Stick and Stone by Beth Ferry
A great read-aloud for teaching how to stand up for your friends
We fell in love with Stick and Stone the second we came across it at our public library. All three of us had a copy shipped to our homes before returning it. This book can’t help but make you smile. Stick and Stone become life-long friends when Stick stands up for Stone as the bully, Pinecone taunts him. At first glance, we weren’t sure if this text was complex enough for a close read extended over several days. After reading it, we realized the rhyming text and illustrations work harmoniously together to tell the story. It is easily one of our favorite interactive read-alouds.
We read the story to the class the first time and answered text dependent questions about the key ideas and details from the text. Then the students completed a story map. (What are text dependent questions?)
Friendship Read Aloud
We felt there were many parts of the story worth revisiting to discuss why the author made certain decisions about text structure. Also, the phrases in the book were great for holding deeper discussions about their meaning. For example, Stick says “You rock, Stone.” Our craft and structure text dependent questions really helped us dive deep into the text. It was fun to talk with the students about the phrases and complete the phrase meanings activity. They love the book even more once they start to understand the humor in the story. Go here for helpful text dependent question stems that can be used for any text.
The third time we revisited the text we focused on Stick and Stone’s feelings after discussing the integration of knowledge text dependent questions. The illustrations in this text helped students understand how the character’s were feeling throughout the story. Our strategic lesson plans cover many Common Core standards through the use of deeper text dependent questioning that focus on how the text and illustrations work together. Each time you revisit the text with your students they will gain a deeper understanding of the text as well as the illustrations.
There were also multiple opportunities to make inferences about characters and events using the illustrations. This book is a great springboard to talk to students about friendship. After finishing three days of diving deeper into the text through the use of graphic organizers and text dependent questions, students then wrote ways to “stick” with their friends.
This Stick and Stone read-aloud is perfect for kindergarten and first grade. Your students will love it!
Stick and Stone Read Aloud Lesson Plan
Don’t worry about how much work it will take to write your own text dependent questions and create your own graphic organizers. We have done all the work for you!
You can purchase Stick and Stone read-aloud lesson plan with text dependent questions, graphic organizers, and craftivity in our shop
We'd like to send you a free interactive read-aloud that is easy to use in either a print or digital format!
