About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Personal
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 17

Book Summary
My Family is a simple book that presents the familiar and comforting subject of family. It teaches and reinforces the printed vocabulary for various immediate family members. Charming illustrations accompany each page of text.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Connect to prior knowledge

Objectives

• Connect text to personal experiences
• Compare and contrast information
• Initial sound discrimination
• Associate the letter Mm with the sound /m/
• Recognize that some words are naming words (nouns)
• Categorize words

Materials

• Book -- My Family (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Compare and contrast, nouns 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: my, me, and
• Content words: mother, father, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, family

Before Reading

Build Background

• Discuss what makes a family. Point out that each family is unique because each person is unique, or special, and that some families have more people, while others have fewer. Ask students to share something about the people in their family.

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 Family. (Accept any answers students can justify). Ask them to describe the people in the pictures and predict who each member of the family is (brother, grandmother, and so on).
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

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 using the book covers to make connections to prior knowledge.
• Think-aloud: The people on the front cover all seem to know each other. Since the title is My Family, I think that the people on the front cover are a family. It looks like there are three brothers in this family. There are four adults in the picture. Two adults look a lot older. They might be the grandparents. I know that sometimes grandparents live in the same house as the rest of their family. This makes me think about the different kinds and sizes of families I have seen.
• Tell students that when they already know something about the topic of a book they want to read, it helps them understand and remember what they are reading.
• Show students the title page and ask them to share how they connected to the picture.
• 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

• Reinforce new vocabulary and word-attack strategies by pointing to someone in the picture--for example, the sister. Ask students what sound they hear at the beginning of the word. Have them find the word sister on the page and tell how they know the word is sister. Repeat with other vocabulary words if necessary.
• Remind students to look at the beginning and ending sounds, and other parts that they recognize, to help them sound out words. They should also check whether a word makes sense by looking at the picture or rereading the sentence.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read to find out about the family in the book. Have them use a sticky note to mark any places in the text that make them think about their own family.

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 6, using their finger to point to each word as they read. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
• When they have finished, ask students if this family is like their family in any way. Allow them to explain. Model making a personal connection to the book.
• Think-aloud: This woman is like my mother. My mom likes flowers and so does this mother. I knew this word on page 5 was brother because I have a brother and I know that there are brothers in some families. Knowing about families helps me read the words in this book.
• Ask students to read the remainder of the book to see what else they can learn about the family.

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.
• Reinforce how using what they already know about families helped them understand what they read. (Connecting life experiences and using prior knowledge of a topic helps students personally relate to and remember what they have read, as well as assisting with vocabulary.) Invite students to share additional ways they connected to prior knowledge.
• Think-aloud: Using what I already knew about my family helped me read the words in the book. Also, I wanted to read the book because I already knew something about families. I wanted to read it to find out about the family in the book and to compare it to my family.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Compare and contrast

• Discussion: Ask students to raise their hands if they have a family member like one mentioned in the book. Ask individual students to name their family members.
• Introduce and model the skill: Help students understand the concept of comparing and contrasting by referring to concrete objects. Show students a pen and a pencil. Ask them to tel the uses of a pen or pencil. Model comparing and contrasting familiar objects.
• Think-aloud: We can use both a pen and a pencil to write. This is one way that they are alike. The pen is made of plastic, but the pencil is made of wood. This is one way that they are different.
• Check for understanding: Ask students to tell additional ways a pen and pencil are alike and different.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the compare and contrast worksheet. Discuss their responses.

Extend the discussion: Instruct students to use the last page of their book to draw a picture of their family. Have students share their pictures with the group.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Initial sound discrimination

• Sing the following song:

Muffins in the morning, (2)
muffins in the evening, (1)
muffins at suppertime. (1)
My mother makes me muffins (5)
and they are mine, mine, mine. (3)

• Repeat the song and have students sing along until they are familiar with it.
• Say the words muffins and morning. Ask students if they start with the same sound. Have them repeat the /m/ sound. Then say the words suppertime and evening. Ask whether these two words start with the same sound. Repeat first with the words mother and mine, then with the words my and they, and finally with the words makes and me.
• Sing the song with students and have them clap each time they hear a word that starts with the /m/ sound as in the word muffins.

Phonics: Initial consonant Mm

• Write the capital and lowercase Mm on the board. Ask students to name the letter. Tell them that the letter m stands for the /m/ sound they hear in the words mother and muffins.
• Have students look at the cover of the book to find a word that starts with /m/ (my). Have students look through the book and count the number of times they see the word my.
• Ask students to find two words on page 3 that start with /m/.
• Write the following words on the board: mat, men, mitt, mop, mutt. Point out that they all start with the /m/ sound. Model how to sound out the first word, moving your hand under each letter while blending the sounds. Hold the sounds, except for stop sounds, for one second (mmmaaat) and then say the word. Ask students to sound out the word with you while you run your finger under the letters. Repeat with the rest of the words.
• Ask individual students to come to the board and run their finger under the word as they blend the sounds. Then have them circle the the letter that stands for the /m/ sound in the word.

Grammar and Mechanics: Naming words (nouns)

• Tell students that some words name people, places, or things. Explain that the word house is the name of a thing. The word city is a name of a place, and the word mother is the name of a person.
• Ask students to find examples of naming words they read in the book. Reinforce that all of the names of the family members are naming words.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the nouns worksheet. When they have finished, discuss their answers.

Word Work: Categorize words

• Tell students that words can be put into groups.
• Write several students' names on the board and several names that do not belong to any students in the class or group. Tell students that you want to make a group of words called "Students in My Class." Have volunteers come up and circle the names that belong in the category.

Build Fluency

Independent Reading

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

Home Connection

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

Extend the Reading

Art Connection
Provide construction paper, scissors, and markers for students to use to make their own family book. Encourage them to include anyone they feel is part of their family, such as friends, pets, or teachers. Help students with spellings of words or allow them to use invented spelling.

Math Connection
Ask students to count the number of family members in the book. Then ask them to count the number of people in their own family.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• talk about their own family and how it compares to the family in the book
• compare and contrast information on a worksheet
• orally discriminate initial consonant sounds during discussion
• associate the letter Mm with the sound /m/ during discussion
• demonstrate an understanding that some words are naming words by locating nouns in the book and on the worksheet
• categorize words during discussion

Comprehension Check

• Retelling Rubric

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