Talking About Our Reading: Who are the Characters?

About this teaching resource

‘Talk is possibly the most underutilised comprehension strategy used by teachers.’ Richard Allington  

Aiden Chambers, in his book The Reading Environment, also speaks of the importance of an enabling adult crafting time and a routine for students to anticipate meaningful book conversations.

These Book Chat prompts are designed with meaningful conversations in mind, especially for Kindergarteners. Get thinking, talking and writing about the characters in a story you read together as a class.

There’s a whole collection of character Book Chat reading and writing prompts to explore with your learners. Each prompt come with the mini lesson ideas; how to model your thinking, how to get your students thinking and talking with you and some prompts include how to model a written response. Templates to support your writers are included when relevant.

Be the enabling adult who brings rich conversational and writing experiences to your amazing young thinkers, speakers and learners.

Materials and How To:

The amazing thing is how easy and cheap it is to implement talking about books!

• Students
• Read Aloud
• Prompt
• Time to share a book together
• Time for lively talk and writing
• Get your students talking about their reading and watch them grow in reading confidence, comprehension and vocabulary.

Nhi says it well: I like sharing my reading and thinking with others. Talking and sharing helps me get better at reading.’

Research might tell us, but children can vouch for it.

Australian curriculum alignment

Year K