The Ultimate Read-Aloud Resource: Making Every Moment Intentional and Instructional with Best Friend Books

Award-winning children’s author and acclaimed educator Lester L. Laminack provides guidelines, lessons, and resources for making every read-aloud experience intentional and instructional to engage students in deep thinking about fiction and nonfiction books. Central to Laminack’s message is his breakthrough thinking about the value and importance of “Best Friend Books”―a small, carefully curated collection that you repeatedly turn to for specific teaching purposes.

You’ll also find:

• Step-by-step lessons for “first visits” and “return visits” to recommended Best Friend Books―clear guidelines for digging deeply and enriching students’ understanding of content and craft
• Links to an online resource bank that contains “Spotlight on Lester” videos, graphic organizers for you, and downloadables for your students
• “What the Research Says” boxes that point to studies supporting Laminack’s professional advice
• An annotated and alphabetized list of Laminack’s favorite Best Friend Books
• “Home Visit” boxes that contain tips and tools for welcoming families into the work

Lester L. Laminack, Ed.D., is a Professor Emeritus of Birth-Kindergarten, Elementary and Middle Grades Education at Western Carolina University. He is a full-time writer and consultant working with schools throughout the U.S. Laminack is an active member of the National Council of Teachers of English and served three years as coeditor of the NCTE journal Primary Voices and as editor of the Children’s Book Review Department of the NCTE journal Language Arts (2003-2006). He has received two awards for excellence in teaching at WCU: the Botner Superior Teaching Award and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He’s the author of The Ultimate Read-Aloud Resource and the Best Friends Collection (Scholastic).