Joanna Elyea Mentor Text Library by

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:00:28 UTC

The story begins with a girl who says she cannot draw. Her teacher asks her to draw a dot, and she quickly and aggressively did. Her teacher then said sign it. The next day her dot was in a gold frame behind her teacher's desk. She thought she could make a better dot. And so, she began making a lot of beautiful, colorful, and unique dots. And at the school art show everyone was fascinated by her dots. And a little boy said he wished he could draw like her she said he could. He said he could not even draw a line. She said show me. And once he drew a squiggly line, she said sign it.

Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:01:10 UTC

This book shows how mistakes are opportunities to make beautiful things. One of the first mistakes of the book was a ripped page. The ripped page turned into the mouth of an alligator drawing. The book shows many things that could be seen as mistakes and turns them into beautiful and creative creations.

Ish by Peter H. Reynolds

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:01:19 UTC

This story follows a bow who loves to draw but after his big brother said " What is that" to his drawing he stopped. He felt like his drawings where bad, but his little sister thought different. She had collected a lot of his drawings and said she loved how they were -ish. From then on, he was back to drawing and all his drawings where perfectly -ish. This story lets children know it is ok if their drawings are not perfect. Drawings can just look -ish and be amazing.

I am Human by Peter H. Reynolds

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:01:30 UTC

This story starts with a boy being born. It then talks about the adventurous side of a human. It then talks about how humans make mistakes. And goes over some of the hardships of being human. It then talks about how humans have choices, and we can choose to move forward and make better choices. It ends with talking about how humans are connected and unique.

How do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:01:39 UTC

The story starts with a father telling their dinosaur to go to bed. The book the asked if the dinosaurs then have different fits. Then it says no they give their mom a kiss and a hug and then go to bed.

Never Let a Dinosaur Scribble! By Diane Alter

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:01:53 UTC

This story is about how a boy gets a pet dinosaur and every tells him to not let the dinosaur scribble. The boy wonders why and decides to give the dinosaur a crayon. The dino then went to draw on the wall, but then luckily saw rocks and wanted to draw on them instead. Drawing with crayon was not working so the dinosaur got paint. It then wanted to paint on dinosaur size rocks. The art was amazing but there was now a stone wall in his room. He heard his mom coming and tried to explain why his room was messy before she came in. His mom looked and smiled and said you did not make a mess only stone art. When he turned around, he saw she was right. At the end it tells us that do not let people tell you to not let dinosaurs scribble, because all art comes from scribbles.

The Cat and the Hat by Dr. Seuss

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:02:11 UTC

This story a narrator tells us how a when a brother and sister where home alone on a rainy day. And a cat in a hat comes and makes their day a little more exciting and a mess. After, their mom was almost home the Cat in The Hat came and quickly cleaned up with a machine.

The Very Last Leaf by Stef Wade

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:02:46 UTC

The story starts with a little leaf who does amazing in all of his classes as a leaf. Then autumn comes along, and it is time for all the leaves to fall. But he is afraid to fall. He wanted to not have to fall like the evergreen leaves. He has to but he is scared. He makes up excuses to not fall but eventually leaves began to notice and make fun of him. His teacher reassured him that it was ok to be scared and that she was here for him. He thought of the reasons he was scared. After he talked about it he saw how his friends were having fun. He realized he could do it. His friends cheered him on, and he finally let go. And once again he was on top, and they celebrated that they were all together.

Fancy Nancy Pajama Day by Jane O'Conner

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:02:52 UTC

In the story it is pajama day at school. Fancy Nancy decides to wear a fancy nightgown to school instead of matching her friend. At school another girl matches her friend, and she feels excluded. At the end of the day she almost cries when her friend said she cannot come over because she is going to the other girl's house. The girl then invites Nancy to come over she said yes after she quickly changed. In the end they all matched. Some great words to go over are unique, reply, and excluded.

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:01 UTC

This story is about a fish who is very beautiful but very lonely. Because he did not treat the other fish rudely because he did not want to share. In order to make friends the fish gives all the other fishes one of their scales. This book has great presentation on how important sharing is and the fishes' scales are made of a sparkly material in the book to make students interested and understand how pretty they are.

