Using Mentor Texts in Reading and Writing *Free download

If you’ve been following for any length of time, you know that I love a good mentor text.

They’re engaging and a great way to get students thinking and talking.

But how do you use mentor texts effectively in reading and writing?

In this post, I break down the steps for using a mentor text.

Hang with me until the end – there’s a free download in it for you, too!

What is a mentor text?
A mentor text is a book (often a picture book, but not necessarily) that can be used to give students an opportunity to notice, practice, or apply a certain skill or strategy.

How do I use a mentor text?

1. Read the book as a read aloud, for enjoyment. The first time you read isn’t about analyzing the text; it’s about situating yourself in the text and thinking about what’s happening to ensure students have comprehension and a connection with the text.

2. Choose a piece of the text that highlights the skill or strategy you want to practice. Re-read that piece during a minilesson. Always encourage students to think about what reading like a writer looks like by helping them think about the text from the writer’s perspective. This chart helps kids think about the writing decisions authors make!

3. Model applying the strategy in that piece of text. Think aloud.

4. Have students apply the strategy in partners or groups, verbally.

5. Connect to group and then independent practice, usually in a different text.

Teaching kids to think differently when “reading like a reader” and “reading like a writer” really helps!

What does that look like in reading?
For example, in reading,  the book In November by Cynthia Rylant is excellent for helping students visualize. Rylant includes so many sensory details that it can help students make a movie in their minds.

First, we read the book aloud and just appreciated Rylant’s beautiful words. Then, at a later time, we re-read it and I modeled using the details from the text to make pictures in my mind, which improved my comprehension.

Students practiced this in partners, describing their mental images to each other.

Then, I had students each take a chunk of text and create a picture representation of their mental image, explaining where the details came from by using the text to support their picture.

Here’s another great way to help kids use sensory details to visualize: students record sensory details on sticky notes. Then they combine them to create a mental image that represents the text. They sketch this visualization, too. This activity (plus so many others for visualizing) is available in my Visualizing Sensory Details MiniPack on TpT!

But it doesn’t stop there. This book can be used as a mentor text for writing, too

1. Read the book for enjoyment.

2. Revisit a piece of the book to use as a model. Read it aloud or project it so all students can see it.

3. Think aloud about the strategy or skill the writer used in that piece of text. For example, in In November, I pointed out the sensory language that Rylant uses to describe trees, the animals, food, and so much more. As we read parts of the book aloud, we added the language to our anchor chart.

 
4. Then we brainstormed language we could use in our own writing to describe a season. In groups, students created charts for winter, spring, summer, and fall. You can get this complete activity on TpT!

5. I modeled using some of the language to write a piece of writing.

6. Students tried it themselves. They used the charts to write their own piece of writing describing a season of their choice.

You are seriously in luck. I have put together a free download that includes some of the mentor text lists from my Reader’s Workshop Resource, Writer’s Workshop Resource, Narrative Writing Minilesson Bundle, and Expository Introductions resources, and it’s free!

This free download includes a recording sheet for you to start building your mentor text collection, and mentor text lists for Reader’s Workshop, Writer’s Workshop, reading skills and strategies in fiction and nonfiction, and writing mentor texts in narrative and expository!