Reading Level:
I

Word Count:
342

Pages:
14

Text Summary
Life at the Pond is a look at the many different plants and animals that live in and around a pond. It gives an overview of this specialized ecosystem and focuses on how insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals move, eat, raise their young, and build homes. Children will enjoy learning about this small world where so many things are happening. Photos support the text.

Reader Supports

• Simple sentence structure

Reader Challenges

• Limited picture support of text
• Fact based text
• Onomatopoeias throughout the text (e.g., snap, smack, croak)

Lesson Objectives

Reading Strategies
Children should use a variety of strategies to decode words and bring meaning to print. The target strategy for this lesson is: Segmenting the sounds in the word and sounding them out.

Have children use their fingers or two pieces of paper (1"x 4"tag board strips work well) to cover up portions of words to isolate segments for sounding out.

Word and Print Skills

Phonological Awareness
/s/ blends; /sm/, /sw/, /sk/, /st/, /spl/, /spr/, and /sn/

Phonics
Consonant blends sm, sw, sk, st, spl, spr, and sn.

Word Work

High Utility Words
live, they, what, here

Comprehension
You will likely address a number of comprehension skills as children work to understand the text. The target comprehension strategy for this lesson is: Making a connection between what they are reading with what they already know and recalling details.

Before children read the text have them brainstorm things that live in a pond. While children are reading, you might ask if that was something they expected to find (e.g., a frog, a whirligig beetle, a beaver). After reading the text, brainstorm a second list of what they now know about a pond and compare it to the first list.

Visual Learning
Encourage children to use the pictures to prepare them for reading the text. You may ask them to describe what they see in the picture and then predict what words they will find in the text.

Targeted Vocabulary Words

High Utility Words
live, they, what, here

Content Words
Reptiles, insects, blue heron, water strider, springtail, whirligig beetle, lily pad, tadpole, bullfrog, beaver, turtle,

These content words are associated with animal and plant names. These are words that children will encounter in the text. You may want to review and discuss what the words are and have children add them to the classroom word wall or dictionary.

Before Reading

Introducing the Book
Show children the book and have children read the title and scan the illustrations to make initial predictions about the setting and the plot.

Ask and say: What do you see on the covers? What do you think this story is about? Do you recognize the animals in the illustrations? What do the illustrations tell you about the setting? Can you tell where and when this story might be happening? Share with the group anything else that you can infer from the illustrations.

Build Background
You will want to provide suggestions for eliciting prior knowledge and building background. Provide questions that get to what the child already knows about the topic or situation. Have they had any experience with ponds?

Ask: What is a pond? Where do you find ponds? Have you ever visited a pond yourself? What kinds of things do you see at a pond?

You may have children brainstorm a list of things they have seen or found at a pond. This may also naturally bring up some of the content words children will encounter in the text.

Book Walk
While doing your book walk, go through as much of the book as you feel necessary, pointing out things you feel will challenge children as they are reading. Look at the pictures with children and discuss what animals and plants they see. You may want to write the animals and plants children list on the board or a piece of paper. This step is to help reduce anxiety that some children feel when they are faced with a book that has unfamiliar text.

Pages 3 and 4

Say and ask: This is a book about life in and around a pond. How can we describe the pond in this picture? Does it look like a pond you know?

Pages 5

Say and ask: Let's look at what is happening in this illustration. What are these animals and what are they doing? The ducklings are swimming.

Page 6

Say and ask: This is an interesting photograph of a bird. What kind of bird do you think it is? What is it doing?

Pages 7

Say and ask: This is a very interesting view of the pond. What do you see? How are these animals moving?

Page 8

Say and ask: How do you think these plants grow?

Pages 9

Say and ask: What animals are in this illustration? What do you know about how frogs grow?

Page 10

Say and ask:

What do you think you would hear if you were standing near the pond?

Pages 11

Say and ask: That is an interesting structure. What do you think it is? A beaver dam. How do you think it got there?

Page 12

What do you think the turtles are doing?

Pages 13 and 14

Say and ask: There are many things happening underwater in the pond. What animals live here?

Reading Strategies
Remind children to use any or all of the following strategies to help them in their reading.

• Segmenting the sounds in the word and sounding them out. Model using your fingers or strips of paper to isolate segments to sound out.
• Predicting words based on the illustration, then using the initial letter sound(s) to confirm your prediction.
• Reread any sentence or page that you had difficulty on, to make sure that you understood the text.

