Build Background

• Discuss things students need to think about when they do assignments at school. Ask what helps them to do well. Facilitate the discussion by using the following questions: What should you remember to do before beginning an assignment? What might happen if you don't follow the directions?

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

• Give students a copy of the book. Have them preview the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers and offer ideas as to what it might be about. Discuss the title. Ask students what kind of mix-ups they have had at school. What do they think the mix-up in the book might be? Encourage predictions from students.
• Show students the title page. Talk about the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).
• Preview the book up to page 6, inviting students to look at the pictures. Encourage predictions as they preview the pictures.

Introduce the Strategy: Make, revise, and confirm predictions

• Explain to students that one way to understand more about what they are reading is to predict what will happen in the story. Tell students they just made predictions based on the title of the book and some of the pictures. Explain that they can check and change their predictions by reading the book. Tell them that making predictions and checking them will help students understand the story better.
• Model how to predict.
  Think-aloud: As I read this book, I am going to look at the pictures and think about what I have read. Then I will ask myself what might happen next, or make a prediction. After making a prediction, I will keep reading to see if my prediction was correct. I will continue reading and making predictions throughout the story.
• As students read, they should 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, ask students to talk about what they see in the illustrations. Use the vocabulary they will encounter in the text. Model how to use what they know about school and their assignments as they preview the illustrations.
• Reinforce new vocabulary by incorporating it into the discussion of the pictures. Use as much of the language from the text as possible. For example, on page 6 you might say: The students looked at their papers, and what did they see? (mistakes) How many mistakes did they make? (one, fifteen) Continue by having students repeat the language you used. (Repeating the book language will support students when they come to difficult parts of the text.)
• Model for students the strategies they can use to work out words they don't know. For example, point to the word stomped on page 8. Model using the familiar word part stomp and using the picture to think about what the girl is doing. Then read the sentence to the students and ask if the word stomped makes sense and looks right. Remind students that they should always check whether a word makes sense by rereading the sentence.
• 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 the text confirms their predictions. Remind students that they may need to revise their predictions as they read and learn more about the characters and events in the story.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students put a sticky note on page 5. Tell them to read to the end of this page. Ask students to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• When they have finished reading, ask students what words, if any, were tricky for them. Discuss strategies they can use to work out difficult words.
• Think-aloud: When I looked at the cover pictures and read the title, I thought the boy and girl had played a joke on someone to cause a mix-up. Then I looked at all the pictures, and I realized my prediction wasn't quite right, so I predicted that they did something to cause a mix-up that made them both unhappy. Now that I've read a little, I think my prediction is correct. I think the kids forgot to follow directions and left their names off the math papers.
• Discuss other predictions. Have students read the remainder of the book to find out if their predictions are correct.

    Tell students to make a small question mark in their books 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 can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Discuss how predicting helped them get more meaning from the book and gave them a reason to keep reading to find out if their predictions were correct.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Compare characters to self

• Discussion: Ask students to name the main characters in the story (Emily, Joe). Explain that the author chose students, Emily and Joe, to help the reader understand the importance of following directions. Ask: Have you ever forgotten to follow directions? What happened? How do you help yourself remember to follow directions?
• Introduce and model the skill: Explain to students that good readers often compare themselves to characters in the book. This strategy helps readers understand the story in a more personal way.
• Think-aloud: When I read page 8 in the story, I saw how angry Emily became when she received the wrong paper. I know I may have been upset, but I don't think I would have stomped my foot. In some ways I am like the character, and in some ways I am different from the character. (Personalize examples as necessary.)
• Model how to compare and contrast information using a Venn diagram. Draw a Venn diagram on the board. Label the left circle Emily and the right circle Me. Explain that you can write things that only Emily does in the left side of the left circle. (Emily stomps her foot when she is angry.) You can write things that you do in the right side of the right circle. (I clench my jaw when I am angry.) Where the circles overlap, you can write things that both of you have in common (We both like math.)
• Check for understanding: Ask students to reread pages 7 through 9 to find one way they are alike and one way they are different from one of the characters in the story. Have them discuss their comparisons with a partner. Later discuss students' comparisons as a group.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the compare and contrast worksheet independently.

