Looking to start teaching growth mindset into your classroom? Worried it will just be adding one more thing? A great way to integrate teaching growth mindset into your classroom is through read alouds. A bonus of growth mindset books for elementary kids is they can also be used to teach other reading skills and strategies.
Easily integrate growth mindset books for elementary kids into your reading instruction
I whole-heartedly believe that helping kids develop a growth mindset is an important part of our role as teachers. However, it can be hard to find the time to add something to our already jam-packed schedules. Integrating growth mindset books into your reading instruction is an easy solution.
Check out: 4 Simple Ways to Nurture Kids’ Growth Mindset.
I would try and add growth mindset lessons to my plans, but I kept having to push them to the back burner. So, I needed to figure out a different way to approach teaching kids about a growth mindset. Adding growth mindset books to reading instruction was a quick and easy solution. I think it can be a great solution for you as well.
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When looking for a text to use for any of my reading mini-lessons I look for a book that has the theme of a growth mindset. I’ve found this works great for mini-lessons that cover:
- Theme
- Main Message or Lesson
- Character Traits
- Text-to-Self Connections
- Text-to-Text Connections
- Cause and Effect
- Compare and Contrast
- Problem and Solution
- AND more!
Growth mindset instruction is becoming an important part of general education. Authors are following suit with a variety of growth mindset themed texts.
However, the theme can be found in many different books. A quick search of Amazon will give you a variety of books for you to choose from. You’re looking for a text that has a character that learns to grow and change through hard work and not giving up. The book should also focus on the character’s effort versus natural ability.
Another great way to develop a growth mindset is by having students set personal goals. Get a set of FREE Student Goal Setting and Reflection Worksheets. CLICK and download here.
Check out some of my favorite growth mindset books for elementary students:
The Most Magnificent Thing – This book is a great one to introduce before having students start an engineering or STEM challenge. It helps prepare them to have a growth mindset during the process. (By Ashley Spires)
The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes – This is another great fiction book that can be used for a variety of reading mini-lessons. I most recently used it to work with my students on identify character traits. The main character is a perfectionist that learns that making mistakes is ok. (By Mark Pett)
Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It – This non-fiction book helps elementary students understand how our brain works. It teaches the science behind a growth mindset. The book makes it clear that our brains are like a muscle that we can grow stronger. It’s also a good book to have kids tune into interesting words. (By JoAnn Deak Ph.D.)
Thanks for the Feedback, I Think – One part of having a growth mindset that can be difficult for young kids is taking criticism and compliments in an appropriate way. This is a great book to help kids with this concept. I’ve also used it in a mini-lesson to teach asking and answering questions as you read. (By Julia Cook)
The Dot – This is a classic, but it’s a great growth mindset lesson. It’s a great way to start off the beginning of the new school year. You can coincide the lesson with International Dot Day. It’s also a great book to use to teach text-to-self connections or problem and solution. (By Peter H Reynolds)
The Bad Seed – I love this book because it has a growth mindset point of view on behavior. Sometimes students feel like they’re the “bad kid” and that’s just who they are. This story turns this idea on its head which is a great lesson for all of our students. You can also use this text to have students practice comparing and contrasting a character at the beginning and end of a story (By Jory John)
Rosie Revere, Engineer – Another great growth mindset and STEM related book for elementary students. It’s a part of a series of books “The Questioneers” about kids that are inquisitive and work to solve problems. The kids are great role-models because they’re not perfect. They make mistakes and have to learn from them. (By Andrea Beaty)
If you have Amazon Prime you can also download the Kindle version of some of these titles for free.
Developing a growth mindset is an important lesson to teach our students. If we can integrate it with our required subjects we can easily fit it into our already busy schedules. What growth mindset book are you going to read to your students?
