Written By Ashley
Kevin Henkes is a children’s author that is excellent at teaching children about different social situations through his creative mice characters. Whether you are looking to teach about being patient, brave, less worried, or determination these are the perfect books to do it.
Keven Henkes uses sweet little mice to tell stories about situations that children go through. He has a way of making the characters come alive and it captivates children to see what is going to happen next.
I love using his books in the classroom because I can use them for a variety of different reading comprehension activities. I’ll share with you in this post how I use his stories to teach my students and my children.
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Don’t leave before you tell me below how you use these books in your classroom or home. Plus I’d love to know which one is your favorite!
How do I use Kevin Henkes to teach Reading Comprehension in the Classroom?
Making Predictions:
Predictions are a simple guess, “prediction” about what you think is going to happen next given the information that you have. You may “predict” that after a full day of swimming you’ll come home and have some tired children. At my house, that would be a great prediction.
It’s important that children learn about predictions when it relates to the text because it shows they have an understanding of what is happening throughout a story. Teachers will often ask children to make predictions within a story to see if they are making connections with the story in relationship to what is happening within it.
Making Connections:
Another reading comprehension skill that teachers use is making connections. This means they need to be connecting text to themself (or situations they have been through), text-to-text meaning making connections from what happens in one story to the next, and text-to-world connecting what happens in a story that relates to the world in which they live in.
It’s important that children learn to make connections with text because they can learn more about the characters and plot by relating what is happening to something that happens within their own life.
Character Traits:
Teaching character traits allows children to see that everyone is different. Character traits are more about how a person behaves and their actions.
The following are some examples of character traits:
- Quiet
- Loud
- Kind
- Silly
- Mean
- Funny
- Smart
- Patient
- Jealous
- Faithful
- Honest
- Loyal
- Generous
- Grouchy
- Hopeful
- Proud
- Brave
It’s important to remember when teaching character traits that they are different than physical traits. Physical traits are ways that would describe a person like tall or short. They are words that would describe what someone looks like on the outside but, character traits are the ways in which you would describe someone based on their actions.
Kevin Henkes does an excellent job of teaching children character traits throughout his various books. This is because each of the characters that he writes about comes alive in a way that is unique to them. It is easy to identify one of his characters as “brave” because it’s in the name of the story. However, teachers want to know what makes the character brave. For example, what does the character do through their actions or say with their words that makes them brave?
We will get more into this later in this blog post.
What Books can I use to Teach These Skills?
I love using Kevin Henkes books to teach these skills. I’ll list his books in the order in which I would introduce them to my students and how I would teach these comprehension skills.
Chrysanthemum
Ahh, Chrysanthemum … teachers love to use it for the beginning of the school year! It’s no wonder why. Chrysanthemum is a story about a mouse that doesn’t like her name. The other mice in school make fun of her for it and she feels sad. But her parents think it’s perfect!
This book has so many uses when it comes to reading comprehension. It can be used to support the character traits of Chrysanthemum, her teacher, her parents, and her classmates.
It can also be used to teach making predictions, “How do you think the teacher will respond to hearing Chrysanthemum’s name?”. The child can also predict at the end of the story what they think will happen with how Chrysanthemum feels about her name.
This story can also be used for making connections because the children can say if they connect to a time they didn’t feel so great like Chrysanthemum. When they make a connection with how the story relates to them, it’s called a “text-to-self” connection.
Sheila Rae the Brave
Next, let’s look at Sheila Rae, a brave mouse that isn’t scared of anything! Well that is until she gets lost with her little sister. What will Sheila and Louise do now that they are lost and Sheila is feeling …. scared?!
I love how easily teaching character traits comes with this book. You can have students write a way that Sheila is brave after making a list of the ways together. I even like to use highlighter tape with this book because it makes children help see that they can use the text to support their answers.
A Weekend with Wendell
In Sheila Rae’s story, she introduces a classmate named Wendell which is a perfect connection to this story. I like using this book with Sheila Rae’s story because in Sheila’s story Wendell was a classmate mentioned. This book is the perfect next story to follow up with because the children will have a connection with Wendell.
