Use this book for COMPREHENSION with the strategy Ask questions throughout the reading process.  Before:  What are some characteristics of traditional or enduring stories?  During:  What patterns do you notice in the structure of the story?  Does it remind you of any other children’s stories?  After:  Why do you think the author says the troll was “as mean as he was ugly”?  Do you often notice that the evil characters are ugly while the heroes are pretty or handsome?  Why do you think author’s do this?

Also when teaching FLUENCY this book lends itself to the strategy Use punctuation to enhance phrasing and prosody.  For younger students, talk about the all-caps words and the different tones the billy goats and troll might use.

This book is excellent for highlighting descriptive words and PINTEREST has over a thousand ideas for lesson ideas.

Great ideas for this book!

Bear’s hat is gone and he wants it back! He asks the animals whether they have seen it. Each animal says no but just as he is about to give up a deer comes by and sparks the bear’s memory.

This book would be great to use for COMPREHENSION strategies such as check for understanding, connect to the story and name the problem and solution.

Click the above link for other ideas.

Despite being a narrative nonfiction, Welcome to the World of Hummingbirds has text features like an index, table of contents and text boxes. This book can also be used when teaching the ACCURACY strategy of Trade a word/guess a word that makes sense.  Many primary science units are about animals, habitats, and ecosystems.  Talk with students about how their familiarity with new vocabulary they have learned in their science unit can help them read accurately.

Third and Fourth grades have already introduced fables this year.  Here are some printable fables and ideas for lessons, as well as characteristics of fables.

This is a great book for preschool, kindergarten and first graders who are learning their letters!  Many, many lessons are posted all over the internet and on pinterest for this book. It’s just FUN!

Lesson ideas for Diary of a Wombat

5th grade spent time in September reading Historical Fiction!  This book can be used in Daily 5 Cafe for multiple strategies.

COMPREHENSION

• Recognize literary elements (theme). 
  • persistence in the face of challenges
  • standing up for what you believe in
  • a full life is well-rounded and allows you to develop your passions
  • privilege plays a role in what individual determination can achieve (how would Banneker’s life be different if he hadn’t been born to a freedman?)  If he had been born closer to the civil war?  If he was born in the South during the civil rights movement?)
• Compare and contrast within and between text

ACCURACY

• Use the pictures…Do the words and pictures match? More complex words like observing, plotted, astronomy, and eclipse make sense in the context of this book.

BEHAVIORS THAT SUPPORT READING

• Select and read good-fit books Benjamin Banneker taught himself astronomy!  Amazing.  The level of self motivation he must have had is amazing.  Our students need to strive to find topics and issues that interest them so they too can be motivated to take a lead role in their own successes.  Use this book to reinforce the strategy of IPICK.