mentor text library by

The Word Collector

celiagmccloud — 2025-09-16 16:50:07 UTC

This book is perfect for teaching word choice because it's all about a boy who collects words he hears, sees, and reads and how he uses them all. From this book, we get to hear a lot of interesting and beautiful word we can use in our writing. In the book, Jerome creates a book to keep all the words he likes. I would want to do something similar where each student has a book of words they can add to at least once a week or so.

Balloons over Broadway

celiagmccloud — 2025-09-16 16:50:11 UTC

I chose this book because I wanted to make sure that I had some quality nonfiction children's literature in my mentor text library. This book reveals the story of the puppeteer who created the first helium balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. This book is full of vivid images and bold adjectives that are great for modeling how we can use words in our own writing.

Horton Hears a Who

celiagmccloud — 2025-09-16 17:05:58 UTC

Dr. Suess books are great for understanding and hearing rhyme, which falls under the category of phonological awareness. Students can become familiar with rhyme scheme, and hearing syllables and parts of words.

Sheep in a Jeep

celiagmccloud — 2025-09-16 17:09:25 UTC

This book focuses on rhyme scheme and alliteration, which are great phonological awareness skills. Through this book, students can learn to expect rhyme scheme and make predictions with words.

Charlotte's Web

celiagmccloud — 2025-10-13 01:17:51 UTC

This book is a classic for upper elementary level students who are working on studying longer novels. This is a perfect book to study characters and other story elements either as a whole class or individually. It would be a great way to break down the text for comprehension.

The One and Only Ivan

celiagmccloud — 2025-10-13 01:19:06 UTC

Like Charlotte's Web, this is another classic book for upper elementary grades to read as a class and do a book study. Breaking down the book in this way can help students with comprehension.

Reader's Theater

celiagmccloud — 2025-10-13 01:25:22 UTC

These reader's theaters have short plays that students get to read and perform aloud that can be a great tool to enhancing their oral language development.

You Read to Me and I'll Read to You

celiagmccloud — 2025-10-13 01:32:49 UTC

This series is structured for partner reading where students can take turns reading lines. These books can help with fluency and with oral language development.

All are Welcome

celiagmccloud — 2025-11-01 20:56:39 UTC

This book is great for learning about community and how to have open and welcoming conversations. ELs come from many different cultures and this book is a great read aloud to help teach community and acceptance. The book models conversations that ELs can learn from and put into practice.

The Thank You Book

celiagmccloud — 2025-11-01 21:02:39 UTC

Elephant and Piggy books are great for young readers. The books use simple vocabulary and lots of repetition so ELs will get the chance to see certain words many times and that will help them to add it to their reading knowledge.

I Can Read!

celiagmccloud — 2025-11-01 21:06:55 UTC

I Can Read! leveled readers can be great for students with reading difficulties. The books span through all different levels so students can work with the books that are right on level for them. They can find books that are interesting to them and will require them to use the knowledge they have. Then they can progress to harder books as they acquire more knowledge.

Giraffes Can't Dance

celiagmccloud — 2025-11-01 21:08:14 UTC

I think this is a great book to teach organization with. We would learn about story structure and how to use it in our writing. We'd talk about beginning, middle, and end, and conflict/resolution. For a writing activity, I'm thinking one like I did with The Very Last Leaf read-aloud plan. We'd have different events from the story and the students would have to order them and write a description.