Bigger Than? Smaller Than?

Transcription

1 Level D/6 Math Teacher s Guide Skills & Strategies Anchor Comprehension Strategy Compare and Contrast Phonemic Awareness Listening for long vowel sounds in the middle of words Phonics Digraph th r-family blends High-Frequency Words am, at, in Content Vocabulary Animals Grammar/Word Study Compound words Math Big Idea Size can be relative. Small Group Reading Lesson Skills Bank Reproducible Activity B e n c h m a r k E d u c a t i o n C o m p a n y

2 Small Group Reading Lesson Before Reading Big Things airplane building mountain Big and Small Small Things baby puppy seed tooth Visual Cues Look at the beginning letter or letters. (k in ; fl in flower) Look for familiar chunks within the word. (big in bigger; snow in snowman) Structure Cues Look for repeated language patterns. ( The... is bigger/ smaller than... ; I am bigger/smaller than... ) Meaning Cues Think about what makes sense in the sentence. Look at the pictures to confirm the meaning of the word. Activate Prior Knowledge Encourage students to draw on prior knowledge and build background for reading the text. Create an overhead transparency of the graphic organizer Big and Small (left) or copy the organizer on chart paper, leaving the columns blank. Ask students to think of things that are big. Then ask them to think of things that are small. Write students suggestions in the columns of the chart. Tell students they will return to the chart after they read the book. Preview the Book Read the title and names of the authors to students. Ask: What do you see in the picture on the cover? If there was an ant on the ground would it be the biggest or the smallest? Show students the title page. Ask: What is in this picture? Do you think the s are bigger or smaller than the s? Preview the photographs with students, reinforcing the language used in the text. Say: I see a. A is small. Is it smaller than the flower? Is it smaller than the? Look at the tree and the girl. Which is bigger the tree or the girl? Set a Purpose for Reading Have students turn to page 2 and whisper-read the book. Say: I want you to read the book to find out about things that are bigger or smaller than other things. Monitor students reading and provide support when necessary. Review Reading Strategies Use the cues provided to remind students that they can apply different strategies to identify unfamiliar words. 2

3 During Reading Observe and Prompt Reading Strategies Observe students as they read the book. Take note of how they are problem-solving on text. Guide, or prompt, individual students who cannot problem-solve independently. After Reading Reflect on Reading Strategies Once students have completed their reading, encourage them to discuss the reading strategies they used. Reinforce the good reading behaviors you noticed by saying: I noticed, [student s name], that when you came to a word you didn t know, you went back and reread the sentence. Did that help you figure out the word? [Student s name], I saw you try to sound out the word umbrella. You looked at the first letter, then you checked the picture. That was good reading. Build Comprehension Ask and Answer Questions Help students review text content and relate it to what they already know by asking some or all of the following questions. Is the cat smaller than the bowl? Is the bowl bigger than the fish? Let s compare the words in the questions with the words in the text. (No, the cat is bigger than the bowl. Yes, the bowl is bigger than the fish. p. 7) (Locate facts/compare and contrast) What are some things people are bigger than? What are some things people are smaller than? We will have to look through the book to answer this question. (Answers will vary. One possible answer: People are bigger than s, flowers, s, and s. They are smaller than tents, trees, and pools.) (Summarize information) Why do you think people are interested in how big or how small things are? (Answers will vary. Possible answers: Size is a good way to know how one thing is different from other things. People like to measure their own size by seeing how they compare to other things.) (Make inferences) What is something that is bigger than you are? Smaller than you are? (Answers will vary.) (Use creative thinking) Teacher Tip Using the Skills Bank Based on your observations of students reading behaviors, you may wish to select activities from the Skills Bank (pp. 6 7) that will develop students reading strategies. Question Types Students need to understand that they can use information from various places in the book, as well as background knowledge, to answer different types of questions. These lessons provide four types of questions, designed to give students practice in understanding the relationship between a question and the source of its answer. Questions that require students to go to a specific place in the book. Questions that require students to integrate information from several sentences, paragraphs, or chapters within the book. Questions that require students to combine background knowledge with information from the book. Questions that relate to the book topic but require students to use only background knowledge and experience, not information from the book. 3

