Bottom of the Lake is a picture book told using song-like rhyming and would be ideal for reading-aloud to emergent readers in kindergarten for teaching phonics and word recognition, foundational literacy standard 3. This text would be identified under the somewhat complex category of the text complexity rubric because the text is very literal, straightforward, uses simple sentence structure and familiar language. This text would be most beneficial for helping students decode regularly spelled CVC words because this book is full of repetition of these words such as log, frog, etc. You could do an in-class activity with students where you pick out one of the CVC words such as log and do a substitution activity as a class to replace the onset consonant with another to create new words.

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Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema 

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Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema 

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Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain is a Kenyan folktale told in a nursery rhyme style that tells the story of a drought that befalls a Nandi village. This would be appropriate to give to a kindergarten class when teaching phonological awareness, foundational literacy standard 2. This text would fall under the moderately complex category of text complexity because there are some unfamiliar words and the experiences in the book are not ones that many students are familiar with. Also, because this book is told in nursery rhyme style, it will be slightly more complex for children to understand why there aren't any simple sentences. This would be a useful text to have students demonstrate their understanding of rhyme and their ability to substitute individual phonemes in one syllable words to create new ones. This can be  done through a deletion activity where you have students pick out rhyme words from the book then have them create new words by changing the onset letter of the rime.

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Hair Love is a story about a little girl named Zuri, who needs her hair done for a special occasion and employs the help of her father and her trusty cat Rocky. This book would be appropriate to read-aloud to first-graders when teaching vocabulary acquisition, foundational literacy standard 7. This text would fall under the moderately complex category of the text complexity rubric because the mostly straightforward however there are some parts that have deeper meaning (such as hair love representing being unapologetically you and loving it). There are some unfamiliar words in the text and some complex sentences. This book would be useful in teaching students how to distinguish shades of meaning among words such as (kink, coil and curl) and apply these meanings to real-life. This text will also help students use sentence level context to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words. An activity to pair with this read-aloud could be to come up with discussion style questions while reading the text to ask students such as "what do you think the text says when it says her hair has a mind of its own?" or "what does the word funky mean to you?". Students will use their own knowledge and experience and apply it to the text to make inferences about what new words mean.

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The First Strawberries: A  Cherokee Story retold by Joseph Bruchac

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The First Strawberries: A  Cherokee Story retold by Joseph Bruchac

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The First Strawberries is a Cherokee Legend that tells the story of how strawberries came to be and has been told by Cherokee people for years. This would be appropriate to read- aloud to a kindergarten class when teaching vocabulary acquisition, foundational literacy standard 7. This text would fall under the moderately complex category of text complexity because it contains mostly familiar vocabulary but there are a few unfamiliar words, the plot is pretty straightforward but there are some ares for deeper meaning and the plot is occasionally difficult to predict, there are cultural references as well as some figurative language. This would be a useful text in introducing figurative language and having students sort common objects (such as the fruit talked about or the natural elements of the story: sun, grass, fire) into categories that they represent as a way to identify the meaning that is connected to words, You could do this using a concept card sorting activity.

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Thunder Boy Jr. is a picture book about a boy named Thunder Boy Jr. who is named after his father but wants his own name that sounds like himself. This book would be appropriate to read aloud in a first-grade classroom to help teach print concept, foundational literacy standard 1. This book would be classified under the slightly complex category of the text complexity rubric because it is clearly organized, the language has explicit meaning, the vocabulary is conversational/ familiar and there is only one theme and it is explicitly stated early in the book. This book would be helpful in teaching students to distinguish between lower case and uppercase words, as there are a lot of names in this book that require capitalization. It would also be beneficial for teaching recognition of the beginning word of a sentence and end punctuation. One activity that you could pair with this book is having students pick out all the words that are capitalized throughout the book and explain why they are capitalized.

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I Wonder by K.A. Holt & pictures by Kenard Pak

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I Wonder by K.A. Holt & pictures by Kenard Pak

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I Wonder is a picture book that asks all the questions you wondered about as a child and provides beautiful illustrations to go along with each one. This would be an appropriate book to read-aloud to a first grade class when teaching phonological awareness, foundational literacy standard 2. This book would be classified under the slightly complex category of the text complexity rubric because it uses conversational language (questions kids would ask themselves), the text's meaning is straightforward and the sentence structures are simple. This would be a great text to have students practice segmenting single syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes) because there are many single-syllable words that students would be familiar with. Reading this text would also help them blend their phonemes to produce single syllable sounds. One activity that could supplement this is is to have students do a cut and paste activity of different phonemes of words found throughout this book and have them put them together by cutting them and pasting them to blend the two phonemes into one syllable.

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Peace is an Offering: La Paz es una Ofrenda by Annette Le Box

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Peace is an Offering: La Paz es una Ofrenda by Annette Le Box

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Peace is an Offering: La Paz es una Ofrenda is a bilingual picture book that reveals how children find simple and meaningful ways to give to their friends, neighbors and family. This would be a fantastic book to be read aloud in a first-grade ELL classroom to help with teaching fluency, foundational literacy standard 5. This book provides a Spanish translation next to the English phrase and would help tremendously for students whose primary language is Spanish in reading and understanding the English within the context of a story, This book would fall under the very complex category of the text complexity rubric because it contains complex language that is unfamiliar to some students, there are cultural elements and multiple elements of meaning throughout this text. The translations will help students read the text orally with accuracy and will help them use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understand English words better, by rereading if necessary. An activity you could pair with this is to have students take turns reading the story (both English and Spanish translations) out loud to practice their oral skills.

