Bird Goes Home - Lesson Plans

Bird Goes Home
Level A

About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 46

Book Summary
The little bird has a long way to go to get back to her nest. She has to cross a city, a farm, mountains, and other obstacles. Touching illustrations accompany a text with repeated sentence patterns to make decoding easier.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Objectives

Use the strategy of making, revising, and confirming predictions to understand text
Sequence story events
Identify syllables in words
Associate the letter Bb with the sound /b/
Recognize capital letters and periods in print
Understand words associated with position

Materials

Book -- Bird Goes Home (copy for each student)
Chalkboard or dry erase board
Sequence events, initial consonant Bb worksheets
Word journal (optional)

Indicates an opportunity for student to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are reusable.)

Vocabulary

High-frequency words: the, over
Content words: bird, tree, farm, city, streets, tables, cars, mountains

Before Reading

Build Background

Ask students to think of a time they saw a bird flying. Discuss where they think the bird might have been going and what they think the bird might have seen as it was flying.
Expand the discussion by talking about different kinds of birds the students have seen and if any birds were seen in their "homes," or nests.

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title with them. Ask what they might read about in a book called Bird Goes Home. (Accept any answers students can justify). Ask them to predict where the bird's home might be.
Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name). Have students tell what the bird is flying over in this picture.

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Explain that good readers make predictions, or guesses, about what will happen in a story. Explain that making predictions can help people make decisions, solve problems, and learn new information. Emphasize that making predictions is more important than whether the prediction is right, or confirmed.
Model making a prediction based on the covers and title page of the book.
Think-aloud: When I look at the front cover, I see a bird flying above a few buildings. It looks like a small town. When I look at the picture on the title page, I see some picnic tables. Maybe this is a park in the small town. I think the bird's home is in the park.
Have students make a prediction about the book based on the covers and title page of the book.
As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Vocabulary

Model how to apply reading strategies. For example, have students point to the word bird on page 3 . Tell them they can identify the word by the way the word begins, /b/, and ends, /d/.
Remind students to look at pictures, beginning and ending sounds of words, and other word parts they recognize to help them say words. They should also check whether a word makes sense by rereading the sentence.
For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

Have students read the story to confirm or revise their predictions about the story and identify the bird's home.

During Reading

Student Reading

Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Have a volunteer point to the first word on page 3. Read the word together (The). Point out where to begin reading on each page. Remind students to read words from left to right. Point to each word as you read it aloud while students follow along in their own book.
Ask students to place a finger on the page number in the bottom corner of the page. Have them read to the end of page 5, using their finger to point to each word as they read. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
Ask students what Bird has flown over so far. Ask if they want to revise their predictions about Bird's home and whether it goes home.
Think-aloud: Bird has flown a long way. It might be getting tired, but I still think the bird will be able to go home. It seems as though the bird went from the country to a city. My revised prediction is the bird lives in a city park.
Have students read the remainder of the story to find out if their prediction is correct.

Have students make a small question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

After Reading

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
Ask students to share the outcome of their prediction. Talk about how making predictions makes readers want to read to find out whether their predictions are correct.
Think-aloud: I kept reading about all the places Bird had to fly and I wanted to keep reading to find out if she made it home. I thought her home might be in a birdhouse, but I found out that she had a nest with baby birds in it.
Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning about the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence events

Discussion: Ask students how they think Bird felt when she made it home. Discuss whether she had a long or short way to go to get there and what makes them think this.
Introduce and model the skill: Tell students that a story is a series of events that happens in a particular order. First one thing happens, then something else, and so on. Explain that the order in which events happen is called the sequence.
Think-aloud: In this story, Bird flew over things in a certain order. The first thing the bird flew over was the tree. The next thing she flew over was the farm. These are the events needed to tell the story correctly.
Check for understanding: Ask students to identify the third and fourth things the bird flew over. If necessary, use the pictures in the book as a guide.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the sequence events worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Extend the discussion: Instruct students to use the last page of their books to draw a picture of place they would like to fly over if they were birds. Have students share their pictures with the group.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Syllable awareness

Say the word table and clap as you say each syllable: ta/ble. Tell students that there are two syllables in the word table. Have them say the word and clap the syllables with you: ta/ble.
Clap once as you say the word bird, and tell students the word bird has one syllable. Have students repeat.
Say the following words, one at a time: mountain, street, elephant, city, octopus, farm, robin, yesterday, tree. Have students repeat the word. Then have them clap each syllable in the word.
Then tell students to listen to each word again as you say it and put up one, two, or three fingers to show how many syllables they hear in each word. Have students repeat the word. Then have them clap each syllable in the word.

Phonics: Initial consonant Bb

Write the letter Bb on the board and ask students to tell you the letter name. Tell students that the letter Bb stands for the /b/ sound they hear in the word bird.
Have students point to the word bird on the cover of their book. Then have them point to the letter in the word bird that stands for the /b/ sound.
Have students turn to page 3, find the word bird, and point to the letter that stands for the /b/ sound. Ask what is different about the word on this page and on the cover (the word on the cover begins with a capital letter).
Write the word bet on the board. Model how to sound out the word as you run your finger under each letter: /b/ /e/ /t/. Have students sound the word out with you as you run your finger under the word.
Ask a volunteer to come up and circle the letter that stands for /b/ in the word.
Repeat with the words bat and but.
If time allows, have students play “I Spy” as they look around the room to find things that start with the /b/ sound.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the initial consonant Bb worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Grammar and Mechanics: Capitalization and punctuation

Write the following sentence on the board: The bird goes home. Tell the students that sentences always begin with a capital letter. Circle the letter T and tell students that this is a capital letter.
Explain that every sentence has a signal at the end so readers know when to stop reading. A sentence that tells something, like this one, has a period. The period is used as a stop sign. Circle the period at the end of the sentence.

Have students put a line under each capital letter at the beginning of sentences in their book and a circle around each period.

Word Work: Position words

Read the following sentence to the students: The bird goes over the tree. Tell students that the word over tells where something is.
Review other words that tell where something is (in, on, and out). Hold a piece of paper over your head. Tell students that the paper is over your head. Put the paper in a book and ask students to tell where the paper is. Take the piece of paper out of the book and ask the students to tell what you just did with the paper (took it out of the book). Put the piece of paper on top of the book and ask the students to tell where the paper is. Make certain students understand the different positions.
Tell students that whenever you say over, they are to put their arms over their heads. Whenever you say on, they are to put their hands on their heads. Model all positions for students. Say the words slowly at first until students understand the concept, then speed up the words.

Build Fluency

Independent Reading

Allow students to read their book independently or with a partner. Additionally, partners can take turns reading in the book.

Home Connection

Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Extend the Reading

Writing Connection
Use the sentence pattern I go over the … to create a predictable chart. Model by completing the first sentence and then ask each student for a word. Write their responses on a chart. Ask students to illustrate their sentences. Display their pictures and the chart in the classroom. Encourage the students to read the chart to one another.

Social Studies Connection
Integrate this lesson with a social studies unit on neighborhoods. Ask the students to identify the places in the story that are similar to places in their own neighborhoods.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

make relevant predictions about the book based on available information, and revise or confirm their predictions as they get new information; talk about how making predictions helps them be better readers
correctly sequence story events on a worksheet
listen to words said orally and correctly tell the number of syllables in each
associate the letter Bb with the sound /b/ and read words beginning with /b/ on a worksheet
identify capital letters and periods in their book
correctly use position words during discussion

Comprehension Check

Retelling Rubric

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