Text Type: Fiction/Poetry
Page Count: 14
Word Count: 234

Book Summary
This story explores some of the wonderful possibilities children have before them when thinking about growing up. Written in poetry form, various occupations, both real and fantasy, are described in clear language and depicted through amusing photos.

Book and lesson also available at Levels E and K.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Visualize

Objectives

• Use the reading strategy of visualizing to understand text
• Distinguish between reality and fantasy
• Segment syllables
• Read and identify long /e/ vowel digraphs
• Recognize and use proper nouns
• Recognize and understand compound words

Materials

• Book -- I'd Like to Be (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Reality and fantasy, proper nouns, compound words worksheets
• Discussion cards

      Indicates an opportunity for students to mark in the book. (All activities may be demonstrated by projecting book on interactive whiteboard or completed with paper and pencil if books are reused.)

Vocabulary

• High-frequency words: a, and, be, I'd, like, to, with
• Content words: astronaut, cowboy, dancer, dolphins, mermaid, pirate, rocket, talents

Build Background

• Ask students if they have ever imagined themselves as a grown-up. Encourage them to share what they know about the jobs and professions of adults they know.
• Extend the discussion by having students share their thoughts about what they want to do or the kind of person they want to be when they are adults. Explain that they don't need to know at such a young age what they want to do as an adult and that life experiences as they grow up will help them to decide. List responses on the board.

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 I'd Like to Be. (Accept all answers that students can justify.)
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name).
• Write the following repetitive sentence on the board: I'd like to be a _____. Read the sentence aloud, pointing to the words as you read them to students. Have students read them aloud. Explain that these words repeat throughout the book.

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Explain to students that good readers often visualize, or create pictures in their mind, while reading. Visualizing is based on the words used in the text and what a person already knows about a topic. Pictures in books also help readers create their own mental images.
• Read page 3 aloud to students. Model how to visualize.
  Think-aloud: Whenever I read a story, I pause after each page or so to create a picture in my mind of the information I've read. This helps me understand the ideas in the book. For example, on page 3, the author tells about wanting to be a clown who can turn a frown upside down, which is a smile. When I read this, I thought about what kind of a face can make someone smile. I imagined a round clown face with a big, silly red nose right in the center. I imagined the clown having bright red lips and dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. I created a picture in my mind from the author's words silly clown.
• Reread page 3 aloud to students and ask them to describe what the author's words led them to visualize. Have students draw on a piece of paper what they pictured in their mind. Invite students to share their drawings.
• 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: Reality/fantasy

• Explain to students that books and stories can be about reality, things that are real, or about things that are fantasy, things that are imaginary. Remind them that imaginary things are not real. Read the title again and ask students to think about its meaning. Explain to them that a title sometimes gives clues that let the reader know whether the story is about facts, information, and real things, or whether the book or story is about things people only imagine in their mind.
• Tell students that it is important to understand and recognize what is real and what is fantasy, especially when they read a book, play a game, or watch a television program. Invite students to predict whether the book is reality or fantasy based on its title.
• Model how to identify reality and fantasy.
  Think-aloud: To decide whether a story or details are reality or fantasy, I ask myself the question: Can this really happen? I look at the setting and think about the characters and what is happening. I try to look for things that exist in the real world. To decide if I am reading fantasy, I ask, Can this really happen? Is it impossible? Does it only happen in my imagination?
• Review students' responses from the Build Background discussion about what they'd like to be when they grow up. Discuss whether their responses are examples of reality or fantasy.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• As you preview the book, ask students to talk about what they see in the pictures and use the vocabulary they will encounter in the text. Model how by thinking aloud and incorporating content vocabulary while looking at the pictures. For example, on page 5, say: It looks like the man is going to plant flowers. He is wearing clothing a gardener might wear, and he has a tool that is used in a garden. I'll check to see if I'm right when I read that page.
• 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 dancer 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 young woman in a ballerina pose. She is wearing clothing a ballerina would wear. When I look at the first part of the word, it starts like /d/. However, the word ballerina starts with the /b/ sound, so this can't be the word. I know that a ballerina is a type of dancer. The word dancer starts with the /d/ sound and ends with the /r/ sound. The sentence makes sense with this word. The word must be dancer.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words and word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students think about jobs and professions they could really have when they grow up and ones that are make-believe, or fantasy, as they read the story.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Ask them 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 visualizing.
  Think-aloud: On page 5, after reading about the gardener and looking at the picture, I imagine the man in the sun, squatting on the ground pulling weeds next to a flower he's planted in an area he's cleared using the tool.
• Invite students to share how they used the text and picture to visualize.
• Have students read to the end of page 10. Review the things the author wants to be on the pages read so far. Ask students to think about which are examples of reality and which are examples of fantasy. Say: On page 6, the author wants to be a mermaid. Do mermaids really exist? Could the author really be a mermaid someday? On page 9, the author wants to be an artist. Is this something the author could do?
• Introduce and explain the reality and fantasy worksheet. List the things the author wants to be so far on the board. Guide students to write them under the correct heading on the worksheet.
• Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 12. Invite them to share how they visualized the text in their mind. (Accept all answers that show students understand how to visualize.)
• Ask students to think about details in the text and pictures on each page that give clues as to whether what is described is real or make-believe. Have them continue recording each job, profession, or type of person in the correct column of the chart.
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to use text and picture details to visualize 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.

