Text Type: Nonfiction
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 49

Text Summary
Although a pond might look like only a small body of water, readers will learn that it is home to a variety of plants and animals. The repetitive sentence pattern in Pond Life is supported by close-up photography, which enables readers to make the picture-text connection. 

About the Lesson 

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Connect life experience and use prior knowledge 

Objectives

• Identify facts about a topic
• Differentiate initial sounds in oral words
• Sound out words beginning with p
• Categorize words
• Recognize naming words

Materials

• Book – Pond Life (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Pp Alphabet Flashcard
• Fact Web, Letter P, Naming Words worksheets
• 3-cell Elkonin boxes, colored chips or circles, set of the following letters for each student: p, n, t, a, e, o

    Indicates an opportunity to use the book interactively (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are not consumable.)

Vocabulary

• High frequency words: are, in, the
• Content words: plants, pond, fish, snails, bugs, ducks, turtles, beavers, boy

Build Background

• Ask students to tell about places where they have seen water. Make a fact web on the board as students offer words. If students do not suggest the word pond, write the word in one of the circles on the board and explain that it is a small body of water. If possible, show students pictures of a puddle, pond, lake, river, and ocean to help them grasp the size of a pond.
• Expand the discussion by talking about where the water in a pond comes from (an underground spring, in most cases), as opposed to where the water in a puddle comes from, or by talking about the difference between the type of water in a pond and the type of water in the ocean.

Book Walk

Introduce the Strategy: Connect life experience and use prior knowledge

• Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title. Ask students what they think this book will be about based on the cover information. Model how to use prior knowledge.
• Think aloud: When I read a new book, I try to think about what I already know about the topic in the book. When I look at the picture of the pond on the front and back covers, I remember what I know about a pond from my own experience. My Uncle Shorty had a pond on his farm. It had a lot of tall grass growing around it. I don't know if there were any fish in it. I can predict that this book will tell about things that are found in a pond.
• Show students the title page and ask them what they see in the picture. Ask them if they have ever seen a duck like this one. Turn the pages in the book so students can see the pictures. If necessary, model once more for the students how you draw on your personal knowledge to make predictions about the book.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Go through each page of the book with the students. Ask them to talk about what they see in the photographs and use the vocabulary they will encounter in the text. Ask them to name what they see in the pictures and have them draw on prior knowledge and experience about things found in and around a pond. For example, on page 4 ask: What is this? What do you know about it? Where else can it be found? What do other kinds of these look like?
• Point out the words on the page. Explain that the words on the page tell them the story, and that the words are read left to right.
• Ask a student to come up and point on the book you are holding to the place where he/she should start reading, and which direction he/she should go while reading.
• Reinforce new vocabulary and word-attack strategies by modeling how students can read unfamiliar words. Ask a volunteer to point to the word pond on page 3. Ask students how they know this word says pond. Model how they can use the /p/ sound the word begins with to help them. Point out that they can check whether the word makes sense by reading the sentence and looking at the picture. Read aloud the sentence with the word pond and ask if they think the sentence makes sense. Repeat with other vocabulary words if you feel students need more modeling. Remind students to look at the beginning and ending sounds in words, and/or word parts within words that they recognize, to help them sound out the word. They should check whether the word makes sense by looking at the picture and rereading the sentence.
• For additional teaching tips on word attack and high frequency words, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have the students read the book to find out what the book is about. Remind them to think about what they already know about ponds as they read.

• Guide the Reading: Give students their books and have them put a sticky note on page 5. Direct them to read to the end of this page. Tell students to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• When they have finished, ask students to tell what they have read about that is found in a pond. Have students point out the things they have seen in a pond or some other body of water and tell how this helped them understand the book.
• Model making connections to prior knowledge.
• Think aloud: I've seen some of the same things that are in the book, like the snails. I've seen them other places besides in a pond, like on the sidewalk and in my mom's garden. It helps me understand what I am reading if I can think about what I already know about those things.
• Tell students to read the remainder of the story. 