Ponyella by Laura Numeroff and Nate Evans

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:10 UTC

This story follows a pony who gets mistreated by her stepsisters. There is a horse show where a rich girl will pick a horse. Her sisters leave her behind but then her fairy godmare helps her clean up and go to the show. The girl chooses her, but she had to leave. The girl found her by matching her glass hoof and she lives her dream life with her. The sentences flow smoothly in this story and are punctuated correctly.

Dinos Love Donuts by Ben Oken

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:14 UTC

In this story the dinosaurs love donuts and dancing. Dinosaur are scared of the middle of donuts because they are scared of rocks. Rocks scare them because they hurt their feet if they get hit by it, step on it, or eat in on accident. A dinosaur made a big donut hole and rolled it down the hill at the dinosaurs. After the donut hole hit and jelly came out, they stopped being scared of rocks.

That's Not My Name by Anoosha Syed

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:24 UTC

The story begins with a little girl preparing for her first day of school. At school no one could say her name right and it made her feel sad. She wanted to correct them, but she was to shy. She even thought of change her name. Her mother explained what her name meant and that it was unique, and everyone could remember it just like they remember names like Beethoven. She said her mom was right and when she went to school, she corrected anyone who said her name wrong. She made friends and they all talked about their names and how they love how unique they all are.

The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:30 UTC

This story starts with the Gingerbread man being made and baked. Once the oven opened the Gingerbread Cowboy escaped and ran. He ran an escaped many animals until he met a coyote. The coyote tricked the Gingerbread Cowboy saying he wanted to help him cross the river, but in the end, he ate the Gingerbread Cowboy.

Broken Crayons Still Color by Toni Collier and Whitney Bak

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:34 UTC

This book is about a girl who is about to go to school for the first time. Her family gives her crayons for her first day, but she is so scared. She tries to draw good pictures of the day, but they all end up with bad endings. She then ends up breaking her crayons. Her crayons then talk to her to help her calm down and not be so scared of school. They help her make a friend and overcome the struggles she has at school. It has great word like creative, thoughtful, and brave.

Curious George at the Aquarium by Margret and H. A. Rey's

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:41 UTC

George goes to the aquarium, and he explores all different exabits. He eventually found the penguin exabit and wondered what kind of fish they were. He copied the penguin, and the staff saw this and yelled. He tried to run out the back door but doing this let the other penguins out. The staff was mad and trying to get the penguins back. A baby penguin fell in the water and George saved it and became an honorary staff member.

Cindy Ellen by Susan Lowell

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:48 UTC

In this story a girl's father remarries and the stepmother and stepsisters treat her bad and make her do all the chores. Then a rodeo was held, and her fairy godmother comes and dresses her up for the rodeo. At the radio she did amazing at the radio. She ran away just in time. Then there was a party and her godmother dressed her up for it. She had to run away again when her time was up. But the prince looked all over and finally found her using her glass spurt.

If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:03:53 UTC

This story is about all the different details a boy would put in a car if he built one. The story is well structured and the rhymes in the story work really well together.

Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:03 UTC

The story starts with llama getting ready to go to bed by having his mother read him a book. When she leaves, he relies on ha wants a drink. He calls for her and as he waits, he starts fretting. His mom then gets a call. When she does not come, he gets loud and starts to have a fit. He then realizes he is in the dark and he gets scared and yells for his momma to run to help. His momma tells him not to make a tizzy because sometimes she is busy, and even if she is not near, she will always be right here. She kisses him goodnight and he fall asleep.

Clark the Shark by Bruce Hale

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:12 UTC

The story starts with a shark at school. He loved school but he was loud, ate other fishes' lunches, and was rough at recess. Because of this the other fishes did not want to be close to him. He asked his teacher why this was, and she told him he was too much at times and sometime the rule is staying cool. He kept forgetting to stay cool, but then he thought maybe if he made the rules a rhyme, he would remember them. He then made rhymes for all the rules he needed to follow, and all the fish started playing with him again. Then a new big classmate came to school, and he helped them by playing the roughest he ever had. His teacher told him he did a good job. And in the end his mother asked what he learned, and he said that sometimes it is important to stay calm and sometimes it is important to do what sharks do.

