"Tuck Everlasting’s" length lends itself to easily dividable read-aloud sessions. Teachers who choose to read to their students can model proper vocabulary pronunciation and voice inflection. They can pause for effect at appropriate intervals or introduce questions as the action progresses. By using dramatic narrative and altering body language, teachers can appeal to auditory, as well as visual, learners. They can also have students participate in passage readings. As students read aloud, they often emulate their teachers and become better readers and more confident learners.
Today’s students are inundated with sneak-peeks of movies, videos, shows, games and products. Long before they see the movie, they’ve watched its trailer or pop-up ad via Facebook and YouTube. Little is left to their imaginations. By introducing "Tuck Everlasting" as a fantasy and offering contemporary versions of the genre, teachers can ask students to imagine what the story might be about before they even begin to read.
Choosing new vocabulary from "Tuck Everlasting" provides good contextual examples. Pulling words out for students to spell, define and use in their own stories strengthens their vocabulary and understanding of the book. Using games such as "Jeopardy" to play with words also helps to make learning fun. Meager would be the clue for “what is a small quantity often synonymous with scant?”
By looking at the basic structure and components of "Tuck Everlasting," teachers can introduce literary devices students will study further into their academic careers. Explaining the nature of a protagonist through Winnie and the likeness of a villain in the man with the yellow suit teaches students what to look for in other works of literature. Teachers can introduce similes and metaphors and personification all by pulling examples from the book.
Since "Tuck Everlasting" focuses on some big-issue questions of life and death and mortality, a cross-curriculum approach can turn the story’s obvious literary tilt toward one of biology and science. Students can investigate the life cycle of birds and mammals. Students can also think of the philosophical implications of immortality. They can be encouraged to write “what if” stories of their own where they outlive their family, friends, children and grandchildren. Imagining well into the future, they can pen their own literary fantasies that might even rival author Natalie Babbitt.