4 Small Group Reading Lesson (continued) Teacher Tip Monitoring Comprehension Are students able to revisit the text to locate specific answers to text-dependent questions? If they are having difficulty, show them how to match the wording of the question to the wording in the text. Are students able to find answers to questions that require a search of the text? If they are having difficulty, model how you would search for the answer. Can students combine their background knowledge with information from the text to make inferences? If they are having difficulty, model how you would answer the question. Are students answers to creative questions logical and relevant to the topic? Do students completed graphic organizers reflect an ability to compare and contrast information? If students are having difficulty, provide more modeling with comparing objects that have very obvious similarities and differences. Build Comprehension Compare and Contrast Model Create an overhead transparency of the graphic organizer on page 8 or copy the chart on the board. Discuss with students the sizes of things in the book. Encourage them to state the sizes in comparisons, as the book does. Explain that they can record this information on a chart. Model how to do this. Use the following think-aloud. The book compares the sizes of things. I can use a chart to record these comparisons. Listed in the first column of the chart are some of the things that the book tells about. The other two columns ask me to find things that are smaller than or bigger than those things. I can look in the book, at both the text and the pictures, to find this information. I can also use what I already know about the sizes of these things. For example, think about a. What are some things that are smaller than a? First I look through the book. It doesn t tell about anything that is smaller than a. But I know that a seed can be smaller than a, and an ant is smaller than a, so I ll write seed and ant in the second column. What are some things that are bigger than a? I look through the book. I can see that the flower is bigger than the. In addition, the and the are bigger than the. So I ll write flower,, and in the third column. Now let s find or think of some things are smaller or bigger than a. Practice and Apply Guide students as they look for things in the book that are smaller or bigger than a. Suggest that they list only a few things in each section. If you think students can complete the chart independently, distribute copies and monitor their work. Allow time for them to share their recorded information. Compare and Contrast What is smaller than...? seed ant f lower f lower What is bigger than...? f lower seed ant tree ball wall 4 wall pool

5 Interactive Writing Have students use the information from the graphic organizer to write sentences about the book. Say: The book tells us about the sizes of things compared to each other. We can look at our chart to help us remember what we read. Let s think of a sentence we can write that compares the sizes of two or more things. (Possible sentences include Dogs are bigger than s and s. and Dogs are smaller than people and s. ) Repeat the sentence aloud several times with students so they can internalize the language pattern. Collaborate with them to write the sentence on chart paper or the board one word at a time. Start by saying the first word slowly. Ask: What sound do you hear at the beginning of the word? What other sounds do you hear? Let students write the known sounds in each word, then fill in the remaining letters for them. Continue until the sentence is completed. Write Independently Have students write their own sentence based on the text. Encourage them to articulate words slowly, use spaces between words, and write known words fluently. When students have completed their sentences, conference with them individually. Validate their knowledge of known words and letter/sound correspondences by placing a light check mark above students contributions. Provide explicit praise as you write the message conventionally for students to see. Reread for Fluency Ask students to reread in pairs. Suggest that they take turns reading alternate pages aloud. Connect to Home Have students read the take-home version of Bigger Than? Smaller Than? to family members. Suggest that they leave out the words bigger or smaller in each sentence and ask family members to say the missing word. Ktns are bigr then z. Kittens are bigger than s. Teacher Tip Modeling Fluency Read sections of the book aloud to students to model fluent reading of the text. Model using appropriate phrasing, intonation, volume, expression, and rate. Have students listen to you read a portion of the text and then read it back to you. 5

6 Skills Bank than the this mother brother Phonemic Awareness: Listening for long vowel sounds in the middle of words Say the word like. Ask students what vowel sound they hear. (long i) Ask them where they hear the long vowel sound in the word. (in the middle) Help students confirm this by having them identify the beginning and ending sounds in like. (/l/ and /k/) Repeat the procedure with race, size, note, huge, made, hole, and cute. Phonics: Digraph th Point to the word than on the book cover. Say the word several times, emphasizing the beginning sound. Have students repeat the word with you. Then write than on the board and underline the letters th. Ask students to find additional words in the book with th. (the, this, mother, brother) Write the words on the board. Have volunteers underline the th in each word and use the word in an oral sentence. Phonics: r-family blends Write the word tree on the board. Say the word together. Ask students to identify the beginning sound and the letters that make that sound. (/tr/, tr) Explain that /r/ often combines with other consonant sounds to make blends such as /tr/. Have students look through the book for other words with r blends. (umbrella, frog, brother) Write the words they find on the board. Point out that r blends can be at the beginning or in the middle of a word. Have students brainstorm other words with tr, br, and fr. (try, train, bring, bread, friend, freeze) Write the words on the board and have volunteers circle the r blend in each one. tree um br ella fr og try br other fr iend train br ing fr eeze br ead 6

7 High-Frequency Word Vocabulary Write the words am, at, and in on the board. Say the words together. Ask a student to say a sentence with the word am. Point out that the word is always used with the word I. For example, I am going to school. Then have a student to say a sentence with the words at and in. Explain that the words always help describe where something is. For example, I am in the pool. The train is at the station. Begin a group story with this sentence: I am in the woods. Have students take turns adding sentences to the story. Tell them that each sentence must include the word am, at, or in. Concept Vocabulary: Animals Have students look through the book and find words that name animals. (,,, cat, fish, frog, ) Write each word on the board as students name it. Then have students choose two of the animals and draw a picture that shows how big the two animals are in relation to each other. Ask them to label each animal with its name, using the words on the board as models. am at in Grammar/Word Study: Compound Words Have students find a compound word in the book. (snowman, p. 11) Write snowman on the board, and demonstrate identifying the two smaller words that make up snowman. Then have students write the two words that make up each of these compound words: airplane, birdhouse, flowerpot, mailbox. Copyright. All rights reserved. Teachers may photocopy the reproducible pages for classroom use. No other part of the guide may be reproduced or transmitted in whole or in part in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN#

8 Name Date Compare and Contrast What is smaller than...? What is bigger than...?