Fancy Nancy Splendid Speller by Jane O'Connor

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:19 UTC

In this story Fancy Nancy has a spelling test, and she and her friend have been studying all week. She thinks they will be the best spellers. But during the test she forgets how to spell a word. She looks at her friends' paper and see the correct spelling, but she cannot change her answer because she would feel bad. At the end she confesses to her teacher who tells her it is ok because she stopped herself from cheating. Some great words to learn from this book are splendid, impressed, and memorize.

Mixed by Arree Chung

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:23 UTC

In this story the three main colors red, yellow, and blue are separate. They do not mix and even start dividing the town into three different parts for each color. But then a yellow and blue came together happily and mixed. When they mixed, they made a brand-new color green. Once the other colors saw this they also started to mix. Soon the dividers were taken down and many new colors and color names were made.

I Am Not a Fox by Karina Wolf

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:27 UTC

This story is about Luca. Luca tried to play with the dogs, but they told him he was a fox. Luca said he was not a fox, but when asked to prove it he could not. He walked the city trying to find animals like him but the only animal that looked like him was in a painting. It was a fox he felt sad but tried to act like a fox. He found other foxes, but they told him he was not a fox. He was now sad and alone, but then a girl came and asked him to be her pet. She then told him he was not a fox but a mysterious dog. Back at the park when the dogs tried to be mean again, he said I am a mysterious dog and that was the end.

Can U Save the Day? by Shannon Stocker

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:36 UTC

In this story the consonants make fun of the vowels and say they are better because there are more consonants. The vowels then start disappearing one by one and as they disappear. Words then start to not work, because the vowels from them are missing. In the end only the u is left. Then a tractor starts heading towards the consonants and only B and U saw. B tried to wear the consonants, but he could not without the vowels. U stepped up and changed its shape to be an O to help B save the consonants. U then went and got the vowels and they all made-up.

The Big Cheese by Jory John and Pete Oswald

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:45 UTC

The story follows a cheese who wants to stand out and be the best at everything. He loves to boast and in order to be known as the best he never tries anything he is not good at. Until a quiet wedge of cheese beets him in the town competitions. He gets angry but then realizes that winning is not the most important thing. And he realizes that being part of a team is more important. And in the end, he only boasts about his teammates.

Our Class is a Family by Shannon Olsen

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:04:51 UTC

This story starts with talking about what people can picture when they hear family. It then talks about how family can be someone who loves and cares for you. Most of students' time is spent at school so they should make it like a home in many ways. Show respect and kindness to one another. Be yourselves and make memories. There will be things that connect us and things that make us different and unique. Making mistakes is ok as we learn from them. There will be hard days your teacher is always here for you. And if they are kind their classmates will be there to. In the class they will be their for each other. They are a classroom family.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Erie Carle

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:05:03 UTC

This story is about a caterpillar who is hungry and goes around eating through a lot of food. He then made himself a cocoon and after two weeks popped out a butterfly. Some great words to learn here are cocoon, hungry, and butterfly.

Spork by Kyo Maclear

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:05:12 UTC

The spork was different then all the spoons and forks at the table. Because of this he was never picked for the table and became lonely. When he tried to change himself to fit in it never worked. But then one day a big mess came and none of the spoons nor forks could handle it. Spork jumped in and he was perfect. Now he was part of the table.

Too Much Glue by Jason Lefebvre

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:05:18 UTC

In this story a boy find out that too much glue can cause problems. He glues himself to his desk and then a lot of stuff gets glued to him when people are trying to get him unstuck. In the end he gets freed. The sentences flow smoothly in this story and are punctuated correctly.

Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:05:24 UTC

This story talks about how all the places the boy will go during his journey. The story is well structured and the rhymes in the story work really well together.

Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:05:37 UTC

In this story the narrator tells the story of how Molly followed her grandmother's advice on how to live being herself. Even when a boy makes fun of her, she remembers her grandmother's words and she show him how amazing she is. And in the end, he realizes it to; and we see that her grandmother was small just like her.

