Build Background

• Involve students in a discussion about baseball. Ask questions to help students share their knowledge of what equipment is used, how the game is played, where the game is played, and the roles of the different position players.
• Involve students in a discussion about being a member of a team. Encourage them to talk about teams they have played on and what a good team member does.

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

• Show students the covers of a fantasy book and the cover of Maria Joins the Team, which is a book of realistic fiction. Ask them to look at the cover illustrations and tell how the two books are different. Explain to the students that one of these books is a fantasy story. In fantasy stories the characters are often not real and the events could not happen in real life. Explain that the other book is realistic fiction. In a book of realistic fiction the characters and setting are like those in real life and the events are things that could actually happen. Have the students choose which one of the two books is realistic fiction.
• Put the fantasy book away and show the students the copy of Maria Joins the Team. Tell the students that the girl on the cover is named Maria. Explain that Maria is the main character in the story.
• Have students look at the front and back cover and predict what Maria might do in the story.
• Read the title and author of the book. Ask the students to predict what king of team Maria might join.
• Show students the title page. Encourage them to make predictions based on the information on this page.

Introduce the Strategy: Make, and confirm or revise predictions

• Tell students that good readers try to decide what kind of text they are going to be reading before they open a book. Good readers look at the cover to try to decide if the book is fiction or nonfiction. If they predict that the book is fiction they try to decide if it is fantasy or realistic fiction. This information helps them make predictions about who might be in the story, where the story might take place, and what happens in the story.
• Think-aloud: When I look at the cover I see a girl. I think she is the main character, the person the story is about. The girl looks like a real person, someone that could go to our school. Because of the cover illustration I believe that the book is going to be realistic fiction. I predict that the other characters in the story are going to be like children and people I know. Maybe Maria’s sister or other family members might be in the story.
• Invite the students to look at the illustrations on the cover and title page again and predict what characters might be in the story. Ask them to share what happens to the characters in the story.

Introduce Vocabulary

• Go through each page of the book with the students. Ask students to talk about what they see in the pictures. Use the baseball and birthday content vocabulary and names of characters they will encounter in the text during your discussion of the pictures. For example, on page 3 ask students what game Maria likes to play with her brother Luis? Explain that before the dog took the ball, Maria and her brother were playing a game of catch. Ask the students what sounds they hear at the beginning of catch and what letter makes that sound. Ask students to point to the word catch. On page 7 ask the students what they think Amos is giving Maria, say the words birthday party when discussing the invitation. Have the students point to the word party in the sentence. Ask them to share how they knew the word was party.
• Write the high-frequency word come on a card. Read the word to students. Have students say the word, spell the word and use it in a sentence. Cut the card up into individual letters. Scramble the letters and have the students help put the letters back in order to make the word come. Do the same activity with the high-frequency words could, should, asks, and says. Have students look through their books to locate these words.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Tell students to read the book to find out if their predictions about the characters in the story are correct.

• Guiding the Reading: Give students their copies of the book. Have them put a sticky note on page 7 and read to the end of that page. Remind students to look for word parts to figure out unknown words. Tell students to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• Listen to individual students read the text. Monitor their use of reading strategies and intervene when necessary to prompt for strategy use. Encourage students to share what they are learning about the characters and setting while they read.
• Think-aloud: When I looked at the cover I predicted that the story was a realistic fiction story. Based on that prediction I felt that the people in the story would be like real children and adults. I also predicted that Maria’s sister would be in the story, and some of her other family members, too. I was right that the characters are similar to real people and Maria’s family members are in the story. However my prediction was not correct about Maria’s sister being in the story. Her brother was one of the characters, not her sister.
• Allow time for the students to discuss their predictions about setting before discussing more about characters. Have them share which of their predictions were confirmed and the ones that they need to revise. Have students make further predictions about characters that might be in the story.
• Have students finish reading the book independently to confirm or revise other predictions they have made.