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The Snowy Day  is a Caldecott Medal picture book that tells the story of a little boy named Peter's snow day. This would be appropriate to read-aloud in a kindergarten classroom when aligning your lesson plan to print concepts, foundational literacy standard 1. This book would fall in the slightly complex category on a text complexity rubric because it is chronological, literal, uses familiar language and simple sentence structure. This book would be very useful in teaching kids that text is read from left to right because the text is structured horizontally and would make it much easier for students to understand this concept. Also, because this book has such simple sentences, it would be ideal in pointing out the spaces between words that separate them into two different words, as well as identifying upper and lower case letters and teaching students how to differentiate between words and pictures. You could align an activity with this book that has students recreate a scene (page) from the book by drawing it and then writing a sentence that describes the picture they drew. This will help them with reading and writing from left to right and demonstrating their knowledge of phonemes by writing graphemes to represent those sounds.

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Madeline is a Caldecott Honor book about a little girl named Madeline who attends a boarding school in Paris with 11 other girls and goes on adventures, including a trip to the hospital. This would be a great read aloud for a second-grade class when teaching vocabulary acquisition, foundational literacy standard 7. This book would fall under the moderately complex category of the text complexity rubric because it is slightly difficult to predict that Madeline has appendicitis, it contains a few complex sentence structures although overall it is mostly simple sentence structure and the life experience of Madeline isn't quite as common or familiar to all readers if they haven't attended a boarding school but the concept is easy to understand. This book would be great to use in a vocabulary lesson that requires students to determine a word's meaning through the context and pictures that surrounds the word. An example of this could be having students come up with definitions for words such as "appendix", "solemn" and "disaster" based on the book Madeline.

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic picture book that is about one small caterpillar's big appetite and his journey of turning into a big beautiful butterfly. This would be a great read-aloud book to use in a kindergarten classroom when teaching print concepts, foundational literacy standard 1. This book would fall in the slightly complex category because it is very clear, chronological, easy to read and the graphics directly support the text. This would be great for teaching students how to read from left to right, distinguish between pictures and words, and understand the spaces between words. One activity to supplement this read aloud would be to have students create their own version of all the things the caterpillar eats through a cut and paste activity and have your students share out loud what they ate on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. This will help students understand the left to right reading sequence as well as understand the sentence structure more through repetition.

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The Berenstains' B Book by Jan and Stan Berenstain

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The Berenstains' B Book by Jan and Stan Berenstain

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The Berenstain's B Book is a simple picture book that uses pictures and repetition of  syllable words that begin with B. This book would make a great read aloud in a kindergarten classroom when teaching phonics and word recognition, foundational literacy standard 3. This book would fall in the slightly complex category of the text complexity rubric because it's language features are explicit and straightforward, the pictures directly support the text and the subject matter focuses on familiar words that students would encounter on a daily basis. This book would be ideal for students to practice decoding CVC words, which this book is full of. This would also get students familiar with reading high-frequency, common words by sight and practicing associating the long and short phonemes with common spellings of the five major vowels through using repetition of common words. One activity you could pair with this could be a sound sort that uses pictures of B words found in the book. This will help students pay attention to individual speech sounds and associate them with words they read in the book.

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I Am a Rainbow is a positive socio-emotional picture book that describes and celebrates different feelings as a rainbow of colors that everyone experiences differently. This would be appropriate to read-aloud in a kindergarten or first-grade classroom when teaching phonics and word recognition, foundational literacy standard 3. The language features and knowledge demand cause this book to fall under the slightly complex category of the text complexity rubric. The language is literal and explicit in meaning, the vocabulary is familiar and common, and the life experiences that the book talks about are relevant and relatable to anyone who reads this book. This book would be suitable for helping student's practice decoding two-syllable words as well as practice reading words that have inflectional endings such as "And be a brave fellow!". This text will also provide an opportunity for students to decode the text's meaning and look inward at their own feelings to understand the text. This book is full of rhymes which can be utilized to help kindergarten students differentiate between words that are spelled similarly, by having them identify the letter that differentiates the words. You could do this in the form of an activity by picking out all the rhymes from the book and creating a worksheet with them.

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Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña 

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Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña 

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Last Stop on Market Street is a picture book about a boy and his nana who find beauty in unexpected places around their city. This book would be an appropriate read-aloud in a third-grade classroom when teaching vocabulary acquisition, foundational literacy standard 7. This book would fall in the moderately complex category because it is mostly explicit but there are moments that use abstract/ figurative language that give this book a deeper meaning. The reason I did not label this as very complex is because the vocabulary is fairly familiar and easy to understand. The theme is also explicitly stated, however there are subtle moments that imply the theme as well. This would be helpful when teaching students how to distinguish between literal and non-literal meanings in text and how those have real-life implications. You could use this book as an opportunity to teach figurative language by having students go through the book and pick out instances of metaphors, personification, etc.

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Abuela is a beautifully illustrated picture book about a young girl and the places she would go with her Abuela if they could fly. This book is unique because it includes Spanish vocabulary words and the english translation for the words. This would be appropriate to read-aloud in a second-grade classroom, especially when teaching vocabulary acquisition, foundational literacy standard 7. This book would fall under the very complex category of the text complexity rubric because it makes many cultural references, even using the Spanish vocabulary and grammar to tell the story. The meaning of this story is subtle and is revealed throughout the entire text, it might require some discussion for readers to discover the text's meaning. The language is fairly complex and unfamiliar to students who don't speak Spanish. This book would help students identify connections between real-life words and their meanings, such as how Spanish words have many important cultural implications in people's lives. This could be taught in a whole-class discussion about the similarities and differences between student's cultures and the one discussed in the picture book.