Ask children about the strategies they think they will use if they get to a difficult word. You may want to act as a role model to show them how it might look or sound as they are reading. Pretend to read, getting stuck on a word, model a strategy to help yourself decode the word or phrase.

During Reading

Model Reading
Read the story aloud to children in order to model the proper intonation and fluency. Pause periodically to discuss and reflect on what has been read, and to check for understanding by asking probing questions that show children's comprehension. Pause on words that children can predict from the picture and then confirm by the segmenting sounds in the word. As the story continues, you may have children participate in the reading.

Think Aloud
As you are reading, talk about your experiences with a pond. For example, say: There is a pond near my house. In the evenings I can hear the frogs croaking. I have never seen the roots of a lily pad. I've only seen the part that is on top of the water, etc.

Student Reading
Hand out the books to children and ask them to read quietly or aloud at their own pace. Review the steps for reading, modeling pointing to each word and using reading strategies as needed to complete the book. If some finish before others they can read the story again with a partner or go back through the book and make a list of difficult, important words, or words with a specific sound etc.

Using the Worksheet
Introduce and explain the worksheet. Have children start work on the worksheet as they finish reading the text.

After Reading

Comprehending the Text
Draw the group together again and discuss what they have learned about life in a pond.

Say and ask: Let's talk about what we know about a pond after reading this book. Who would like to share something they learned? Record responses on the board or piece of paper; compare with the brainstormed list from Building Background. How did the author and illustrator show you things you may not normally see at a pond? Will you look at a pond the same way the next time you see one?

Building Skills

Phonological Awareness
Play the spin the s game. Explain to children that the sound /s/ is often blended with other sounds e.g., /sm/ in small, /sw/ swim, /sk/ skate, /st/ stem, /spl/ splash, /sp/ spring, and /sn/ snap. Using a spinner, a pencil or marker works well, point to a child then ask them to think of a word that has a /sm/, /sw/, /sk/, /st/, /spr/, /spl/ or /sn/ sound. Alternately they can go back through the book and use the pictures to name things or actions with /s/ blends.

Phonics
Explain that the /s/ blends are made with an s and one or two consonants. Ask children to recall some of the s blends they just made during the game. Record them on the board e.g., sm, sw, sk, st, spl, spr, and sn. Brainstorm words for each blend and list under the s blend. Go back to the book and find all the s blends from the story. Children may want to record some of these words in a personal or class dictionary.

Word WorkHigh Utility Words
live, they, what, here
Talk about differences between the words children could read fluently (without sounding out) or knew by sight, and the words they had to decode by segmenting and sounding out. Lead them toward realization that most of the words are easy to read fluently if they had them memorized to sight e.g., at, in, is, and, to, etc. Others are a little more difficult to memorize but must be because they cannot be sounded out e.g., live, they, what, and here. Have children share some strategies they use to remember these words. (Share the fact that in English no words end in v, therefore /liv/ is spelled l-i-v-e.)

Adjectives
The text has many adjectives to describe the animals and plants at the pond. Go back through the book and find all the words that describe the size, shape, type or color of the animal or plant e.g., small world, tiny plants, flying insect, etc. Children can think of other adjectives to describe animals or plants in the book or other animals they think may live at a pond.

Expand the Reading

Writing Connection
Guided Group Writing
Say: You seem to know a lot about ponds. Let's write our own book about animals and plants that live in and around a pond. I want each of you to think about what you know about a pond for a minute. Write one or two sentences describing an animal or plant. Ask children to share their sentences with the group. Write some of the key content or difficult words that they will use in their sentence on the board for reference. Have each child write one or two sentences about an animal or plant that lives in or around a pond and illustrate it. Put the pages together to form a class book about ponds.

Science Connection
Have children use the library or the Internet to further research the habitat of one of the animals or plants in the book. As a group or individually share the information on a web diagram graphic organizer.

The class could also raise tadpoles, charting their growth and development.

Reading Independently
Invite children to reread the book, Life at the Pond, independently or with a partner. They could then look for and read other books about ponds, or pond animal and plants.

Home Connection
Invite children to take the book home to read with their family. Worksheet 2 could be done as a home activity.

Assessment

• Monitor children's responses in the Comprehending the Text section to assess how well they understand the text or story.
• Monitor reading to see if children are using the effective reading strategies.
• Assess children's knowledge of decoding by segmenting the sounds in the word and sounding them out with a focus on consonant s blends.