Why does the Making Meaning program sometimes use read-aloud books at grade levels other than those recommended by book publishers?
Although students throughout the program practice comprehension strategies in books at their own reading level, the strategies are introduced through read- alouds. This allows all students to access the content and think about the strategy they are learning. Furthermore, the read-aloud books were selected that were most appropriate to the teaching of particular strategies. For example, certain fiction texts lend themselves better to the teaching of inference than others. These considerations, along with the goal of creating well-rounded, diverse, and socially representative sets of read-alouds at each grade level, guided the book selections.
