Build Background

• Invite students to join in singing the traditional rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock. Using an analog teaching clock, have a volunteer move the hour hand to match the first few hours in the rhyme. Invite students to comment on what they notice about the clock. (Accept responses that relate to numbers, clock hands, and so on.) Ask students to continue changing the time on the hour as you point out the hour hand and encourage other students to join in by saying the time aloud (three o'clock, four o'clock, and so on).
• Ask students what time they wake up in the morning, have lunch, and go to bed at night. (Accept responses that relate to general and specific times.)

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

• Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title with them. Ask what they think they might read about in a book called It Is School Time. Have students predict what will happen during school time. (Accept any answer students can justify.)
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name).
• Turn to the title page and discuss the time on the clock (eight o'clock). Invite a volunteer to show the time on the teaching clock.
• Turn to page 3. Point out the repetitive phrase It is time for... and have students say it aloud. Tell students that these words repeat throughout the book. Ask students what word comes after for (breakfast). Remind them to use letter and picture clues to identify words.

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Tell students that good readers often visualize, or picture in their mind, what a book might be about before they start reading. Explain that visualizing is based on what a person already knows about a topic. Ask students how visualizing about the events of a day might help them understand and remember what they read.
• Model how to visualize.
  Think-aloud: When I think of the word school, I picture a yellow school bus, all the kids at school, and lots of books.
• Invite students to share what they picture in their mind when they hear the word school.
• 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 Comprehension Skill: Sequence events

• Write the words home, breakfast, and recess on index cards. Place them in the same order along the chalkboard ledge or in a pocket chart. Read the following list of events: First, I came home from school. Next, I ate breakfast. Finally, I played at recess. Invite students to share their comments about the order of the list. Have a volunteer reorder the events of the list in a way that makes sense to him or her and retell the list of events. Guide students to understand that when events are told out of order, a story doesn't make sense.
• Model how to sequence events in order.
  Think-aloud: When I look at the cover, I picture in my mind how I get ready for school time. First, I get out of bed. Next, I eat breakfast. Next, I take a shower and get dressed. Finally, I get in my car and drive to school.
• Invite students to picture in their mind how they get ready for school. Have them share the sequence of events they follow.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• While previewing the book, reinforce the vocabulary words students will encounter in the text. For example, while looking at the picture on page 3, you might say: It is time for breakfast; on page 5, you might say: It is school time.
• Remind students that they can help themselves when they come to a tricky word by looking at the first letter in the word and checking the picture on the page to see what word might start with the same sound or what word might make sense. For example, on page 6, model pointing under the r in reading. Say: I am going to help myself by looking at the picture and thinking about what the children are doing that starts like /r/ (make the /r/ sound). Does reading make sense? Yes. The word is reading.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read to find out what happens during the school day. Remind them to stop and visualize, or picture in their mind, how their school day is like the one pictured in the book.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Give students their books. Have them read to the end of page 4, using their finger to point to each word as they read. When students are ready, discuss what they visualized when they heard the words breakfast and bus. (Accept responses that show students have thought about what they read.)
• Model how to visualize, as done previously.
  Think-aloud: As I read each page, I created a picture in my mind of what the children were doing. For example, on page 4, I thought about children climbing the steps into the bus and sitting down quietly in a seat.
• Check for understanding: Have students read to page 8. Invite volunteers to explain what they pictured in their mind when they heard the word recess. Accept all answers that show students understand how to visualize the events associated with recess. Ask what happened in the book after recess.
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to continue visualizing as they read.

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

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Think-aloud: As I read, I continued to create pictures in my mind of what the children were doing. For example, on page 7, I thought about children having fun and playing with their friends on the playground.
• Ask students to turn to page 12 in the book. Have them share examples of how they visualized getting ready to go home. Invite them to explain how visualizing helped them better understand what they read.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Invite students to discuss how the events in the book were similar to or different from their own school day. Have them sequence the events by drawing pictures on a separate piece of paper of what they do First, Next, and Finally. (You may also want to have students cut out the pictures in the book and sequence them in the correct order. Then have them use the pictures to retell the story.)
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the sequence events worksheet.

    Extend the discussion: Have students sequence the events associated with getting ready to go to sleep. Have them use the inside cover of their book to draw pictures of what they do First, Next, and Finally. Encourage students to share their stories. Invite them to discuss what is similar and different about how they each get ready for bed.

