In the previous unit children learned the procedures and routines needed to carry on with some independence as they begin building reading stamina. This unit continues with those routines and building stamina as students begin working on emergent storybook reading in a focused and concentrated way.In this unit children read emergent storybooks. Emergent storybook reading comes from Elizabeth Sulzby’s work on emergent literacy. The premise behind emergent storybook reading is that as students are exposed to the multiple readings of the emergent storybooks they begin to read these books on their own. Through these readings and familiarity of the emergent storybooks students’ begin to develop deeper understandings of the text, a strong sense of language and an increased desire to read independently.The first part of this units focuses on ways readers can read books using all they know to help themselves read. Early strategies like predicting and rereading are introduced. The way students read emergent story books develops over time; some children’s construction of the story will probably first involve looking at and commenting on each picture. Over time, all children learn to approximate and read the way the story sounds as if the child were reproducing the words and cadence of the text.The second part of this unit focuses on how readers study, think and grow ideas about books. They use their partners to talk about their thinking and share their understandings.The unit ends with readers trying different ways to read and share their books through retellings and acting out their favorite parts. This unit supports many of the Common Core State Standards, one of which states thatstudents need to engage in many different ways of reading independently and in partnerships with purpose and understanding.This unit should include the opportunity to introduce book bags and book shopping days. Students should have the chance to keep books until the next time they shop for new books. It is highly recommended that students shop for books (up to ten emergent story books) outside of reading workshop. This helps with management and time. Students may shop for ‘Look Books’ or the teacher can continue to use the tubs from unit 1 (adding new titles as needed). Since students will continue to have time allotted to read “Look Books” like the ones available in unit 1, the teacher should decide how to help students differentiate between emergent story books and Look Books.