Getting Around the City

Getting Around the City
Level D

About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 83

Book Summary
Everyone in the family uses a different mode of transportation to get where they are going. Mom uses the car, while Grandpa takes a taxi. The story ends with a mode of transportation almost anyone can enjoy.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Objectives

Use the reading strategy of making, revising, and confirming predictions
Compare and contrast
Discriminate medial vowel sounds
Associate the letter Uu with the short /u/ vowel sound
Recognize naming words
Categorize words

Materials

Book -- Getting Around the City (copy for each student)
Chalkboard or dry erase board
Compare and contrast, medial sounds 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: I, go, to, my, on, a, the, he, she, goes
Content words: skateboard, bike, car, subway, taxi, bus, ferry boat, walk, house, school, work, airport, store, office

Before Reading

Build Background

Discuss with students different modes of transportation. Prompt them with questions about how the students get to school, how their parents get to work, and how people get from one place to another.

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 Getting Around the City. (Accept any answers students can justify.) Ask them how the people in the pictures on the front and back covers are getting around the city. Have students think of some ways to get around the city that might be in the book. Make a list of their ideas.
Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

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

Explain to students that good readers make predictions, or guesses, about what will happen in a story. Explain to them 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 using the cover pictures of the book to make a prediction.
Think-aloud: I know that good readers always look at the cover of a book to get an idea of what the book is about. Looking at the cover pictures, I see one person riding a bike and another person driving a car. I can make a good guess that I am going to read about different ways to get around the city. I might also read about a bus or train in this book. Making predictions about the book gets me thinking about it and gives me a purpose for reading because I want to find out if my predictions are correct.
Show students page 3 and ask them what they see. Model revising your prediction. Say: I didn't think of a skateboard as a way to get around. But this picture makes me think I am going to read about going on a skateboard. I will revise my prediction to include things like skateboards and roller skates.
Have students use the pictures on the covers to make a prediction before reading the book. Invite them to share their prediction.
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 used in the book in your discussion. For example, ask: How does the boy go to his friend's house? That's right, he goes on a skateboard. How do you think he might tell us this?
Ask students which word on the page says skateboard. Ask them how they know. Remind students to use beginning and ending sounds of words to help them figure out new words. Tell them to check the picture and think what word makes sense.
Encourage students to add the new vocabulary words to their word journals.
For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

Have students read to find out about getting around a city. Remind them to make, revise, and confirm predictions as they read.

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 (I). Point to 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.
Model confirming a prediction.
Think-aloud: Before reading, I predicted that the book would be about different ways to get around a city. So far, this prediction is correct. The people in the story use different ways of transportation to get to work, school, or a friend's house. I wonder what other places someone could go to in a city. I know that there are often lots of stores in a city. People can drive a car to get to those stores. I predict I will read about people driving cars to get to stores.
Have students think about the prediction they made before reading. Invite them to share whether they confirmed, revised, or made a new prediction.
Have students read the remainder of the book. Encourage them to continue to make, revise, and/or confirm predictions as they read the rest of the story.

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 which 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.
Invite students to discuss whether their predictions turned out to be correct or whether they needed to be revised. Reinforce that making predictions about what they are reading helps them get meaning from the book and gives them a purpose for reading.
Think-aloud: I predicted that I would read about someone driving a car to a store. This prediction was partly correct. Someone did go to a store. However, she did not drive there herself. She took a taxi.
Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Compare and contrast

Discussion: Ask students which modes of transportation they have used. Invite them to share where they went. Ask students which modes of transportation are new to them.
Introduce and model the skill: Demonstrate how to compare and contrast by using two concrete objects, such as a crayon and a marker. Explain how they are alike (they are both used for coloring, they are both long and thin, they both have one end used for making marks, and so on). Then explain how they are different (one makes a solid mark while the other makes a lighter mark, they are different colors, and so on).
Check for understanding: Choose two modes of transportation from the book, such as the ferry and the bus, and have students tell you how they are alike (both carry groups of people, both have a driver). Then have students tell you how they are different (one has wheels and one does not, one moves on land and the other moves in water). Record the information on a large Venn diagram on the board to model to students how to complete the graphic organizer.
Independent practice: Have students choose two modes of transportation from the book to compare and contrast. Introduce, explain, and have students complete the compare and contrast worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Extend the discussion: Instruct students to use the last page of the book to draw a picture of their favorite mode of transportation. Ask students to share their picture with the group and tell why it is their favorite.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Discriminate medial vowel sounds

Say the words mom and top, stretching the sounds in each word. Ask students whether they can hear something that is the same about the words. Tell them to listen to the middle sound as you say the words again.
Say the following pairs of words, stretching the sounds in each word: work/bird; dad/man; house/help; bike/ride; cat/set; big/go; tip/fin. Pause after saying each pair of words and have students clap if the words have the same middle sound.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the medial sounds worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Phonics: Short /u/

Write the word bus on the board. Ask students what vowel they see in the middle of the word. Ask whether they know what sound the letter Uu stands for. Read the word with students as you run your finger under each letter. Then point to the letter u and have students say the short /u/ vowel sound.
Have students look on page 6 and put their finger on the first part of the word subway (sub). Ask them to say the vowel sound they hear in the word sub.
Tell students they are going to read some words that have the short /u/ vowel sound in the middle. Write the following words on the board: bug, run, cup, tub. Read each word with students as you run your finger under the letters.

Grammar and Mechanics: Nouns

Remind students that some words tell the names of people, places, and things.
Name examples of a person (teacher), place (park), or thing (toy). Have students turn to page 3 to find examples of naming words (I, house, skateboard). Discuss if each word names a person, place, or thing.

Divide students into pairs and have them circle the naming words they find on each page of their book.

Word Work: Categorize words

Ask students what all of the words in the book are about (ways to get around the city). Review the modes of transportation in the book and write them on the board (skateboard, bike, car, subway, taxi, bus, ferry boat, walking). Talk about which ones are used to carry a lot of people and which ones carry only one or two people. Tell students that this is one way to group the words: carry lots of people; carry one or two people.
Have students think of other ways they might group the types of transportation in the book. Cut out the pictures from extra copies of the book. Have students work in small groups to sort the pictures into groups. Ask them to explain how they sorted the pictures.

Build Fluency

Independent Reading

Allow students to read their book independently. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

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

Extend the Reading

Writing Connection
Have students brainstorm a list of ways people get from place to place. Ask them to choose one, illustrate it, and write a sentence about it. Display their work on a bulletin board titled Ways to Get to Places.

Math Connection
Ask students to count the number of people on each page. Have them write the number on the page.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

make logical predictions based on available picture/text information; revise/confirm predictions as they read the book
compare and contrast two types of transportation from the book during discussion and on a worksheet
correctly tell whether pairs of words they hear have the same medial vowel sound
correctly associate the letter Uu with the short /u/ vowel sound; read simple CVC words with the medial short /u/ vowel sound
correctly identify and circle the nouns in the book
suggest ways to categorize pictures related to transportation

Comprehension Checks

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