Mentor Texts for Preschool

This month the kindergarten students are learning how to use mentor texts to help them with their writing. They may be using a classroom text for the entire group to use. With that sort of text, the students would listen to the books during read aloud time. They would discuss what they notice and then the teacher would chart it. Perhaps the students would be able to take this idea a step further and come up with their own individual mentors. At least that is what we hope for them to be able to do in the years to come.

For our Gramma Preschool time last week, we used the book by Karen Hess: Come On, Rain! The book is about a young girl who is in the  middle of summer wishing that it would rain. We used the book because it was a rainy April day. We had listened to Vivaldi on our way to preschool and talked about how that was the perfect music to listen to every time it rained. Then for Reading Time, we read the book and talked about the pictures. Meron loved the illustrations and could identify with the character! She chose to take that book home with her in her satchel.

When it was time to do writing, she decided to write a story about a time it rained. She wrote about how they were in the car and it was raining. Then when they got to the store it stopped. She illustrated the pages with the car, raindrops, and pictures of her, her brother and mom. This time she even labeled the characters without me suggesting it. She really is getting the idea of how writing is a way to tell a story.