• 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.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Think-aloud: When I read page 11, I thought about the types of missions astronauts go on and the dangers they must protect themselves from. I pictured a person in a big, overstuffed white suit, standing with a big smile and holding a helmet.
• Have students select a favorite page from the story and draw a picture of what they visualized after reading it. Invite them to share and explain their picture with the rest of the class.
• Ask students to explain how visualizing helped them to understand and remember the story.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Review characteristics of reality and fantasy. Invite students to share where they placed the titles of people from the story on the reality and fantasy worksheet.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the reality and fantasy worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.
• Enduring understanding: In this book, you learned about some of the things people might want to be when they grow up. Some of the things are possible to become, and some are imaginary. Is it okay to dream about becoming something imaginary? Do you think it's a good idea to think about what you want to be when you grow up? What kinds of things might young people do if they want to start preparing for what they want to do as adults?

Phonological Awareness: Segment syllables

• Tell students that every word contains one or more parts. Explain that these parts are called syllables.
• Show students how to count syllables by clapping as they say a word. Demonstrate with the word astronaut. Clap each time you say a syllable (3 claps).
• Check for understanding: Say the following words, one at a time, and have students clap the syllables and tell how many syllables are in each word: artist, happy, pirate, animals, cowboy, like.

Phonics: Identify long /e/ vowel digraphs

• Write the word be on the board. Ask students what vowel sound they hear (long /e/). Explain or review with students that sometimes the letter e by itself may make the long /e/ sound, and sometimes two vowels together, called a vowel digraph, may make the same sound.
• Write the word leap on the board. Explain that leap is an example of a vowel digraph because ea team together to make the long /e/ sound. Explain or review that often when two vowels are together, the first vowel makes its long sound.
• Have students look on page 5 for other examples of long /e/ vowel digraph (seeds, weeds).

     Instruct students to continue reading and searching for examples of long /e/ vowel digraphs. Have them underline examples they find. Remind them that the examples should include two vowels that together make the long /e/ sound. Check their responses (Some examples are found on the following pages: page 3: see; page 6: sea; page 7: sleep, see; page 8: beat, see, feet; page 9: green; page 12: keeper, see; page 13: sweet, meet; page 14: dream).

Grammar and Mechanics: Proper nouns

• Remind students that a common noun names a general person, place, or thing. Ask volunteers to name examples of each.
• Explain that a proper noun names a specific person, place, or thing. Provide examples by saying: The word man is a common noun. Mike is a specific man, so the word Mike is a proper noun. Provide other examples as necessary to help students understand what makes a noun a proper noun. Tell students that proper nouns begin with a capital letter even if they are not found at the beginning of a sentence. Explain to students that the word I is a proper noun because it refers to a specific person--the writer or speaker.
• Have students turn to page 7 and find the word cowboy. Ask them to tell if cowboy is a common noun or a proper noun and to explain why. Next, ask a volunteer to give an example of a proper noun that could be used in place of cowboy, such as a specific cowboy's name.
• Ask volunteers to write nouns from the story on the board. Next, ask them to name a proper noun for each noun listed. (Examples may include gardener/Gardener John; pirate/Captain Hook).

      Check for understanding: Have students locate a common and a proper noun in the story. Guide students to realize that the only proper noun in the story is the word I. Have students locate and highlight every occurrence of the word I in the story. Ask them to whom the word refers.

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

Word Work: Compound words

• Tell students that a compound word is a word that is made from two words put together. The two words are words that can stand on their own and have their own meaning, but when they are put together, they mean something else. Super is a word that means great or big, and a market is a place to buy things. A supermarket is a big store where people go to buy many things.
• Write the following words on the board and read them aloud with students: base, ball, country, side, back, yard. Discuss each word's meaning. Select volunteers to draw a line connecting the two words that make a compound word. Then have volunteers write the new compound words (baseball, countryside, backyard). Discuss the meaning of each compound word.
• Read page 3 aloud to students. Challenge them to locate a compound word on the page (upside). Ask a volunteer to name the two words that make the compound word. Discuss the meaning of the two individual words and then the meaning of the compound word.
• Check for understanding: Have students locate other compound words in the story. Have them write the compound words on a piece of paper and circle each smaller word in the compound word. Review the lists as a class.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the compound 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. Have them identify examples of reality and fantasy to someone at home.

Poetry and Art Connection
Have students write a two- or three-sentence poem about what might be fun to do when they grow up. Encourage them to use descriptive words to help the reader visualize what they are describing. When they have finished writing, pair students together to edit their work. Have them paint or draw a portrait of what they'd like to be and include the final draft of the poem with the portrait.

Social Studies Connection
Invite adults representing various interesting careers as guest speakers to come and tell about what they do and what they dreamed of doing when they were growing up. After the presentations, have students choose a speaker who most interested them and write a letter to that person. Have students explain how listening to the person helped to inspire them regarding their future dreams.

Skill Review
Discussion cards covering comprehension skills and strategies not explicitly taught with the book are provided as an extension activity. The following is a list of some ways these cards can be used with students:

• Use as discussion starters for literature circles.
• Have students choose one or more cards and write a response, either as an essay or a journal entry.
• Distribute before reading the book and have students use one of the questions as a purpose for reading.
• Cut apart and use the cards as game cards with a board game.
• Conduct a class discussion as a review before the book quiz.