The Good Egg: What is the Purpose of a Read Aloud?
What is the purpose of a read aloud? If you are an elementary school teacher then you most likely already use read alouds in your classroom.
You may already know the purpose behind reading aloud, or have a clear purpose for using read alouds in your classroom. There are so many great reasons to use read alouds!
One purpose that many teachers love about read aloud time is that it helps to create a positive classroom community. Read alouds are the perfect opportunity to come together as a whole class and enjoy a fun (and educational) activity – reading!
In addition to creating a positive classroom community, read alouds serve several other purposes:
- Establishing routines and procedures
- Creating spaces for whole class discussions
- Assisting with language development
- Allowing students time to practice listening skills
- Encouraging a love of reading!
The Purpose Behind The Good Egg Story
Beyond the many benefits of reading aloud in general, there are also benefits of read alouds for specific books. Like for the book The Good Egg by Jory John.
The purpose of the Good Egg story is to teach students how to identify and manage their stress. Stress is not a topic that has always been addressed in younger grades. Unfortunately, it is a very real part of their lives.
Young children feel stress just like adults do. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the stress kids feel. Moreover, providing them with helpful tools to manage their stress. That is the purpose of this wonderful book.
In the Good Egg students are able to learn from the main character about what can cause stress. They also learn healthy ways to deal with it. Moreover, kids learn that they are not responsible for others’ actions!
These lessons are further reinforced by teaching this book as a read aloud. Using read aloud tools like whole group discussions, text-dependent questions, and peer sharing, gives students a space to make text-to-self connections. This helps them further transfer these important lessons into their lives.
The Good Egg Summary
The author of The Good Egg teaches kids about stress by showing how the Good Egg feels stressed. Specifically, how his stress is created by others’ actions.
While the Good Egg is very helpful, the other eggs are not as helpful. The Good Egg helps with carrying groceries, getting a cat down from a tree, and painting a house. Unfortunately, the other eggs prefer to be rambunctious and not help others.
The contrast between the Good Egg and the other eggs represents our best selves vs when we are not being our best selves. This is an important comparison because it teaches students that we all have good days and bad days.
Some days we feel like the Good Egg and want to be helpful. On other days we want to be silly. Some days we are happy. On other days we are stressed. All of these are great lessons that teachers can discuss with their students while reading the book.
Another important lesson is for kids to learn they are responsible for their own feelings and behaviors. The Good Egg gets frustrated because he doesn’t know how to fix the other eggs’ behaviors.
He has to learn that while he can be an example, he can’t change their behavior. He also must learn that he is responsible for his own reactions to others. This leads him to learn that the most important thing is for him to take care of his own well-being!
One thing we love about this book is how the author provides specific examples of HOW to feel better when you are stressed. The Good Egg goes for a walk. He reads and paints. These are all great ideas to offer your students! They also create an opportunity for students to brainstorm their own well-being practices.
The Good Egg Activities and Comprehension Questions
We think this book is such an important book for teachers to share with their students. This is why we made a FREE The Good Egg Read Aloud to go with it!
This free read aloud includes ALL of the amazing interactive read aloud activities you will find in our other read aloud packs. Check out all of our 1st and 2nd Grade Read Alouds hereThis means, enough activities to cover a full week’s worth of lesson plans and book activities!
This Resource Includes:
- Detailed lesson plans
- Comprehension questions
- Whole group response to text activities
- Individual Response to text worksheets
- Writing pages
- Vocabulary cards and worksheets
- Quiz
- Retelling puppets
- Craftivity template
Each of these activities is designed with the common core in mind. Therefore, you know that your students are receiving rigorous instruction. Even though it is rigorous it is also fun!
Remember, these kids are still little and fun is still an important part of learning! After revisiting the story several times, the retelling puppets and craftivity template give students a creative way to connect with the story.
Free Read Alouds for Kids
As former first grade teachers, the three of us are HUGE advocates for read alouds! They were always one of our favorite parts about teaching. Therefore, we want to do as much as we can to support other teachers in keeping read alouds a regular part of your curriculum.
In addition to The Good Egg free read aloud, we have two other free read alouds for kids.
Enemy Pie Read Aloud and Diary of a Spider Read Aloud.
These are both great books to add to your collection!
Beyond free read alouds we love to create read alouds for books pairs. If you find you love The Good Egg Read Aloud then check out our The Bad Seed Read Aloud!
