Let's Talk About What We're Going To Read

Alright fellow teachers, this was the best lesson that I have had yet and I highly recommend that you give it a try!  For this lesson, not only did I pre-select the book and pages that I wanted to read (remember less it best with younger children), but I thought of a discussion question to get my little ones thinking before we even began the book.  This week we were focusing on the canopy and some of the creatures that live in this level of the forest.  My question before hand was "What does the canopy look like?"  Prior to this we had already discussed the canopy the day before and some of its characteristics.  By posing this question I was tapping into their prior knowledge as well as getting them to recall what we had already discussed.  Once we had discussed what the kids recalled, knew, or thought they knew, we dove into the pages that I had selected.  I stuck to two different books with a total of three pages.  I have found with this particular class that if you go past three pages, you lose their attention, which is vital to a good lesson.  While we read and looked at the pages the kids were allowed to ask their questions and we discussed them often referring to the book for answers.  I wanted the kids to see that books are good for more than just stories and by locating their answers in the book, I proved this point.  One of the pages that I had selected dealt with howler monkeys.  So following our discussion and reading, I located howler monkey sound bits on the internet and played them for the kids.  They were amazed and as a result of using the internet along with my informational book they are more able to recall the information that we learned about howler monkeys.  The overall results of this lesson was amazing.  My assisstant only recorded six different distracting behaviors.  For 4-yr-olds, that alone is proof that this method is the best!  Well, once again let me know if you try this and what the overall results were.
Erin