About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 12
Word Count: 180

Book Summary
How is the Weather Today? introduces readers to various types of weather that occur during each season. The text discusses typical activities and clothing for each type of weather. Supportive illustrations accompany the text.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Visualize

Objectives

• Use the strategy of visualization to understand and remember factual information
• Identify characteristics of setting
• Segment onset from rime
• Locate and read words that begin and end with the /ch/ sound
• Locate and read nouns in text
• Identify and form compound words

Materials

• Book -- How is the Weather Today? (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Setting, nouns, compound words 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: how, know, me, say, want, will
• Content words: blow, clothes, cold, fall, hot, icy, important, rain, seasons, showers, snow, spring, stormy, summer, today, warm, weather, weatherman, windy, winter

Before Reading

Build Background

• Have students describe the current weather outside. Draw and label a picture of the current weather as students describe it.
• Ask students to share what the weather is typically like in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. List words students use to describe each season on the board. If you live where weather does not change much, show students pictures of weather in different seasons and ask them to describe what the weather is like in each picture. Have students describe what kinds of clothes people wear and activities they do during each season.

Introduce the Book

Book Walk

• 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 How Is the Weather Today? Explain that the book tells about the weather in the different seasons.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Explain to students that good readers visualize, or make pictures in their mind, as they read. Readers often use the words in the story and what they already know about a topic to make the pictures in their mind.
• Read page 3 aloud to students. Model how to visualize.
  Think-aloud: When I read about the weatherman on TV, certain pictures came to mind. I pictured a man in a suit in front of a large map of our area. Temperatures for different places were listed on the map. The weatherman was moving his hands to show how a storm was moving into the area. As I read this book, I am going to make a movie in my mind about what I am reading. This is called visualizing. I will use what I picture to help me understand the story.
• Read page 4 aloud to students. Have them close their eyes and listen as you read. Ask them to make pictures in their mind, or visualize, as you read. After you have finished reading, have students share what they visualized.
• 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

• Use the illustrations to preview the book with students. Reinforce the language patterns and new vocabulary by incorporating them into the discussion. For example on page 5, you might say: How is the weather today? What do you think the weatherman will say? That's right. It is raining, however, it looks like the rain is light. They call light rain showers.
• Draw students' attention to the bolded words in the text. Explain to them that the author put these words in bold print to help the reader know that they are important. Have students locate and read each bolded word.
• Reinforce word-attack strategies by modeling how to read unfamiliar words. Read the second sentence on page 3 aloud. Pause before you read the word important. Explain that when readers come to a word they are not sure how to read, they look inside the word for smaller words they know. They then use what they know about sounds and letters to figure out the word. Point to and read the words port and ant in the word important. Then start at the beginning of the word and run your fingers under the letters im and demonstrate how to blend these sounds together with the sounds for the word parts port and ant. Reread the sentence and point out that good readers always reread to make sure the new word sounds right and makes sense in the sentence.
• Encourage students to add 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 weather. Remind them to visualize 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 (Every). 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 on the bottom corner of the first page. Have them read to the end of page 5, using their finger to point to each word as they read. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
• Think-aloud: As I read each page, I created a picture in my mind about the weather. On page 5, I read about the spring showers. I pictured a soft rain falling on bright spring flowers and slashing in puddles. I saw people with raincoats and hats holding umbrellas over their heads to keep the rain off their faces.
• Invite students to share what they visualized, or pictured in their mind, while they read the book.
• 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 book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

After Reading

Reflect on Reading Strategy

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how to read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Think-aloud: As I read, I continued to create pictures in my mind about the weather. When I read the words cold and icy on page 10, I pictured people bundled up in warm jackets, mittens, hats, and scarves. I pictured long icicles hanging from the roofs of houses and people driving slowly on ice-covered streets. Stopping to visualize as I read the book helped me understand and enjoy the book.
• Have students share how visualizing helped them better understand and enjoy what they read. Invite students to describe additional examples of how they visualized as they read the book.
• Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Identify setting

