4 Spring Books to Use as Mentor Texts in Writing!

Writers Workshop Mentor Texts to use in Spring! These picture books will help elevate your illustrative studies in writers workshop. Your kindergarten or first-grade students will love these books and their writing will soar!

I love using picture books to help elevate the quality of writing with the students I work with.  Here are four books you can use right now!

Mud by Mary Lyn Ray

What a fun book!  Great for connections as we start thawing out from winter.

Although this book does not have a lot of text, what the text does have is RICH language!

But I would also like to point out the illustrations!   As you are looking at these pages, what are you noticing?  How did the illustrator work together with the author to tell the story?

I love showing the illustrations to students and asking them what they notice.   Think about the illustrator’s perspective.  Throughout this book, the child’s whole body is never shown… only snippets.  This guides the reader to zoom and focus their attention.

Rain by Manya Stojic

This book is fantastic for your five senses study, but it’s also a great book to use for writing ideas.  It guides students towards the idea of adding their sense to their writing!  AND it is fun!

Again, do you notice how the illustrator did not draw the entire animal on each page?

How about this page?   Can you see how a lesson on illustrating the foreground might be useful?  Word choice… YEP! This book has you covered too!

Up, Down, And Around by Katherine Ayres

This book is also a fantastic mentor text!

Do you notice the action lines?  Look for them!   Pointing out the dog, crow, and other areas in this illustration.  This will help your students think more deeply about their illustrative choices.   When students illustrate with a purpose and intention, this will transfer to their scribing when they are ready.

What about these illustrations?  Think about perspective… think about different ways to write about a subject.  Are you getting some ideas for mini-lessons?

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood

I was chatting with a non-teacher friend about books he remembered from his toddler days.  He said this was a book that he had read to him over and over.  So when I got home, I pulled it out to look at it again.  I looked it over as a writer this time.

Throughout the book, the author is talking to Little Mouse.   Look how his expression changes.  Can you see his emotions?  Wouldn’t this be a great mentor text to use when teaching about character development?

There you have it! What are some of your favorite spring books to use in writers workshop.  Please share in the comments!

Lesson Plans 

If you are looking for thoroughly planned lessons for writers workshop, you may be interested in our year-long resource.  Each day is scripted for you to take your emergent writer from scribbles to masterpieces!   You can see those units HERE.

FREE Writing Continuum

If you are interested in our writing continuum and conferring resource, you can grab it below!  If you want to read more about how I handle conferring, you can read a blog post about it HERE.