When I Grow Up - Lesson Plans

When I Grow Up
Level E

About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 121

Book Summary
When I Grow Up is a story about a little girl who frequently questions her parents about when she will be allowed to do things on her own. Charming illustrations, a repeated sentence pattern, and familiar experiences make this an enjoyable book for early readers.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Objectives

Make, revise, and confirm predictions based on text information
Identify characters and setting
Segment onset and rime
Identify and read words with r-family blends
Identify dialogue and quotation marks
Read compound words

Materials

Book -- When I Grow Up (copy for each student)
Chalkboard or dry erase board
Prediction, characters and setting, r-family blends 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: when, said, are, you
Content words: late, anything, eat, stay, shopping, by, myself, movies, alone, drive, job, cookies, milk

Before Reading

Build Background

Ask students what things they are allowed to do that younger children are not allowed to do. Then ask what things they are not allowed to do that older children are allowed to do.

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 When I Grow Up. (Accept any answers students can justify.)
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 to make decisions, solve problems, and learn new information. Emphasize that knowing how to make 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 readers can look at the cover of a book to get an idea of what the book is about. When I look at the pictures on the covers, I see a little girl with an adult. The adult might be a parent. In each picture, the little girl is next to the parent. They might be talking to each other. Since the title of the book is When I Grow Up, the parents might each be telling their daughter about what they wanted to be when they grew up. 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.
Have students use the pictures on the covers and title page to make a prediction before reading the book. Introduce and explain the prediction worksheet. Have students write or draw prediction in the Predict column. Invite them to share their prediction.
Have students read the remainder of the story. Remind them to look for information to make, revise, and/or confirm a prediction as they read.
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, introduce any difficult or unfamiliar vocabulary. For example, on page 6, you might say: Who is the girl with at the movies? Point to the word movies and model how you would sound out the word. Say: I know the word movies starts with /m/. I also recognize the -ies ending on the word, so this helps me read the word. Read the sentence to students and ask if they think the word movies makes sense in this sentence.
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 revise or confirm the prediction they made about what the little girl might want to do when she grows up.

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 (When). 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.
Model confirming a prediction.
Think-aloud: Before reading, I predicted that the girl's parents tell her about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Based on what I've read, I don't think this prediction is correct. The girl seems to be asking her parents questions about things she wants to do. Her parents tell her that she can do those things when she grows up. I think the rest of the book will be about the activities the girl wants to do but can't until she's older.
Have students think about the prediction they made before reading. Have them confirm, revise, or make a new prediction and write it in their prediction worksheet.
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 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.
Invite students to discuss whether their predictions turned out to be true or whether they needed to be revised. Have them complete their worksheet by drawing or writing what actually happened in the story. 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 the girl would continue to ask her parents about activities that she is not allowed to do until she is older. This prediction is correct. However, at the end of the story, she asks whether she can have cookies and milk. Her parents tell her that she can participate in this activity now.
Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Identify characters and setting

Discussion: Ask students what the girl is old enough to do (eat cookies). Ask if they were surprised by the ending and to explain why or why not.
Introduce and model the skill: Tell students that all stories have characters. They also have a setting, which is where the story takes place. Model how to identify characters and setting using a familiar story.
Think-aloud: I know the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This story is about a little girl named Goldilocks who visits the home of three bears while they are gone. Goldilocks, mama bear, papa bear, and baby bear are the characters in the story. Most of the story takes place inside the three bears' house. This is the setting of the story.
Check for understanding: Choose another story students are familiar with. Have students work with a partner to identify the characters and setting of the story.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the characters and setting worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Extend the discussion: Have students write in the inside back cover of the book one thing they would like to do now that they are too young to do.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Segment onset and rime

Say the word grow and tell students that you can split the word into two parts: the beginning part, called the onset, and the ending part, called the rime. Say the word again as you segment the parts: /gr/ /ow/.
Say the following words to students: grown, drive, job, night, milk. Pause after saying each word to have students orally segment each word into its onset and rime.

Phonics: R-family blends

Say the word grow and ask students what sound they hear at the beginning of the word. Have them put their finger on the word on the cover of their book. Tell students that the sounds of the letters g and r blend together to make the /gr/ sound. Have students point to and say the blend in the word grow on the cover.
Have students turn to page 4 and find another word that starts with the gr blend (grown).
Write the following blends on the board: gr, br, cr, dr, fr, pr, tr. Tell students that these are all r-family blends. Say each blend with students.
Say the word grip and have a student come up to the board and point to the blend that begins the word. Write the word grip under the gr blend. Repeat the process with each of the following words: bran, frog, trap, prop, crab, drab, trip, crop, drill, grin. Have students say each word written on the board.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the r-family blends worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Grammar and Mechanics: Quotation marks

Point out the quotation marks on the first sentence on page 3. Ask students whether they know what the marks stand for. Explain that quotation marks signal that a character is speaking. Point out that there are two sets of quotation marks--one at the beginning of the quotation and one at the end.
Reread page 4 with students. Discuss who is speaking in each sentence. Repeat the process with the sentences on page 5.

Word Work: Compound words

Have students read the first sentence on page 4. Have them put their finger on the word anything. Explain that the word is made up of two smaller words: any and thing.
Tell students that the word anything is called a compound word. Have students find the compound word on page 5 (myself).
Write the following words on the board and have students tell what two words make up each compound word: hot dog, starfish, tugboat, sunset, cupcake, bluebird.

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 and Art Connection
Write the following sentence on the board: When I grow up, I want to _____. Brainstorm a list of things the students want to do when they grow up. Ask students to choose one thing, write the sentence, and illustrate a picture about their sentence. Display their work on a bulletin board titled When We Grow Up.

Math Connection
Have students make a personal growth chart. Show students how to measure each other's growth. Provide time at the end of each month for students to measure their growth and mark it on their chart.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

make logical predictions about what the girl might want to do when she grows up; revise their predictions if necessary as they get new information
identify the characters and setting of stories during discussion and on a worksheet
correctly segment words heard orally into their onset and rime
identify words in the book with the gr blend; recognize and read words with r-family blends
understand that quotation marks signify dialogue; identify quotation marks in text
identify compound words in the book; tell what two words are joined together in common compound words

Comprehension Checks

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