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Lesson
10-1
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Lesson: Important things
==> We all have treasures or things that are really important to us. Show children your wedding band and explain how
important it is to you. It is a reminder of how much I love my husband. I also have a pooh bear that I got when I was just
a baby. It's very important to me because it reminds me of my childhood.
==> Authors have important things they want to share with the reader.
==> As readers we need to have a busy brain as we read so that we can pick out the important things the author wants
to tell us. This strategy is called Determining Importance.
==> Today I am going to model what that looks like. As I read this book I am going to think aloud and show you how
i use this strategy to help me as a reader.
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Lesson
10-2
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Lesson: Digging Deeper
==> Show the kids a shovel and a treasure map. What's a shovel used for? To dig deeper than the surface of the soil.
Pirates use shovels to find hidden treasure.
==> Readers need to dig deeper too in search of treasures too.
==> Authors have a purpose, a reason for their writing. Often they have a message they want you to discover and understand.
==> When we read it's like we are going hunting for hidden treasure. The treasure is the authors theme or message.
==> We're going to read Miss Rumphius today. I'm going to show you what it looks like when someone uses this strategy
of digging deeper. Watch closely so you too can learn to use this strategy.
==> Themes found in the story- love for adventure, following your dreams, making the world a better place, treating
others with respect.
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Lesson
10-3
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Lesson: What's in my purse?
==> Start the lesson with your purse on your lap. Explain that later that day you are going to take your dog to the
doggy park for a walk. You really don't want to take your purse along with you. BUT there are some things in there that
are pretty important that you should probably take along.
==> Let's look through the contents of my purse and maybe you can help me decide what's really important and what I
can leave behind.
==> I don't need my lipstick or my old receipts. I do need my keys and my driver's license. I should probably take
along my cell phone in case there is an emergency... etc.
==> Readers do the same thing when they read. They sort through the information in the book to decide what's really
important to take with them.
==> Let's give it a try with this book.
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Lesson
10-4
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Lesson: Digging for the heart of the author
==> Sometimes authors want to share things that are deep matters of the heart.
==> They aren't just giving us information, they want to challenge our thinking.
==> When we read their books, they have a message from the heart for us.
==> The book we are going to read today has a tender message from the heart of the author. She wants to challenge
our thinking and help us understand life.
==> As I read today I want you to listen with your heart and dig deep inside the story. See if you can figure out
what the author really wants us to understand about life.
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Lesson
10-5
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Lesson: Wrapping it up
==> How many of you have ever had something sad happen in your life? Even 6 and 7 years sometimes have sad things
happen.
==> Tell the children about a sad moment in your own life (my sister in law dying of brain cancer).
==> Those things are hard to understand.
==> Show the kids a little dog treat. Explain to them that sometimes when a dog gets sick he needs to take medicine,
but he doesn't like to take it. What I do is wrap the medicine up inside a dog treat. It helps to take away the bad taste
of the medicine.
==> Sometimes authors want to help us understand those moments so they wrap those hard things in life up inside a
story.
==> When we dig down deep into the story it helps us understand life better.
==> Today's story is one of those stories. Listen carefully with your heart as I read.
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Rudi's Pond
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Lesson
10-6
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Lesson: Authors sometimes plants seeds of wisdom inside their stories
==> Show a variety of different seeds.
==> When you plant a seed, you bury it inside the ground and before long something beautiful grows.
==> Sometimes authors plant seeds of wisdom inside their stories.
==> The little seed of wisdom grows inside of us as we think about the story and dig deep for the authors purpose
and meaning.
==> We learn some very valuable lessons from authors when we really dig deep.
==> As I read today's story see if you can figure out the little seed of wisdom the author wants to plant in our lives.
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Lesson
10-7
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Lesson: Seeds of wisdom part 2
==> Review yesterday's lesson
==> Even funny stories can plant seeds of wisdom in our hearts and lives.
==> Today's story is a funny one, but the author has a not so funny lesson that we can learn from their story.
==> As I read today remember that even though this is a funny story, you can still dig deep and learn something valuable
from this author.
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Lesson
10-8
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Lesson: Authors weave important lessons into their stories
==> Show the kids a little loom used for weaving (borrow from the art teacher)
==> Discuss weaving and how the fibers interlock
==> Authors sometimes weave important lessons into their stories.
==> As you listen to the story today see if you can figure out what important message the author has woven into their
story.
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Lesson
10-9
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Lesson: Weaving important information into a story
==> Review yesterday's lesson about weaving
==> Today's story has some similarities to yesterday's story. The author has woven some very important lessons into
their story.
==> Listen carefully and see what you can learn from the author today.
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Lesson
10-10
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Lesson: Determining what's really important
==> You will need two pots and some cooked spaghetti and a strainer.
==> Have you ever noticed how it's difficult to remember everything you read? Our brains get a bit overloaded with
information sometimes.
==> Thoughtful readers understand that and so they use a reading strategy called determining importance. It's when
your brain picks out the really important stuff to remember and sets aside the other stuff.
==> I'm going to use this spaghetti to explain it to you. Show how you have a pot of spaghetti in water. This represents
all the stuff in the book. But we all know that you mom doesn't put the spaghetti on the table with the water still in the
pot. She drains out the water. That is like the extra stuff in the story. Demonstrate draining the pasta. Now what is
left behind in the dish is the pasta.