• Discussion: Ask students to share their favorite kind of weather and why it is their favorite.
• Introduce and model the skill: Review with students that authors make stories interesting by providing details about when and where the story takes place. Explain that when and where a story takes place is called the setting.
• Think-aloud: When I read a book, I pay attention to the setting, or when and where the story happens. I also notice how characters in the story change when the setting changes. In the book, How is the Weather Today?, the author writes about several different settings. The first setting is at the lake during the spring. The character is wearing a raincoat because it is raining. This is a detail about the setting. The second setting of the book is inside a house during the summer. The character is inside the house because it is stormy outside. This is a detail about this setting.
• Check for understanding: Have students identify the settings on page 7, 8, and 9. Ask students to share how the setting affected the character's clothing and actions.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the setting worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Have students use the last page of their book to create an illustration and written description of their favorite season. Ask students to share their work with another classmate when they are finished.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Segment onset and rime

• Say the word hot and tell students you can say the beginning part and the ending part of the word: h-ot. Then blend the sounds together to say the word hot. Tell students we call the beginning part the onset and the ending part the rime. Point out that the beginning part includes the sound(s) before the vowel. Segment the word hot again, emphasizing the sounds in each part of the word.
• Say the word fall and model segmenting it into its onset and rime: f-all. Then blend the sounds in the onset and rime together to say the whole word.
• Say the following words to students: cold, snow, beach, rain. Pause after saying each word and have students segment each word into its onset and rime.

Phonics: Consonant diagraph ch

• Write the word chin on the board and read it aloud to students. Circle the ch letter combination at the beginning of the word. Have students say the /ch/ sound with you. Explain that the letters c and h together stand for one sound: /ch/.
• Have students practice writing the ch digraph on a separate piece of paper while saying the sound the letter combination represents.
• Have students locate two words that begin with the ch letter combination on page 12 (changes, changing). Have them say each word aloud.
• Write the word catch on the board and read it aloud to students. Ask them to identify where they hear the /ch/ sound in the word (at the end). Circle the ch letter combination at the end of the word. Have students say the /ch/ sound.
• Have students find two words that end with the ch letter combination in the book (watch, beach).

Grammar and Mechanics: Nouns

• Write an example of a person (teacher), a place (the park), and a thing (toy) on the board. Read each word with students. Review or explain to students that nouns are words that name people, places, and things. Ask them to identify which word names the person, the place, and the thing.
• Invite students to name other nouns they know. Write these words on the board under the appropriate example.
• Have students turn to page 5 in their book. Point to the word weatherman. Explain that the word weatherman is a word that names a person.
• Have students read the next sentence on page 5: I will wear my raincoat. Ask students to point to the nouns that name a person (I) and a thing (raincoat).

Ask students to work with a partner to circle all the nouns in their book.

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

Word Work: Compound words

• Have students turn to page 5 and put their finger on the word weatherman. Tell them that this word is called a compound word because it is made up of two smaller words. Have students use their finger to point to the word weather and then point to the word man.
• Ask students to identify and point to another compound word on page 5 (raincoat). When they locate the word, have them point to each word with their finger that was joined together to create the compound word.
• Repeat this process on page 11 with the word snowman.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the compound words worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

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
Write the following sentence on the board: My favorite season is _______ because the weather is ______ and I can____________. Have students copy the sentence on a separate piece of paper. Have them fill in the blanks with their favorite season, followed by an adjective that tells about the weather and a verb that tells an activity.

Science Connection
Show students a newspaper weather forecast and read it aloud to them. Have them create and present a weather forecast with a partner about their current weather based on what they read in the newspaper.

Assessment

• consistently visualize and describe the story settings
• describe how story characters change when the setting changes; use the skill to complete a worksheet
• orally segment onset and rime within words
• identify and read words that contain the ch diagraph
• locate and read nouns in text and on a worksheet
• correctly identify compound words during discussion; accurately form compound words on a worksheet

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