Martin’s Big Words Read-Aloud

Martin Luther King Jr. Interactive Read-aloud and Lessons

We like to teach about Martin Luther King Jr. during our read-aloud in January. This time so we picked an old favorite: Martin’s Big Words. In oder for this to be a meaningful read-aloud for the students,  we include some deep text dependent questions. We will also have the students complete some meaningful activities to go with the story.

During the lesson, students are guided to think about the 5 w’s-who, what, where, when, and why after reading the story the first time. They also answer text dependent questions to gain a general understanding of Martin’s life. After that, we focus on Martin’s big words. We wrote text dependent questions that really focus on the vocabulary from the text and what Martin’s big words were. As a class, we talk about his big words in the book, discuss their meanings, and use them to create a word collage. This activity deepens the student’s understanding of Martin’s life.

The third lesson was designed to get students thinking about how they can make the world a better place. The text dependent questions for this lesson focus on how the people were feeling in the story. To learn more about text dependent questions visit this blog post. We ask questions that get the students to really focus the people’s feelings and reactions to the events in the book. Students write what they can do to make the world a better place like Martin did.  You can find the Martin’s Big Words Lesson plans, graphic organizers, text dependent questions, and craft instructions in our shop.

You may also be interested our Civil Rights Lesson Plan Bundle– complete with 4 weeks of lessons covering Black History Heroes.