Wendell is staying at his cousin Sophie’s house, but Wendell is a bit (or a lot!) bossy. You can have the students make a text-to-text connection by having them identify Wendell’s character traits in Sheila’s story and how they were alike or different in his story.
They can also work on making text-to-self connections by identifying a time they have stayed at someone’s house or a time in which they may have been bossy to a friend.
Owen
Owen is a sweet little mouse that takes his favorite blanket with him everywhere but what will Owen do when he has to go to school and the blanket can’t come? This book is perfect for making a connection with children that have experience with a favorite blanket, stuffed animal, or another lovey. When children make a connection to the text about themselves we refer to this as a “text-to-self” connection.
Wemberly Worried
This is another great option to use for the first day of school! Wemberly Worried is great for children that worry too much, just like Wemberly. It will help them see that they are not alone and they can overcome their worries. Wemberly makes a whole list of worries about the first day of school! It could be a great way to answer some of your student’s or child’s worries about their first day of school too!
Wemberly makes it easy to make text-to-self connections if you have a child or student that has worried about something. It also is easy to teach character traits about Wemberly to students. They will be able to highlight the words and actions that show how Wemberly is worried.
Penny
Penny is a great mouse to introduce to a new reader because her book set is full of “I Can Read” readers. These are great because they grow with our children as they can be read to them or they can learn to read them over time. Penny is full of energy and a loving family. She comes with her own book series of four books total.
You can easily make connections between the texts of these books because they are all about Penny and her family. It is also easy to create and add to a character trait chart for Penny because using the book you’ll get a great overview of who she is and what she is about.
Chester’s Way
In this book, Chester and his best friend Wilson have their own way of doing things. That is until they meet Lilly who has her own way of doing things. Your children or students will have a fun time using predictions to figure out how things will pan out when Chester and Wilson meet Lilly.
I suggest reading Chester’s Way before you read any of the famous Lilly stories because it introduces Lilly as a new character into the mice “world”. Lilly is a perfect character to teach character traits. Your children or students will get to know Lilly well after reading multiple stories about her. They should be able to give a lot of character traits about Lilly after reading Chester’s Way and all of her stories.
Julius, the Baby of the World
Julius is Lilly’s baby brother, now that your students know who Lilly is it’s time to introduce them to Julius. Your children or students will easily make a connection to this story if they have a little brother or sister. Lilly isn’t so fond of her little brother because he takes away all of her parent’s attention. She has to learn that her parents still love her just the same.
Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse
In this story, Lilly goes shopping with her grandmother and gets a beautiful purple plastic purse! She loves her purse and can’t wait to show her friends at school. Lilly is so excited about showing her friends that she just can’t hold it in any longer and gets out her purse when the teacher hadn’t told her she could.
Your child or students will have fun predicting throughout this story. Some great times to stop and have them predict are:
- Will Lilly wait to show her purse to the class as the teacher asks?
- What will happen after Lilly shows her purse to the class?
- What will happen when Lilly tells her parents what happened at school?
- How do you think Mr. Slinger will respond to Lilly’s note she put in his bag?
When I make predictions with the students I like to have a few ready on different chart papers so they can predict between a few scenarios. This is great for younger children that might still need a hand to think about what could happen next in a story.
Lilly’s Big Day
This time Lilly’s teacher is getting married. She can’t wait to be the flower girl! What will happen when Lilly realizes the flower girl role has already been filled?
You’ll find that using this book for connections is easy because they can find text-to-text connections between this book and the other books about Lilly. They’ll also find more ways to describe and come up with character traits for Lilly.
What reading comprehension skills are you going to use with your students this week?! I can’t wait to hear how you’ll teach reading comprehension to your students or children using Kevin Henke’s books.
What other book authors do you love to use in your teaching? I can’t wait to find out, make sure you leave a comment down below.
Love, Ashley E