Phonemic Awareness: Discriminate initial sound /t/

• Explain to students that they are going to say a word from the book. Say time and emphasize the initial /t/ sound. Have students say the word time and emphasize the initial /t/ sound.
• Choose a variety of classroom objects, such as tape, scissors, a ruler, a table, and a pencil. Point to each object one at a time and have a volunteer say the name of the object. Have students clap their hands together if the word begins with the /t/ sound.
• Check for understanding: Say the following words: tin, sun, ten, top, rock, dog, toy, bag, and tall. After each word is said, have a volunteer say whether or not the word begins with the /t/ sound.                                
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the discriminate initial /t/ worksheet.

Phonics: Identify initial consonant (t)

• Write the word time on the board. Underline the initial consonant (t). Ask students to think of other words that start like time. Write the word top on the board. Have students say the word aloud with you. Ask a volunteer to identify the first sound of the word. Write the letter t on the board. Explain that the letter t stands for the first sound they hear in the word top.
• Explain that you are going to write some new words on the board. Choose decodable words that begin with the letter t, such as tag and tap. Have volunteers trace the initial consonant in each word on the board with their finger as they say the sound the letter makes.
• Check for understanding: Have students name words that begin with the /t/ sound. Write each word on the board, one at a time, without the initial letter. Have volunteers come to the board and complete each word by writing the initial letter t, saying the sound the letter t stands for, and then saying the whole word.

Grammar and Mechanics: Capitalization

• Have students turn to page 3 in their book. Read the sentence It is time for breakfast. Point to the first letter in the word It. Ask students to explain how the letter I is different from the letter t. Explain that all sentences begin with a capital letter.
• Have students turn to page 4 in their book. Ask them to point to the capital letter at the beginning of the sentence.

    Check for understanding: Have students highlight the capital letters at the beginning of each sentence in the book.

Vocabulary: High-frequency words

• Tell students they are going to learn two new words that they need to be able to recognize and read quickly. Write the word it on the board and read the word aloud. Have students read the word with you. Have them write the word it in the air with their finger as you spell it out loud with them, pointing to each letter on the board as you say the letter name with the students. Repeat the process with the words for, is, and the.
• Have students turn to page 3 and point to the word it. Ask a volunteer to use the word in a sentence. Repeat the process with the words for, is, and the.
• Check for understanding: Have students color all the it words in the book blue, all the is words in the book red, all the for words in the book yellow, and all the the words in the book green.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the high-frequency words worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of the book. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

• Give students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have students ask someone at home to sequence events in their day.

Writing Connection
In a pocket chart or along the chalkboard ledge, write the words to the nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock, leaving a blank space after the words struck and mouse. Write the words for numbers one through ten on individual cards. As the rhyme is read aloud with students, place the number words, one at a time, after the word struck. Continue reading the rhyme. Pause after the word mouse. Model how to create a phrase for something new that the mouse does which also rhymes with the number word. Write the phrase on a blank card and place it after the word mouse. Repeat the process through the word ten, inviting students to create the new phrases.

For example:
Hickory, Dickory, Dock The mouse ran up the clock The clock struck (one) The mouse (said fun) Hickory, Dickory, Dock		Hickory, Dickory, Dock The mouse ran up the clock The clock struck (four) The mouse (ran for the door) Hickory, Dickory, Dock

Math Connection
Have students make paper-plate clocks using a brad to attach minute and hour hands to the center of the plate. Have a parent or classroom volunteer prepare the clocks in advance by gluing or drawing boxes evenly spaced in which students can write the numbers one through twelve (or modify by leaving some of the numbers off). Have students use the clock to sequence hours of the day by singing the rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock as a group. As students sing the rhyme, move the hour hand on the clock to match the hour in the rhyme.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• accurately and consistently share examples of visualizing while reading
• accurately sequence events in the book during discussion and on a worksheet
• accurately discriminate between words that do and do not begin with the /t/ sound during discussion and on a worksheet
• accurately identify and write the letter symbol that stands for the /t/ sound during discussion
• recognize and understand that sentences begin with capital letters and highlight them in text
• recognize and pronounce the words for, is, it, and the in text and in discussion; use the words in a sentence

Comprehension Check

• Retelling Rubric