The fundamental reason for assigning elementary school children a variety of books is to supply them with the basic skills to successfully function in the world as they grow up. Each time your students read -- and come to understand -- a new book or story that features varied vocabulary, new grammar and punctuation challenges or unusual phrasing, they become a better-equipped reader. For example, use "The Rainbow Fish" to help students work through any problems they have with phonemes, such as distinguishing the sound of the letter "P" from the letter "B" or the letter "B" from the letter "A" in reading. When reading this book aloud, monitor the students reading and pronunciation of these letters and help them when they have difficulty.
Assigning your students to read "The Rainbow Fish" will challenge your students to address some issues they may soon face, or may already be facing, such as how to get along with one another, especially when someone is different. The eponymous main character is beautiful and unique with multi-colored gills, all tinged with flecks of silver. All the other fish long to have such beautiful gills and to get to know the Rainbow Fish, but he chooses to stay off to himself. Once he finally shares one of his gills with the small blue fish then all the other fish, he realizes how much more important it is to share his beauty and make others happy than to keep it all to himself and be alone and proud. With this story, you ask your students how this story applies to every day life using themes such as vanity, sharing with others and understanding that sacrifice can be rewarding.
With no illustrations, this book would require your students to use their imaginations during the reading, and given the author's descriptions, your students would probably come up with a good idea of what the Rainbow Fish and the other fish might look like. However, Marcus Pfister's illustrations work well to help support the story. The author knew that he had to make the Rainbow Fish's gills particularly exotic and worthy of so much admiration, so he used a special material called holographic foil and a more expensive process to express the fish's shimmering gills.
Incorporate activities into this reading to help reinforce the theme, as well as how the illustrations and text combine to bring them a heartfelt story. One activity you can try is providing a copy of the book for the students to read without the illustrations then asking them to create their own illustrations to express the ideas and themes in the story. Or conversely, show your class the illustrations first then ask them to create a story to convey what they see.