Text Type: Nonfiction/Descriptive
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 105

Book Summary
What do you see when ink spills on paper or clouds float across the sky? Students get a chance to visualize what they see in these everyday situations. High-frequency words and repetitive text support early readers as they read this imaginative book.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Visualize

Objectives

• Use the reading strategy of visualizing to understand text
• Identify author's purpose
• Discriminate long /e/ vowel digraph sound
• Identify and write long /e/ digraph ee
• Recognize and use verbs
• Identify and use the high-frequency word what

Materials

• Book -- What Do You See? (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Visualize, long /e/ vowel digraph, verbs 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: do, down, on, see, the, what, you
• Content words: bark, bumps, cloud, drips, face, fern, floor, forms, heart, ice, ink, lamb, milk, mouse, paint, paper, pencil, pieces, rabbits, sky, spills, tree, window

Build Background

• Write the following sentence on the board and point to the words as you read them aloud to students: What do you see? Repeat the process and have students say the words aloud.
• Ask students whether they have ever looked at clouds in the sky and thought it looked like something. Encourage them to explain what they have seen in clouds.

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 What Do You See? (Accept all answers that students can justify.)
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Explain to students that good readers often visualize, or make pictures in their mind, as they read. Readers often use what they already know about a topic to make the pictures in their mind.
• Read pages 3 aloud to students. Model how to visualize.
  Think-aloud: When I read a book, I pause after a few pages or after reading a description of something to create a picture in my mind of the information I've just read. This helps me understand and enjoy the book. For example, when I read that ink falls on the paper, I pictured black ink spreading out over the white paper. When I read the words What do you see? I thought about the ink making a design that looks like something I have seen before, such as an animal. It reminds me of a butterfly. The butterfly that I pictured is what the design of the ink reminded me of, but it is not a picture of a real butterfly. If someone else looked at this picture, they might see something different.
• Invite students to share what they visualized when they heard the sentence What do you see?
• 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: Author's purpose

• Explain to students that authors have a reason or purpose for writing their book. The purpose is either to inform, entertain, or persuade. Explain that to inform means to give someone information about something; to entertain means to amuse someone; and to persuade means to convince someone to think the same way you do.
• Model determining author's purpose.
  Think-aloud: When authors write, they have a reason, or purpose, for writing their book. They want to inform, entertain, or persuade readers. After reading the title and the first page of this book, I think the author wants readers to think about the images they see on the page and visualize a picture. When I look at something and try to think about what it looks like, it usually entertains me. I think the reason the author wrote this book is to entertain readers by having them visualize images in their mind.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• While previewing the book, reinforce the vocabulary words students will encounter in the book. For example, while looking at the picture on page 5, you might say: It looks as though pencil pieces have fallen on the floor. What do you see on the floor?
• Remind students to look at the picture and the letters with which a word begins or ends to figure out a difficult word. For example, point to the word cloud on page 8 and say: I am going to check the picture and think about what would make sense to figure out this word. The picture shows a puffy white cloud in the sky. When I look at the first part of the word, it starts like /cl/. The sentence makes sense with this word. The word must be cloud.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words and word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read to find out what else might create a design from which they can visualize a picture. Remind them to think about the author's purpose as they read the book.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Have them read to the end of page 5 and think about what they visualized and the author's purpose for writing the book. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
• Model visualizing.
  Think-aloud: As I read each page, I created a picture in my mind about each of the things that made a picture. When I thought about the milk that spilled on the floor, I visualized the milk spreading across the floor, forming a shallow pool. In my mind, it reminded me of a white cloud floating in the sky. It looked large and fluffy. I was entertained as I tried to look at each of the designs and decide what they looked like to me.
• Introduce and explain to students the visualize worksheet. Have students draw and label on their worksheet one picture they visualized in their mind. Invite students to share what they drew.
• Discuss with students the author's purpose for writing the book based on the pages they read so far.
• Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 8. Invite volunteers to explain what they pictured in their mind when they read about each of the pictures. (Accept any answers that show students understand how to visualize.)
• Have students draw their visualizations on their worksheet. Have them write the page number and a descriptive label of what they visualized.
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to continue visualizing and thinking about the author's purpose 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.

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.
• Think-aloud: As I read, I continued to create pictures in my mind about the designs on the pages of the book. When I read page 9, I pictured a heart. Picturing the images in my mind helped me better enjoy reading the book.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the visualize worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Discuss each page in the book and determine the author's purpose for writing the book. Write inform, entertain, or persuade on the board for each page discussed.
• Have students determine the author's purpose by reviewing each page and the purposes listed on the board.
• Enduring understanding: In this story, you learned that designs created in nature or by spills remind us of other familiar objects. Now that you know this information, why do you think our brains make this kind of connection? How might these kinds of connections help creative thinkers such as artists, photographers, and writers?

Phonological Awareness: Discriminate long /e/ vowel digraph sound

• Say the word see aloud to students, emphasizing the long /e/ vowel sound. Have students say the word aloud and then say the long /e/ vowel sound.
• Read page 9 aloud to students. Have them raise their hand when they hear a word that ends with the long /e/ vowel sound.
• Check for understanding: Say the following words one at a time and have students give the thumbs-up signal if the word ends with the long /e/ vowel sound: knee, floor, wall, bee.

Phonics: Long /e/ digraph ee

• Write the word see on the board and say it aloud with students.
• Have students say the long /e/ vowel sound aloud. Then run your finger under the letters in the word as students say the whole word aloud. Ask students what letter combination represents the long /e/ vowel sound in the word see.
• Check for understanding: Write the following words that end with the ee letter combination on the board, leaving off the final ee: see, tree, three. Say each word, one at a time, and have volunteers come to the board and add the final ee letter combination to each word.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the long /e/ vowel digraph worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Grammar and Mechanics: Verbs

• Review or explain that some words name actions. These words are called verbs. Have students name action words they know and act them out.
• Have students turn to page 3 in their book. Read the first sentence aloud together. Ask students to name the word that identifies an action (falls).

    Check for understanding: Have students reread the book and underline the action words. When they have finished, make a list together on chart paper of the action words from the story. Then add other action words students know to the list.

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the verbs worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Word Work: High-frequency word what

• Tell students that they are going to learn a word that they will often see in books they read. Write the word what on the board and read the word aloud. Have students read the word with you.
• Ask them to write the word what on the top of their desk with their finger as you spell it aloud with them, pointing to each letter on the board as you say the letter name with students.
• Read the second sentence on page 3 aloud to students. Point to the word what. Ask students to tell what type of sentence was just read (question). Explain that the word what is often used at the beginning of a question sentence. Have students use the word what in oral sentences with a partner.
• Check for understanding: Have students locate and highlight the word what in the book. Have them write the word on a separate piece of paper several times. Then have each student use the word what in an oral sentence.

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. Have students share with someone at home what they visualized as they read each page and looked at each picture.

Descriptive Writing and Art Connection
Give students a dollop of shaving cream. Have them create a design with the shaving cream. Then ask them to draw a picture of something they visualized from their design. Have students write a descriptive label of what they drew. 

For detailed lessons on teaching types of writing, click here.

Science Connection
Take students outside to look at the clouds in the sky. Discuss the movement of the clouds and the shapes students see in them. Discuss the types of clouds they see. Have students draw and label a picture of each type of cloud.