How the Mice Beat the Men

How the Mice Beat the Men
Level H

About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Folktale
Page Count: 12
Word Count: 229

Book Summary
How the Mice Beat the Men is a delightful retelling of a Native American folktale. Students will enjoy reading about how the mice won the war against the men.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Objectives

Make, revise, and confirm predictions based on text information
Sequence story events
Manipulate medial sounds
Read long /e/ vowel digraph words
Recognize and use plural nouns
Identify synonyms

Materials

Book -- How the Mice Beat the Men (copy for each student)
Chalkboard or dry erase board
Sequence events, plural nouns worksheets

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: said, much, their, were
Content words: gnawed, strings, bows, feathers, arrows, slings, crept, squeak, war

Before Reading

Build Background

Review or explain to students that a folktale is a story that is passed down from generation to generation. In folktales, animals may talk and act like people. Ask students to share their favorite folktales.

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 How the Mice Beat the Men. (Accept any answers students can justify.) Have students make an initial prediction of how the mice will beat the men. Have students take a moment to think about their prediction, pair with a partner or someone sitting next to them to discuss their prediction, and then share their prediction with the group.
Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

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 cover pictures of the book to make a prediction.
Think-aloud: I know that good readers can look at the cover of a book to get an idea of what the book is about. Looking at the front cover, I see mice next to some arrows. It looks like the mice are gnawing on the arrows. Maybe the men were preparing for a battle, but they lost because their arrows were ruined by the mice. I am curious about what will happen, so I am eager to read the story.
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 a variety of word-attack strategies. For example, have students turn to page 4 in their book. Point out the word gnawed. Say: In the pictures, the mice were eating food. The first sentence on the page tells how the mice said the men ate too much. I know the word isn't eat or ate because it starts with gn. The second sentence tells something about the walls of the houses. I know that mice chew on things. I also know that the letters g and n together stands for the /gn/ sound. Maybe the word is gnawed. When I use this word in the sentence, it makes sense.
Remind students to look at the beginning and ending sounds and other parts that they recognize to help them say words. They should also check whether a word makes sense by looking at the picture or rereading the sentence.
For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words and word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

Have students read the book to find out whether or not their prediction about the mice and men is correct or if it needs to be revised.

During Reading

Student Reading

Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Ask them to place a finger on the page number at the bottom corner of the page. Have them read to the end of page 6, using their finger to point to each word as they read. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
Model revising a prediction.
Think-aloud: I predicted that the men were preparing for a battle, but they lost because their arrows were ruined by the mice. I know that the men have spent a lot of time getting all of their weapons ready for their war against the mice. So, I will revise my first prediction by adding that the mice will do something to all of their weapons. Perhaps they will break them by nibbling or gnawing at the strings and feathers.
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.
Have students read the remainder of the story. 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.

After Reading

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.
Invite students to discuss whether their prediction turned out to be true or whether they needed to be revised. Reinforce that making predictions about what they are reading helps them get meaning from the book and gives them a purpose for meaning.
Think-aloud: I predicted that the mice would break all of the men's weapons. This prediction was correct. The mice broke all of the men's weapons while the men slept. When they woke up, they had nothing with which to fight the men, so the mice won the battle.
Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence events

Discussion: Invite students to share how the story might end differently if the men never fell asleep.
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. The order events happen is called the sequence. Tell students that unless a story is told in the order in which it happened, it usually does not make sense.
Think-aloud: I don't include all the details of the story, as I would in a retelling. I only tell the most important events in order to tell the story correctly. This story tells how the mice beat the men. First, the men got ready for battle. Next, the men had a big dance and fell asleep.
Check for understanding: Have students share the sequence of events through the end of the story. If necessary, use the pictures in the book as a guide.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the sequence events worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Extend the discussion: Discuss with students what they think the men and mice might do next. Have students use the last page of their book to draw a picture and write a sentence about what will happen next. Have students share their pictures with the group.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Manipulate medial sounds

Say the words men and bet, stretching the sounds in each word. Ask students to tell which sounds are the same in each word (the short /e/ sound).
Tell students you can change the words by changing the vowel sound to long /e/. Say mean and beat. Have students say these words aloud.
Say the following words to students: net, set, step, met, fed. Pause after saying each word and have students replace the vowel sound with the long /e/ sound.

Phonics: Long /e/ vowel digraphs

Write the word beat on the board. Have students find the word on the title page and read the word together.
Ask students what vowel sound they hear in the middle of the word (long /e/). Circle the ea in the word and review that the letter combinations ea and ee often stand for the long /e/ sound.
Write the word teeth on the board next to beat. Blend the words aloud as you run your finger under the words. Have a volunteer circle the letters in teeth that represent the long /e/ sound.
Have students look on page 3 to find an example of a word with the long /e/ vowel digraph (each). Write the word each on the board under beat.
Have students look on page 7 for an example of an ee vowel digraph word (asleep). Write the word asleep on the board under teeth.

Grammar and Mechanics: Plural nouns

Review or explain to students that words that refer to a person, place, or thing are called nouns. Write the word cat on the board. Ask students to identify whether the word names a person, place, or thing.
Ask students what they would add to the word to show that there is more than one cat (add the letter s). Write the word cats on the board. Explain to students that when the word tells about more than one person, place, or thing, we use a plural noun.
Have students turn to page 3 and read the second sentence. Ask them to identify the plural noun in the sentence (houses).
Have students search for other examples of plural nouns in the book and write them on a chart. Discuss the singular form of each word.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the plural nouns worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Word Work: Synonyms

Write the word large on the board. Invite students to share words that have a similar meaning (big, gigantic, and so on). Review or explain to them that synonyms are words that have similar meanings.
Have students turn to page 8 and locate the word little. Have them suggest synonyms for the word (small, tiny, and so on).
Have students turn to page 7 and locate the word tired. Have them suggest synonyms for the word (sleepy, exhausted, and so on).

Build Fluency

Independent Reading

Allow students to read their book independently. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book.

Home Connection

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

Extend the Reading

Writing Connection
Share with students other popular folktales, such as Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears. After reading and discussing the various tales, have students write their own tales about how something came to be or why something is as it is.

Social Studies Connection
Have students research Native Americans. Divide students into groups. Have each group locate information one topic, such as clothing, food, tools, homes, and activities. Have each group present their findings in a diorama.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

use the reading strategy of making, revising, and confirming to understand and remember a fictional story
sequence story events on a story map
correctly manipulate medial sounds during discussion
accurately read long /e/ vowel digraph words during discussion
correctly identify and write plural nouns during discussion and on a worksheet
accurately identify synonyms for words during discussion

Comprehension Checks

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