Phonemic Awareness: Listen for long /i/ sound

• Ask students to listen carefully as you say words that contain the long /i/ sound (mine, write, side, time), stretching the words out as you say them. Then have students repeat the words. Explain that you are going to play a sound game. Give each student a card with long /i/ written on it. Explain that you are going to say a series of words. When students hear the long /i/ sound, they should raise their long /i/ card.

bride	mine	men	tiger	pine
pin	bread	mice	vine	Venn
nine	none	slide	ice	five
slid	kit	fifteen	kite	write

Phonics: Long /i/

• Review the long /i/ sound with students. Say the words mine, writing, decide, and time, exaggerating the long /i/ sound. Have students repeat the words. Ask: What sound do all of these words have in common? Have students repeat the sentence: We must decide in time if the writing is mine. Explain that all of the words contain the long /i/ sound.
• Write the words mine, writing, decide, time, bride, and slide on the board. Say the words and have students repeat them. Ask students to identify what all of the words have in common (i_e). Explain that in these words the final e is silent. Have students brainstorm long /i/ words to add to the list.

    Have students work with a partner to read and highlight long /i/ words in the text.

Grammar and Mechanics: Quotation marks

• Have students read the first sentence on page 5. Ask them to tell who is talking in the sentence (Mrs. Meed). Ask them how they know (Mrs. Meed said). Ask what other clues show that someone is talking (quotation marks). Review or explain that quotation marks tell that someone is talking and mark the words the person is saying. Write on the board: "Do you know which test is yours?" Mrs. Meed asked Emily and Joe. Ask a volunteer to identify the question and who is asking it.
• Have students practice identifying dialogue by completing the quotation marks worksheet.

Vocabulary: Contractions

• Have students read page 3 together as a group. Review or explain that the word couldn't is a shortened way of saying two words, and that the mark, or apostrophe, takes the place of the missing letter(s). Tell students that this shortened word is called a contraction. Ask students to clap the syllables as they repeat the word contraction.
• Write could not on the left side of the board and couldn't on the right side of the board. Ask students to tell what letter the apostrophe replaces (o). Point to the apostrophe in the word couldn't and ask students to tell what the mark is. Help students to clap the syllables as they say the word apostrophe.
• Have students turn to page 12 in the book. Ask them to read the page and explain what the students have to do (write their names on the paper and answer the questions). Ask them to point to the contraction on the page (you're). Write the words you and are on the board. Explain that these two words can be shortened to make the smaller word you're by using an apostrophe in place of the letter a. Write you're on the board. Ask students to name other common contractions.
• Check for understanding: Have students work with a partner to identify and record examples of contractions in the book. Ask them to tell the two words that have been joined to make the contraction. Have them tell what letter(s) the apostrophe replaces.
• For additional practice working with contractions, have students complete the contractions worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section of the book. Additionally, invite partners to take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

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

Writing Connection

• Have students practice creating dialogue in a writing assignment about at least two characters. Have them review the book to find dialogue words, such as said, asked, and offered. Brainstorm additional dialogue words. Encourage them to use many dialogue words while writing conversation between characters in their stories.

Social Studies Connection

• Have students play a game that emphasizes the importance of following directions. For example, blindfold a volunteer. Choose a simple task, such as moving from the front of the room to the teacher's desk at the back of the room. Have another volunteer give directions verbally for the blindfolded student to follow. Can the director get his or her partner to the desk without a problem? Have other students work in pairs to accomplish similar following-direction tasks.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the reading strategy of making, revising, and confirming predictions
• compare a character in the story to themselves
• identify the long /i/ sound in words said orally
• recognize and sort words that contain the long /i/ sound
• identify, understand, and use quotation marks