    Tell students to 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 Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using decoding strategies and context clues. For example, point out the word in and ask students how they know this word doesn't say is. Focus on the sound of /s/ at the end of the word.
• Reinforce how using what they already knew about things that live in a pond helped them understand what they read. (Connecting life experiences and using prior knowledge of a topic helps students personally relate to, as well as remember, what they have read.)

Comprehension Skill: Identify Facts

• Introduce and Model: Explain to students that organizing the facts they learn when they read will help them understand the book and remember what they read. Give students a copy of the Fact Web worksheet. Point out the large circle. Tell students that this is where they will write the words that tell what the book is about. Model how to figure out what the book is about by looking back through the book and finding what all of the sentences tell about. Have students write the words pond life in the center circle. Next, model how to go to page 3 to find one thing that lives in the pond. Read the sentence: The pictures are of different kinds of plants. I read the sentence and find that plants are in the pond, so I will write the word plants in one of the smaller circles. It doesn't matter which one.
• Checking for Understanding: Have students tell the next thing that lives in a pond, and then write it on the worksheet.
• Independent Practice: Tell students to complete the Fact Web worksheet. They should find the other things that live in a pond and write one in each circle. Discuss their responses.
• Extend the Discussion:

    Instruct students to use the last page of their book to draw a picture of a something they have seen that lives in a pond. Have students share their pictures with the group.

Phonemic Awareness: Differentiating Initial Sounds

• Say the words pond, pet, and bed. Ask students to repeat the words. Tell them that pond and pet start with the same sound. Have students repeat the words, listening for the initial sound.
• Say the following sets of words. After each set, have students repeat the words and then tell the words that start with the same sounds: dog, man, dad; pan, pal, kite; boat, bike, pen; bank, car, cat; race, run, song; pill, ball, pig.

Phonics:

• Write the word pan on the board and read it with the students. Underline the p and explain that this letter stands for the /p/ sound. Ask students to repeat the word. Show students the Pp Alphabet Flashcard and point out the upper and lowercase letters.
• Sound out the phonemes in the word pan and model how to push the letters into the cells as you segment each sound - /p/ /a/ /n/. When the letters are together, blend them and say the word. Model how to pull the letters out of the cells as you once again segment the sounds.
• Give each student an Elkonin box with three cells and the following letters: p, a, e, o, n, t.
• Repeat the above process with the following words: pat, pen, pot, pet
• Give students the Letter P worksheet and explain what they are to do. When completed, discuss their answers.
• Click here for more resources to help you teach /p/ and p: Pp Alphabet Book.

Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage: Nouns as Naming Words

• Review or explain that there are special words that tell the names of people, places, and things. Point to the picture on the front cover of the book and ask students to tell what they see (pond). Explain that pond is a naming word.
• Ask students to tell a naming word they read in the book. Reinforce that the names of all of the things that live in a pond are naming words.
• Click here for a Grammar worksheet.

Vocabulary: Categorize Words

• Ask students to tell what the book was about (things that live in a pond). Review the names of things that live in a pond. Ask students to tell what is common to all of these words (they can be put into a group called "things that live in a pond").
• Tell students that other things can also be put into groups. Say, or show students pictures of the following and ask what they would name each group: pencil, crayon, marker (things you write with); boot, tennis shoe, sandals (things people wear on their feet); whale, shark, octopus (things that live in the ocean).
• Give students the vocabulary worksheet. Tell them they can use the book as a reference.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Partners can take turns reading in the book.

Home Connection

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

Writing and Art Connection

• Have students draw a picture of a pond with all of the things shown in the book. Have them label each on their illustration. Have students take their pictures home and read the words to a family member.

Science Connection

• Use this book as an introduction to a science unit about water pollution. Provide pictures that show examples of ways in which ponds, rivers, lakes, and oceans are polluted by trash or industrial waste. Brainstorm a list of ways students can keep any type of water from becoming polluted. Make a chart with their suggestions and post them on a bulletin board titled "Keep It Clean."

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• identify and map facts about things that live in a pond.
• differentiate initial sounds in oral words.
• sound out CVC words with p.
• recognize words that name people, places, or things.
• categorize vocabulary.