Mrs. McBloom, Clean Up Your Classroom! by Kelly Dipuccaio

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:05:45 UTC

Mrs. McBloom is retiring, and a new teacher will be taking her class. One problem is her class is a complete mess. She has been teaching for many years and all of her stuff has piled up. She had her students think of ways to help her clean her classroom. The wining idea was to have the whole town come and take one or a couple of things home. They would get drinks and apples if they did. Almost the whole town came to help and shake her hand because they all were taught by her at one time in their life. In the end her classroom was clean, and she retired and the new teacher stepped in with a clean class.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:05:52 UTC

This story is about how once the child gave him a cookie he will ask for milk. And after that he will continue to ask for things. And after all the things he did and asked for he will ask for milk, and if he ask for milk he will ask for a cookie. Some great words to review are refrigerator, excited, and trim.

Braids! by Robert Munsch

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:06:07 UTC

A little girl was sitting at her kitchen table when her mom came in and said she had to braid her hair. She cried that she did not want to because it took all day. She ran but her mom caught her and did her braids. She loved them, but she was still sad because other kids got to do fun things all day, but she had to get her hair done. She then saw her grandma who told her her mom acted the same way and that they should do her hair. Her mom ran just like her but they caught her and did her hair. She said she loved it, but it took too long. The little girl then saw her teacher and they did the same thing to her. She said she loved them, but hers did not come out as good. The girl did not have it in her heart to tell her teacher that some people just do not look good in braids.

A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:06:20 UTC

On the first day of school a girl wakes up with stripes on her body. She ends up not able to go to school because she is too distracting. And when people and doctors try to help it makes it even whores till she is unrecognizable. But then a old women tells her is lima beans the thing she had been wanting to eat but said was disgusting because she wanted to fit in. As soon as she at them she was back to normal. The sentences flow smoothly in this story and are punctuated correctly.

I Don't Want to be Small by Laura Ellen Anderson

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:06:27 UTC

In this Story the girl is the smallest in her class, and she does not want to be. She tries all different ways to get big, but none of them work. She is so frustrated she throughs her bear in a tree by accident. A tall girl then comes by and tries to help but she is not able to get it either. Then they try to get it by working together and it works. They then become friends, and the little girl does not care about how small she is anymore. Their hieghts are perfect.

Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:06:45 UTC

In this story Monkey is Grumpy and all of the animals keep asking him why. He keeps telling them that he is not angry and changes a part of how he is acting to not seem grumpy. He then looks like he is not grumpy at all on the outside, but on the inside he still feels grumpy. He then meets a gorilla who tells him that sometimes people just need to feel grumpy. This makes monkey not feel so grumpy anymore.

Carla's Glasses by Debbie Herman

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:06:52 UTC

The story started with the class preparing for their eye exam. Carla really wanting to get glasses, because she wanted to stand out. Her friend did not. Carla came to school each day with a different pare of fake glasses to see what would look best on her. After the test she was sad she did not need glasses, but her friend did. He did not want glasses because he did not want to feel different. So, the whole class whore Carla's funny glasses so he would not feel different. This made him happy.

Pete the Cat: Checks out the Library by James Dean

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:06:58 UTC

Pete goes to the library, and he looks around the library. He then reads books and uses his imagination to immerse himself in them. He can be whatever he imagines in the books. Some great words to go over are imagine, creatures, and scientist.

I want to be Big by Margo Linn

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:07:05 UTC

In this story the bird wants to be big. It goes around looking for things that are big. He asks them how he can be as big as them. All of their advice does not help him. A sheep asks him why he wants to be big, and the main reason is because he is tired of being scared. But then a dog tells him to fly high. When he does, he sees that all of the things that where big look small from up in the sky. In the end he realizes he is a small bird but, in the sky, he feels like the biggest creature.

A Fine, Fine School by Sharon Creech

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:07:17 UTC

In this story a girl goes to school. Her classmates and teachers are doing such a fine job that the principal said they should have school on Saturday as well. This negatively affects her because she plays with her brother on the weekends, and he misses their time together. The principal then keeps taking days off till everyday was a school day. She talked to him, and he realized that school needed to just be Monday through Friday. The sentences flow smoothly in this story and are punctuated correctly.

Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees

jelyea — 2025-02-25 04:07:27 UTC

In this story the giraffe has wobbly knees. The animals have a party, and all the animals dance their own dances. Giraffe tries to dance but messes up and the other animals laugh at him. He goes into the jungle and a cricket helps him to hear the music of the forest, and he starts to dance. His dance is the most beautiful dance the animals had ever seen. They ask him how he did it and he said we can all dance if we find music that we love.

