Finding Success With Common Core Reading Using Mentor Text

If you teach writing, then you’ve invariably used, or heard about, mentor texts. A mentor text is a book that you use to show your students examples of excellent writing, which they can then go imitate in their own writing. A mentor text is often in the form of a picture book, because students can easily relate to them. As a language arts teacher, I was skeptical when I was first approached with the idea using mentor texts in my writing instruction. I had many concerns, including the fact that the mentor text I was given to use with my 4th-6th graders was at a 1st grade Lexile level. After years of checking the Lexile level of everything we read, I was worried that these texts wouldn’t be useful for my students. After my first year using mentor texts, I was sold on the idea. My students were more interested in writing, and their writing skills drastically improved.

In Reading, I realized that mentor texts can be used to show students excellent examples of all the story elements. After hearing that many teachers were struggling with the new Common Core standards, I realized what an amazing resource mentor texts can be to help make the standards more understandable.

The best mentor text gets students interested. My absolute favorite for the upper grades is Train to Somewhere by Eve Bunting, a historical fiction book about orphans that travel by train to find new families. I read this story with my 4th, 5th, and 6th graders each year, and they’ve always been on the edge of their seats waiting to see if she is adopted. The best thing about mentor texts is that you can reread them throughout the year, teaching a new standard each time. I can model 6/9 of the Common Core Reading Standards for fifth grade with just this one mentor text. Find a book that you love, and that your students love, and find out which story elements are apparent in it. You’ll be surprised by how many standards you can fit into one mentor text! Remember that the author’s craft connects reading and writing standards, so you can reuse mentor text in both subjects!

I can model each of these standards using a mentor text and then facilitate while my students apply what they’ve learned to reading literature in their Lexile band. Because they have a good example of the standard in a mentor text, they can easily transfer that knowledge to more difficult reading.

Yes! Mentor texts can be easily paired with your curriculum. I use a mixture of mentor texts, Harcourt curriculum, and my Reading Interactive Notebooks. Mentor text is an important piece in my ELA puzzle. Once you find a few good mentor texts, you’ll find yourself using them over and over again!