21 Reading Anchor Charts That Keep Kids Engaged

Here are 22 of my favorite reading anchor charts for a wide range of RL standards, reinforcing read alouds, and teaching reading comprehension skills. Each chart is interactive, fun, and keeps students engaged! Click on the link in each title to read more about the lesson I teach with these charts and see them in action in my classroom.

Reading Anchor Charts That Are Both Interactive and Fun

Punctuation: Quinn the Question Mark

I use this chart to teach students to ask and answer questions. We review asking words so they know how to form questions.

How A Character Responds to Challenges

Stellaluna, by Janell Cannon, lends itself to so many RL standards. This chart is perfect for RL.3, how a character responds to major events and changes as a result of challenges. See our entire lesson with this link: How A Character Responds to Challenges.

Characters’ Points of View

It’s almost as if Stellaluna was writtten to teach RL.6 and a character’s point of view. The differing points of view among the main characters in Stellaluna are ideal for teaching this standard. See more of our lesson with this link: Characters’ Points of View

Ask & Answer Questions

Another way I use Stellaluna is to teach students to ask and answer questions about what they are reading. See our lesson on RL.1 with this link: Ask & Answer Questions

Problem/Solution

I adore Tomie dePaola books. This one, Little Grunt and the Big Egg, is one of my favorites for teaching problem and solution. See more of our lesson with this link: Problem/Solution

Visualizing

Another topic I teach with Little Grunt and the Big Egg is visualizing what the author is saying or describing. See more of this lesson with this link: Visualizing

How a Character Changes Throughout a Story

Tony’s Bread is another of my favorite Tomie dePaola books. See more of this lesson and our Tomie dePaola author study in my classroom with this link: How a Character Changes Throughout a Story

Author’s Viewpoint

My absolute favorite Tomie book is the Art Lesson. See all the things we did with this gem during our author study with this link: Author’s Viewpoint

Drawing Conclusions

Always a favorite with my students at the beginning of the year, I like this book for teaching about rules and safety. It’s also a good one for teaching students to notice and articulate the conclusions the draw as they read. Read more here: Drawing Conclusions

Cause & Effect

This oldie but goodie is perfect for teaching cause and effect. Grab free cause & effect printables and see all the topics I teach with this book here: Cause & Effect

First Day of School

You’re finally Here! is the most perfect first day of school book ever. It’s very hard to gt your hands on a copy so I made an adorable, animaled read aloud on YouTube so you don’t even need the book! See all of our first day activities and the pricless ways we use this book: First Day of School. Find my read aloud video of You’re Finally Here! on YouTube.

Writing Dialogue

I love teaching with Kid President videos and they are perfect for teaching figurative language, literal and nonliteral language. Kid president makes so many quotable statements that the videos are a fun way to teach students to write dialogue and corretly use quoatation marks. See all the reasons you should be teaching with Kid President videos and more of this lesson here: Writing Dialogue

Reading Anchor Charts for Building Comprehension

Describing Character Traits

I also like to use Kid President videos to teach students to describe character traits and provide evidence. See more of the lesson with this link: Describing Character Traits

Comparing Character Traits

Every December I do a gingerbread book study comparing all the different versions of The Gingerbread Man. To me, Gingerbread Man books are comprehension gold. The Gingebread Man Loose in the School is one of our favorites for comparing character traits. See our entire gingerbread book study here: Comparing Character Traits

Vocabulary

Tomie dePaola often uses Italian words in his stories. Just for fun we charted these and looked up their meanings during our Tomie de Paola author study. See more with this link: Vocabulary

Central Message

Anothe fun lesson to teach during a gingerbread book study is central message. See our entire lesson, the writing crafts and bulletin board we did with this link: Central Message

KWL Chart

One of the highlights of the year in my classroom is raising butterflies and learning about the life cyle. See all of the life cycle activities we do while waiting for our butterflies to hatch with this link: KWL Chart

Literal & Nonliteral Language

The Gingerbread Girl is another favorite when we compare versions of gingerbread books. It’s a great one to teach an author’s use of use of repetition and Literal & Nonliteral Language.

Opinion Writing

The Alexander books are full of great writing prompts. I like to use Alexander and the Terrible , Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day as a mentor text for teaching opinion writing. See our entire lesson with this link and don’t miss the class video we made! Opinion Writing

Plural Nouns

Sometimes opportunities just pop up unexpectedly so you make the most of that teachable moment to reinformce plural and possesive nouns! Plural & Possessive Nouns & Owl Facts

Sight Words

Frankencrayon and Scrible Monster is a fun book to use in October for teaching color words in Kindergarten. See our lesson, our “Franken”crayons, and an adorable bulletin board we madewith this link: Sight Words: Scribble Monster