The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds

jelyea — 2026-02-08 09:05:57 UTC

The Word Collector is about a boy who loves to collect words. It talks about the different ways he collects words. And then it talks about the different types of words he likes to collect. It told us where he collected them and how he found a way to string them together. And it told us how he shared them with the people around him.

This book help with phonological awareness because it helps students learn syllables, word types, it shows word sound groups, and more.

Pete the Cat: Checks out the Library by James Dean

jelyea — 2026-02-08 09:09:43 UTC

Pete the Cat: Checks out the Library by James Dean

jelyea — 2026-02-08 09:11:06 UTC

This book helps with Phonemic awareness because it repeats key sounds and phrases, simple predictable sentence structure, and more.

Fancy Nancy Splendid Speller by Jane O'Connor

jelyea — 2026-02-08 09:26:31 UTC

This book helps with Comprehensive Vocabulary Instruction because it introduces rich vocabulary to students and then explains them, synonym awareness, and more.

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

jelyea — 2026-03-01 22:25:36 UTC

In this story a robot named Roz wakes up in the wilderness. She has trouble with the animals. And ends up taking care of a baby duck after killing its family on accident. While a winter storm Roz saves the animals and the animals become friends with Roz. After a while the creators of the Roz come back to get their robot back. The animals and Roz fights back. And in the end Roz had to decide to either stay with the animals or go back to their creator with the possibility of someday returning.

This book helps with Text Comprehension because it has continuous, engaging narrative with clear chapter breaks, which is ideal for repeated oral reading, partner reading, and fluency practice over time. It also is accessible but still rich enough to support inferencing, prediction, character analysis, and theme work which has students dive more deeper into the Text Comprehension.

A Girl Named Rosita by Anika Aldamuy Denise

jelyea — 2026-03-01 22:43:25 UTC

This book tells the true story of young Rosita Dolores Alverio, who later became the legendary Rita Moreno. Rosita was born in Puerto Rico. Rosita moved to New York City with her mother when she was little. While in New York she faces bullying for her accent, skin, and hair while missing her brother back home. She did not let this bring her down. She practices her English until she perfected it. She discovers her love for dance and singing. Over time she overcomes Hollywood stereotypes and typecasting, and triumphs with her Oscar-winning role as Anita in West Side Story.

This story helps with Oral Language Development and Instruction because it naturally weaves Spanish and English, accents, and dialogue. Because it goes into learning “ingles.” It gives the reader a rich, authentic language to model, repeat, and practice orally. And with Rositas experiences it can lead to discussion, retellings, and personal connections. These are great contexts for students to do structured turn-and-talk, oral retells, language frames and more.

Happy Endings by Robin Pulver

jelyea — 2026-04-05 04:54:22 UTC

The book Happy Endings by Robin Pulver is a book that highlights suffixes in a fun story where students are about to go on break, and the teachers last lesson is about suffixes. The students do not want to learn and give the teacher a hard time. When they go to lunch the suffixes run away. The teacher tells them they cannot go on break till they find the suffixes. They set up posters, but the posters do not make a lot of sense because they are missing or have the suffixes in the wrong spot. The suffixes return in the end.

This book supports English Language Learners' language development by helping them notice how suffixes change the meaning of words. Through its clear examples and engaging text, students can build vocabulary, strengthen word recognition, and practice using new words in speaking and writing.

Here’s Hank: Bookmarks Are People Too! by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver

jelyea — 2026-04-05 05:09:23 UTC

The book Here’s Hank: Bookmarks Are People Too! follows Hank Zipzer, a funny second grader who struggles with reading, spelling, and memorizing his lines when his class puts on a play. Though he doesn’t get the part he wants, Hank learns to handle disappointment, lean on his friends and grandfather, and eventually save the day in his own unexpected way.

This book supporting students with reading difficulties (including dyslexia) because it is designed to be accessible and engaging for readers who struggle to read. This makes the book a great choice for students who need a confidence-building book. It is also published in Dyslexie font, which some readers find easier to read, especially those with reading difficulties.