Whenever I read with students I like to activate their prior knowledge on a topic and get their brain thinking what the book might be about. I do this both when they are doing the reading and when I am doing the reading and they are listening. This helps kids have a purpose for reading or listening to a book.
Today we read Swimmy by Lio Lionni. We talked about making a prediction for what the story is about. The kids used the sentence frame “I predict the story is about ______” when they talked with a partner at the carpet. Then we shared ideas as a whole class and here is what we came up with.
Who do you think the story is about? (Characters)
“A Fish” – Stephen, Emily
“An octopus” – Kaden
“A dolphin” – Madison
Where do you think the story takes place? (Setting)
“In the water” – Zayvian
“In the Ocean” – Jesus
“ At a lake or by the beach” – Jacey
What do you think the problem in the story is? (Conflict)
“brothers get angry at him and get eaten by a whale” – Mikayla
“a shark is eating people or a fish” – Sophia
“A shark is eating a dolphin” –Sammy
What will the solution be? How will the problem get fixed? (Resolution)
“If they are at a school the fish might tell their teacher” – Dylan
“A shark will die” – Stephen
“A fisherman will catch the fish” – Jacey
The students followed this up with an entry in their reading response journal. “Today we read ___________. It was about ______________.” Then they illustrated the page. Other things we worked on in reading today were the “-at” word family and beginning sounds (r and s). If you write some words in the “-at” family (sat, rat, hat, mat, etc) tonight at home I bet your kiddo’s can read them! Tonight during reading at home (15 minutes or more), look for words in your story that start with “r” or “s”.
Happy Reading!
Mrs. Weathers
