The Chase
Level G
About the Book
Text Type: Fiction/Poetry
Page Count: 12
Word Count: 224
Book Summary
In this exciting adventure of dog versus cat, students will enjoy reading a familiar plot. The Chase is full of amusing action and rhyme on every page.
About the Lesson
Targeted Reading Strategy
- Make, revise, and confirm predictions
Objectives
- Make, revise, and confirm predictions based on text information
- Sequence story events
- Discriminate long /e/ vowel sound
- Identify long /e/ digraphs
- Identify nouns
- Recognize and understand position words
Materials
- Book -- The Chase (copy for each student)
- Chalkboard or dry erase board
- Sequence events, position 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: the, dog, cat, that, and, her, into, up
- Content words: spat, field, flowers, hours, leapt, flash, splash, swam, otter, meadow, fellow, sticking, ditch, growled, escaped, howled
Build Background
- Invite students to share stories they read or movies they saw about dogs and cats. Ask them to tell how the dogs and cats in those stories got along.
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 The Chase. (Accept any answers students can justify.) Have students tell what they notice in the illustrations. Ask who they think will be the characters in the book and where they think they are.
- Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).
- Write the word cat on the board. Invite students to tell words that rhyme with the word cat. Tell students that the book The Chase is a rhyming story and that the last words in the lines will sound alike.
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 front cover picture of the book to make a prediction.
Think-aloud: As I look at the illustration on the front cover of the book, I see a cat and a dog. They look like they are running through some tall grass. The cat has a frown on its face and does not look very happy. Maybe the dog and the cat have some kind of fight and the dog chases the cat. Since the title is called The Chase, I think I am going to read about all the places the dog chases the cat. As I think about that, I am curious about what will happen. I will have to read to find out what happens. - Have students use the pictures on the covers and title page to make a prediction before reading the book. Invite them to share their prediction.
- Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to make, revise, 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
- Model strategies students can use to figure out words they don't know. For example, point to the word spat on page 3. Model using the familiar s family blend sp- and the ending word family -at to read the word. Then read the sentence to students and ask if the word spat makes sense, discussing the meaning if necessary.
- Explain or review that rhyming words are words that sound the same at the end, such as cat and mat. Tell students that the words cat and mat rhyme because they both end with the /at/ sound.
- Read page 3 aloud and have students listen carefully to the words that rhyme at the end of each sentence (spat, that). Tell students that each page in the book follows the same rhyming pattern and they can expect sentences to end in rhyme on every page.
- For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.
Set the Purpose
- Have students read the book to find out whether their prediction is correct or if it needs to be revised. Have them pay particular attention to the rhyming pattern in the book.
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 (A). 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 5, using their finger to point to each word as they read. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
- Model confirming and making prediction.
Think-aloud: I predicted that the dog was going to chase the cat in this story. This prediction is correct. I also read about all of the places the dog has chased the cat--through a field, through mud, over a wall, and into water. I wonder if the cat is able to get away from the dog. I think that the cat will escape from the dog and make it back home safely. - Ask students if they can confirm their prediction based on the words they read and the pictures. Have them revise their prediction or make a new prediction.
- Point out the rhyming words on page 4. Explain that these rhyming words sound alike even though they have a different spelling. Write power and sour on the board. Read the words aloud and ask if they rhyme. Point out that they have different spelling patterns at the end just as flower and hour do.
- 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.
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. Challenge students to suggest other words that rhyme with the rhyming words found on each page.
- Have students meet with their partners to discuss the predictions they made before the story and to talk about any ideas they changed, or revised, as they read the story. Have students tell how thinking about what might happen, and then reading to tell whether or not it did, helped them get involved in reading.
- Think-aloud: I predicted that the cat would escape the dog and make it back home safely. This prediction was partially correct. The cat did escape the dog by climbing up a tree. However, the cat did not make it back home.
- Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.
Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence events
- Discussion: Ask students to tell why they think the dog chased after the cat.
- Introduce and model the skill: Tell students that a story is a series of events that happens in a particular order. First one thing happens, then something else, and so on. Explain that the order in which the steps happen is called the sequence. Point out the sequence in this story.
- Think-aloud: I don't tell all the details of the story, as I would in a retelling. I tell the most important events to tell the story correctly. In this story, the first event that happened was the dog and the cat got into a fight. Next, the dog chased the cat through a field. Then, the dog chased the cat through mud.
- Check for understanding: Ask students to tell the events that happened in order through the end of the story.
- Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the sequence events worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.
Have students draw a picture of and write about how the cat will get down from the tree on the last page of their book.
Phonological Awareness: Discriminate long /e/ vowel sound
- Slowly say see and bee. Ask students to tell how the sounds of the words are alike (long /e/ vowel sound).
- Repeat with the words seed and teeth, emphasizing the medial vowel sounds.
- Say the following long /e/ vowel words: leaf, pan, seed. Ask students to tell which word does not have the long /e/ vowel sound (pan). Continue to say groups of three words aloud and ask students to tell the word that does not contain the long /e/ vowel sound: deep, jeep, cap; me, dog, tree; read, bed, feed; hat, feet, street.
Phonics: Long /e/ digraphs
- Write the word deep on the board. Have students find the word on page 5 and read the sentence in which it is found.
- Ask students what vowel sound they hear in the middle of the word (long /e/). Circle the ee letter combination in the word. Explain that in some words, two vowels together make one sound. These letter combinations are called vowel digraphs.
- Write the word tree on the board, leaving off the ee letter combination. Say the word aloud to students. Have a volunteer come to the board and write the letters to complete the word.
- Write the following words on the board, leaving off the ee letter combination: eel, free, cheese, feet, green, teeth. Have a volunteer come to the board and write the letters to complete the word. Have students read the words together and circle the long /e/ digraphs.
Grammar and Mechanics: Nouns
- Write the word cat on the board. Review or explain that this word names a thing. Invite students to identify other words that name things. Write these words on the board.
- Explain that words that name a person, place, or thing are called nouns. Write the name of a person and a place on the board. Ask students to identify which word names the person and which names the place.
- Invite students to identify other words that name people and places. Write these words on the board.
Have students circle nouns in the book. When they have finished, discuss the words they circled. Have students identify whether the word names a person, place, or thing.
Word Work: Position words
- Write the word over on the board. Invite students to explain the meaning of the word. Have students turn to page 6 in the book. Reread the first sentence with students. Have students move their finger on the picture to show how the cat moved over the wall.
- Have students turn to page 10 and locate the word under. Have students point to the picture to show the cat under the car.
- Have students move their book over and under something. Emphasize that each of the examples is a position word. These words tell the location of the book.
- Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the position words worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.
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.
Writing and Art Connection
Have students think about additional places the dog might chase the cat. Write the following sentence on the board: The dog chased the cat________. Have students complete the sentence with the name of a place and illustrate the cat and dog's adventure.
Math Connection
Have students choose their favorite animal. Have them illustrate and label their animal on an index card. Create a graph with the names of students' favorite animals. Have students place their index card on the graph next to the name of their favorite animal. Discuss with students which animal received the most and least votes.
Monitor students to determine if they can:
- consistently make predictions and tell about their revisions or confirmations during and after reading the story
- place pictures of story events in correct order on the graphic organizer
- accurately discriminate the long /e/ vowel sound
- accurately read words with the long /e/ vowel digraph spelling
- correctly identify nouns in text and during discussion
- correctly identify position words
Comprehension Checks
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