==> Your brain is like the strainer and the spaghetti is the really important stuff your brain wants to keep. The
water is the not so important stuff.
==> Let's see how it works. I'm going to read this story today and we will practice together.
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Lesson
10-11
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Lesson: Determining important information in non-fiction
==> How does fiction differ from non fiction?
==> What do you know about non fiction?
==> Conventions: headings, labels, photos, captions, cutaways, maps, types of print, table of contents, index, glossary
==> Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on each of these conventions and learning how they help us as readers
to reach understanding
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Select a fictional text and a non-fictional text about the same subject
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Lesson
10-12
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Lesson: Looking at captions
Show a picture of your students taken earlier in the year. Ask
kids what is happening in the picture.
Explain that a stranger might not have known what was
happening in the picture. For this reason an author puts captions under the pictures. The captions tell what is
happening in the picture or give you more information about the picture.
Give each student
a picture and have them glue it on a page and create a caption underneath it. Bind the pages into a class book.
This
lesson can also be done as a technology integrated lesson by giving pairs of students a digital camera and having them take
a picture of something and then create a page for the book by importing the picture into Microsoft Word and adding the caption.
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Title
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Lesson
10-13
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Lesson: Looking at headings
Before this lesson take pictures of several kids hands, feet, fingers,
elbows, etc. and also pictures of several kids heads.
To start the lesson show a picture of someone's
hand. Whose hand is it? It's kind of hard to tell. Do the same for several finger, feet, and elbow pictures.
Next
show a head picture. Whose head is this? Kids will know right away.
Today we are going to talk
about headings. Headings are words that are put before a section of text. They give us the big idea of the text
that follows. Reading the headings can help us understand the text of the body. Just like you weren't
always sure whose body part I was showing, we can't always understand the body of the text, but looking at the headings can
help clarify things for us.
Show kids some headings. Have them discuss what the heading
tell them they will be reading about.
Headings can also help us scan large amounts of text
to find what we are looking for. If I want to find out what hippos eat then I wouldn't need to read the parts about
where they live. I can scan the headings until I find one that talks about food and then read that body part to find
my answer.
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Title
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Lesson
10-14
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Lesson: Looking at Photographs
Show several photos of your family (kids are almost always interested
in your personal life).
We all love photos. Sometimes people say that a photos worth
a thousand words. While I'm not sure that is really true, I do know that photos can help us better understand things.
If I've never seen a sloth then it's going to be very helpful to me if my book shows me what one looks like instead
of just telling me.
Have kids spend a few minutes browsing through a non fiction text and
share cool photos they find with their talking partner.
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Title
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Lesson
10-15
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Lesson: Looking at the table of contents
Show kids a menu from a popular restaurant. A
menu tells you the things that the restaurant serves.
Books often have a "menu" in the front.
It's called a table of contents. It tells you the names of the chapters in the book.
A
table of contents can help you find what you want. If you want to find out about an animals eating you can scan the
table of contents and find the chapter that talks about food.
Model how a table of contents
is used. If you have a class set of a non fiction text you can have a scavenger hunt for information. For example,
have kids use the table of contents to hunt for answers to questions you ask.
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Any class set of non fiction text with a table of contents. A science book generally will have this feature.
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Lesson
10-16
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Lesson: Looking at the index
Show a large non fiction text. Explain that you need to quickly
find information about what this animal eats. The problem is that you don't have time to read the WHOLE book.
Many
non fiction books have an index. An index tells you what page you will find information on.
An
index is found in the back of the book. I can flip back there and look for the word food. All the items in the
index are in abc order so it is easy for me to find what I am looking for.
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Title
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Lesson
10-17
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Looking at types of print
Authors in fictional pieces often use all caps to tell us something
important. Authors of non-fiction often use bold print or italic print to tell us something important.
Show
kids several different books that utilize bold or italic print.
Bold print often tells us
a word is very important. Often times that word is found in the glossary. The glossary is like a dictionary in
the back of the book.
An author uses this type of print to draw our attention to important things.
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Title
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Lesson
10-18
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Looking at maps
Show a variety of different maps. (treasure maps, world maps, state maps,
maps of rooms, maps of space, etc.)
Maps can tell us where things are found, what shape things are,
how to get from one place to another.
Maps can show us what animals live in a particular place or
what order the planets are in.
Maps can add information or clarify information for us as readers.
Maps give us visual information that can't always be expressed as well with words. Maps can help us understand
the words better.
Have children flip through a variety of non-fiction texts and look for maps.
Make a list of the types of maps they found.
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Title
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Lesson
10-19
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Putting it all together
As readers we need to put it all together. Show a Lego car in pieces. All the parts that we have looked at so far as
we have studied non fiction are parts of the book just like this Lego car has parts. It has wheels, and a base, and a top.
It really isn't a car until we put it together. A non fiction text has pictures, captions, maps, text, headings, etc. When
we put them together we have a non fiction text.
A thoughtful reader takes all the information they get from a non fiction text and they put it all together to complete
their learning. Just looking at the pictures or just looking at the captions isn't enough.
Sometimes I have a learner who will look at a picture and then come and tell me that they learned something... and then
we discover that what they thought they learned wasn't true because they misinterpreted the picture. They needed to put the
picture with the caption to get the information.
All the parts are important.
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Back to reader's workshop mini-lessons
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