About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Personal Narrative
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 33

Book Summary
Just as in real life, each child's hair is as unique as he or she is: curly, straight, dark, or light. Students will learn the concept of diversity, new adjective vocabulary, and reinforced high-frequency words.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Connect to prior knowledge

Objectives

• Connect to prior knowledge to make meaning from text
• Identify main ideas and supporting details
• Discriminate initial sound /h/
• Associate the letter Hh with the sound /h/
• Recognize words that describe (adjectives)
• Identify words that are opposites (antonyms)

Materials

• Book -- My Hair (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Hand-held mirror
• Main idea and details, adjectives worksheets

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: my, is, your, what, like
• Content words: hair, curly, straight, black, blond, braided, short, long

Before Reading

Build Background

• Before giving students the mirror, ask them to think about their hair. Ask what words they would use to tell what it looks like.
• Have students pass around the mirror. (Students may inaccurately describe or be unable to describe their hair without looking in a mirror.) Ask students if they would still use the same words to tell what their hair looks like. Discuss that while some students may have the same color, type, or length of hair, each person's hair is unique, or special to them.

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 My Hair. (Accept any answers students can justify). Ask what they think the girl on the front and the children on the back are holding. Have them describe the hair of the girl on the front of the book.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name). Ask what kind of hair this boy has. Have them compare his hair with the hair of the girl on the front cover.

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Connect to prior knowledge

• Explain that good readers make connections between what they already know and new information they read. Remind students that thinking about what they already know about the topic of the book will help them understand what they read.
• Model how making connections to prior knowledge helps readers make meaning from text.
• Think-aloud: When I look at the pictures on the covers, it reminds me of different kinds of hair I've seen on people. I've seen blonde, dark, red, long, short, and curly hair. I can think about what I already know about hair as I read. It will help me read new words.
• Have students preview the covers and title page. Invite them to share how they connected to something they know about hair.
• 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

• As you preview the book with students, use the language patterns of the book. For example, ask them to describe hair the girl on page 3. Then ask what they think she might be saying about her hair. Encourage them to say: My hair is curly.
• As students describe the hair of the children in the pictures, ask them to find the word on the page that describes the hair. Tell students that they will need to look at the pictures and at the beginning letters of the words to read them.
• Encourage students to add new vocabulary words to their word journals.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Tell students as they read the book to think about the type of hair they have, the types of hair their classmates have, and the types of hair shown in the book. Tell them that using what they already know about hair will help them to read the book.

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 (My). 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 them to identify types of hair described in the book. Model making connections to prior knowledge.
• Think-aloud: I have a friend who has very straight hair that looks a bit like the hair of the boy on page 4. This helped me read the word straight because I knew what the sentence was talking about.
• Have students read the remainder of the story. Remind them to think about what they already know about hair as they read.

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 to read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Think-aloud: On page 7, I thought about ways I've seen people wear their long hair. I've seen people pull it up into ponytails. I've also seen people with braided hair. Since the word begins with the /b/ sound, I knew the word was braided.
• Discuss how using what they already know about hair helped them understand what the read. Invite students to share how they connected to prior knowledge.
• Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Main idea and details

• Discussion: Ask students to tell which hair shown in the book is most like their hair.
• Introduce and model the skill: Explain to students that books they read have a main idea which tells what the book is about. The title of the book and the pictures can be clues to identify the main idea. Discuss the main idea of this book. (People have different kinds of hair). Explain that there are details in the book that tell about the main idea.
• Think-aloud: I know the book is about different kinds of hair. On page 4, I read about the boy with straight hair. Straight hair is a kind of hair. This is a detail that supports the main idea.
• Check for understanding: Ask students to tell the person next to them another kind of hair. Discuss their ideas.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the main idea and details worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Extend the discussion: Instruct students to use the last page of their book to draw a picture of themselves with the hair they have now, and with the type of hair they would like to have. Have students share their pictures with the group.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Discriminate initial sound /h/

• Say the word hair, emphasizing the initial /h/ sound. Ask students what sound they hear at the beginning of the word.
• Say the word hat, emphasizing the the /h/ sound. Ask students what is the same about the words hat and hair. If students have difficulty, repeat the words and then tell them that both words start with the /h/ sound.
• Tell students that you are going to say pairs of words, one at a time. Have them listen to the words and then say hooray if the words both start with the same sound. If the words do not start with the same sound, have them remain quiet.
• Say the following word pairs one at a time: rat/run; lake/paint; horse/cow; hungry/happy; baby/bear; dog/frog; man/moon; pig/duck.

Phonics: Initial consonant Hh

• Write the letter Hh on the board and ask students to name the letter. Tell students that the letter Hh stands for the sound they can hear at the beginning of the word hair.
• Have students turn to the cover and find the word hair. Have them put their finger on the letter that stands for the /h/ sound.
• Write hat on the board. Model how to sound out the word as you run your finger under each letter: /h/ /a/ /t/. Have students blend the word with you.
• Repeat with the words hen, hop, and hit.
• Challenge students to look in familiar books to find other words that start with /h/.

Grammar and Mechanics: Adjectives

• Have students look on page 3 to find out what kind of hair the girl has. Point out that the word curly is a describing word. We call describing words adjectives.
• Have students find the describing word on page 4. Challenge students to count the number of describing words in the story (7).
• Ask a volunteer to come to the front of the group. Ask students to think of words that describe the student's hair (color, hair length, and so on).
• Ask volunteers to tell their favorite food and to give some words that describe it.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain and have students complete the adjectives worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Word Work: Opposites (antonyms)

• Ask students to name a word in the book that describes hair. Then identify for students a word that tells the opposite. Explain that these two words are called opposites. Have students identify other opposite word pairs.
• Say some action words one at a time, and have students act out the opposite of each word (for example, happy/sad, up/down, over/under, cry/laugh, sit/stand).

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
List the following adjectives on the board: straight, curly, long, short, black, blond, brown, braided. Use the sentence pattern "___'s hair is ____." to create a class book. Ask students to work with partners. Have each person write the sentence and draw a picture of the other person. Model using another teacher, an aide, or an adult. Help students with the spelling of names.

Math Connection
Ask students to sort their pictures according to the attributes of the hair. Tell them to put all of the short hair together, long hair together, and so on.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• relate what they already know about kinds of hair to what they read in the book
• correctly identify details that support the main idea during discussion and on a worksheet
• listen for initial sounds and tell whether or not they are the same during discussion
• associate the letter Hh with the sound /h/ during discussion
• correctly and consistently locate describing words in the book; use describing words in oral phrases and correctly match them on a worksheet
• correctly identify words that are opposites and act them out during discussion

Comprehension Check

• Retelling Rubric