Why Book Pairings?

Just like you might pair a fine wine with a delectable meal, we pair together read aloud books. This pairing is usually a narrative with an informational text. Sometimes it is a pairing of two narrative texts around a similar topic.

Why pair texts? For a long time, the pillars of reading instruction have been phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000). Recently, however, reading researchers have been arguing for a sixth pillar: knowledge building. Why? Recht & Leslie (1988), in their seminal Baseball Study, found that knowledge of a topic (baseball) had a much bigger impact on comprehension than reading ability. This study has been replicated several times.

One way we can build our students’ knowledge is through informational read alouds. When we pair these read alouds with a narrative text, comprehension is deepened as students make connections between the two books.

We are lucky that there are now so many beautiful nonfiction texts written at many levels – even decodables. Look for these authors: Kate Messner, Gail Gibbons, Nicola Davies, Steve Jenkins… and many more. These texts take advantage of children’s natural curiosity about their world. They are not only filled with Tier 3 words (content-specific words), but many Tier 2 words as well.

Vocabulary and background knowledge both impact comprehension. Book pairings allow you to address both areas.