    Tell the students to 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 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.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Characters and setting

• Discussion: Ask students to share their impression of the story.
• Introduce and model the skill: Explain to students that when authors write stories, they write about the people in the stories and where the story takes place. These details make the story make sense and make reading it fun. Think aloud: I know that when authors write stories they usually have one or two main characters and several other characters. In this story Maria was the main character and her family members, classmates, and coach were also characters. I also know that in the story the author and illustrator showed several places that the story took place. I remember a park and a school. I think there were also other places.
• Check for understanding: Have students reread their book to find all the characters that were in the story. Have them look at the illustrations to locate the different settings in the story.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the worksheet. Discuss their responses.
• Extend the discussion: Ask the students how they felt about the decision Maria made to play on the baseball team and not go to the party. Ask students if they have been faced with the same type of problem as Maria had in the story. Have them draw a picture of Maria playing baseball. Have them write a sentence to show how Maria was a good team member.

Phonemic Awareness: Segmenting and blending

• Use elastic to show students how you can segment and blend sounds into words. Tell students that you are going to say a word from the story slowly by stretching out the sounds. /mmmmm/ /iii/ /t/. Stretch the sounds except the /t./ Tell students that you are going to blend the sounds together to say the word mitt. Repeat this same activity one more time having the students listen carefully.
• Explain that you will stretch out the individual sounds of a word and that you want them to blend the sounds together to say the words. Say each sound for each of these words one at a time, slowly and distinctly: team, game, coach, miss, cake. Have the students blend the sounds together and say the word.

Phonics: Digraph ch

• Write the word coach from page 4 on the board. Read the word and underline the ending consonant diagraph ch. Explain that this word ends with ch and that ch makes the sound /ch/. Write the word lunch. Read the word and underline the final consonant diagraph ch. Explain that the word lunch ends with the /ch/ sound, too.
• Then write the words chair and cheese on the board. Explain that these two words begin with the /ch/ sound.
• Have the students listen as you say a word that begins or ends with ch. Have them put their thumb up if they hear the /ch/ sound at the beginning of the word and put their thumb down if they hear the /ch/ sound at the end of the word. Use the words chew, chicken, patch, pitch, chill.
• Have the students search in the book to locate and read the words that contain the diagraph ch.
• Have students look through other books to locate words that have the diagraph ch at the beginning or end.

Grammar and Mechanics: Quotation marks

• Use the board to write the sentence “I should not miss the game,” Maria says. Read the sentence to the students. Explain that this sentence tells the words that Maria says to the coach. Point to the quotation marks in the sentence. Explain that these marks frame what Maria says. Tell the students that the marks are called quotation marks. Point to the comma and explain that the comma separates what is being said from the person who is saying it.
• Have students turn to page 9 in their books. Have them locate the quotation marks and comma. Ask one student to read what the coach says to Maria when she asks him if she can miss the game to go to the party.

    Ask students to use a yellow crayon to highlight all the dialogue in the book.

Vocabulary: Content vocabulary

• Tell students that many of the words they read in the book describe the people and things associated with baseball. Ask the students to locate the baseball content words in the book. Provide opportunities for the students to say the new vocabulary words, talk about their meanings and use the words in sentences. List these words on a chart or the board.
• Ask students to share other content words associated with baseball. Have the students explain each word’s meaning and put the word in a sentence. Add the word to the list of baseball terms.
• Have the students complete the vocabulary worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Tell students that when they read dialogue that it should be read expressively and sound differently than the other words in the sentence. Read page 5 to students. Have them discuss how the dialogue sounded when you read it. Have students chorally read the page together. Have students reread the book with a partner to practice reading dialogue expressively.

Home Connection

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

Writing and Art Connection

• Have the students discuss the different games they like to play. Write the sentence: I like to play the game of ________. Have students fill in words to complete the sentence and create an illustration to match the writing.

Math Connection

• Create a graph of the different team sports that students participate in. Write statements under the graph to summarize the results. Example: five classmates play soccer, two classmates play T-ball.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• consistently make, and confirm or revise predictions while reading
• identify characters and settings in fictional stories
• blend individual phonemes together to form one syllable words
• locate and read words that contain the diagraph ch in the initial and final position
• identify quotation marks and commas in dialogue sentences
• recognize and use content vocabulary.