Build Background

• Show the students a web chart with the word “Cowboy” written in the center. Ask students to share what they know about what cowboys wear, do, and say. Record their responses on the web chart.
• Extend the discussion by inviting students to talk about a time they pretended to be a cowboy or cowgirl. Invite them to share what they wore, said and did.

Book Walk

• Show students the front cover of the book and read the title. Ask them to tell what they see in the illustrations. Explain that the character on the cover is Lurk and that Lurk is the main character in the monster story. Ask students to look closely at the cover illustration and think about the title. Have them make a prediction about what Lurk might do in the story.

Introduce the Strategy: Connecting to prior knowledge

• Tell students that good readers use what they already know about a subject to help them understand what they’re reading.
• Think-aloud: When I read a book, I think about experiences I have had that are similar to the experiences of the characters in the story. For example, when I look at the pictures on the cover, I see that the character Lurk is wearing a cowboy outfit. I remember when I was a child I had a cowboy outfit almost exactly like the one Lurk is wearing. I also had a stick horse. When I wore that outfit and rode my stick horse, I felt like a real cowboy. I predict that Lurk is going to do some of the same things that I did when I pretended to be a cowboy.
• Show students the title page. Ask them to make a prediction about what Lurk might do in the story based on their past experiences.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Use the illustrations to preview the book with students. Reinforce new vocabulary by incorporating it into the discussion. For example, on page 5 say: Where is Lurk’s friend Uzzle leading him? Look carefully at the sign. Where do you think Lurk is going?
• Reinforce word-attack strategies by modeling how to read unfamiliar words. Ask students to find the word Saturday on page 4. Ask them to tell how they know that the word is Saturday. Remind students that good readers look inside big words to find little words and use what they know about sounds and letters to help them figure out new words. To illustrate, ask students to identify the little words inside Saturday (sat and day). Then have students reread the entire sentence to make sure that the word Saturday makes sense in the sentence.
• Encourage students to add the new vocabulary words to their word journals.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Tell students to read the book to find out what Lurk does in the story.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Give students their books and have them read to the end of page 10. Tell students to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• Listen to individual students read the text orally. Monitor their use of strategies.
• Model making connections to prior experiences as a way to understand story characters.
• Think-aloud: Earlier I predicted that Lurk would wear and do some of the same things I did when I was a child. My prediction was correct. Lurk wore a cowboy hat and rode a stick horse just like I did. I understand how excited Lurk must have been when he found out he was going to ride a real horse, because I know how excited I was when I got to go horseback riding for the first time. I also understand how disappointed Lurk must have been when he realized the horses at the farm were too little for him to ride because I remember times in my life when I was very disappointed that something I was looking forward to didn’t happen.
• Tell students to read the rest of the story to find out what Lurk’s friends do to cheer him up. Remind them to connect their prior knowledge to the story as they read.

    Tell students to make a small question mark in their books beside any word or words they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Ask students if there were any words they had difficulty reading and use their examples to model word-attack strategies.
• Discuss how connecting prior knowledge helped them to understand what the character did, said, and felt.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Analyze characters

• Discussion: Ask students to share a time when they were looking forward to doing something and were disappointed when it didn’t happen.
• Introduce and model the skill: Explain to students that characters are the people, animals, or imaginary creatures in a story. Explain that authors make books more interesting by helping the reader know details about the character. These details are called character traits.
• Think-aloud: Lurk is the main character in this story. By reading the book and looking at the illustrations, I learned many things about Lurk. I found out that he looked like a monster, but acted, talked, and felt much like a kid. He also liked dressing up and played pretend games and had sad, excited, and happy feelings.
• Check for understanding: On the board, demonstrate how to make a character web for Lurk. Write “Lurk” in the center circle. Draw spokes with circles at the end around the center circle. Ask students to name some of Lurk’s character traits. Write the words they list in the outside circles.
• Independent practice: Give students the character web worksheet. Ask them to copy the information from the Lurk character trait web onto the top of their worksheet. Have them create a character trait web chart for Lurk’s friends on the bottom half of the page.

    Extend the discussion: Instruct students to use the last page of their book to draw a character web that describes some of their own character traits.

Phonemic Awareness: Orally blend phonemes

• Say the word hat by segmenting the sounds: /h/ /a/ /t/. Tell students that if you blend the sounds together, you can make the word: hat.
• Provide another example by segmenting the word farm: /f/ /r/ /m/.
• Tell students that you are going to say some words by splitting them and saying them sound by sound. Tell students they need to listen carefully so that they can blend the sounds together to say the word. Use the following words, saying them one at a time by segmenting sounds: ride, need, can, cheer, and slot.

Phonics: diphthong -oy

• Write the word toy on the board. Ask students to read and spell the word. Circle the diphthong oy. Explain to students that these two letters make the /oy/ sound.
• Ask students to turn to page 3 in the book. Ask them to find and pronounce the word that has the oy ending (cowboy).
• Provide sticky notes and ask students to look in other books to locate and write words that contain the diphthong oy. Record these words on the board.
• Brainstorm other words that could be added to the list. Invite students to record these words in their word journals.

Grammar and Mechanics: Recognize nouns

• Review or explain that some words tell the names of people, places, or things. Explain that these words are called nouns.
• Direct students to page 4. Ask them to locate and read the nouns. Have them tell if the word is the name of a person, place, or thing (monsters, Lurk, farm, horse, house).
• Ask students to circle or write out each noun they find in the book.

Vocabulary: Contractions

• Point out the word let’s on page 3. Write the word on the board and write let us under it. Show students how the apostrophe replaces the u in us.
• Have students find the contraction I’m on page 8. Write it on the board. Write the words I _m. Ask student to fill in the missing letter.
• Ask students to find the two other contractions in the book (page 5, we’ll; page 8 can’t.) Write these words on the board. Ask them to tell what two letters are replaced by the apostrophe.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Partners can take turns reading parts of the book.

Home Connection

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

Writing Connection

• Ask students to think of other pretend play they like to do. Have them share what they wear when they pretend. Write the following sentence patterns on the board: _______________ wants to be a ______________. He/she wears __________ and ________. Ask each student to give you the words to put in the blanks.
• Have students break into pairs and copy the sentence pattern (above) on a piece of paper. Have them work with their partner to fill in the information. Then have them draw pictures to go with their sentences. Collect the pages and bind them into a class book titled “We pretend.”

Math Connection

• In the story Lurk rode a horse. Take a survey of students’ favorite thing to ride. Draw a picture of the categories that students select (bike, horse, boat, air plane, car, etc.) across the bottom of a graph. Give each student a sticky note on which to write his or her name. Tell the students to put their names in the column of the graph that shows the thing they like to ride.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• consistently connect prior knowledge to understand characters and events in text
• list character traits for characters in fantasy stories
• correctly say a word when given the word as segmented sounds
• locate and read words that contain the oy diphthong
• correctly find and identify the nouns in the book
• locate and read contractions 

Comprehension Checks

• Retelling Rubric (Full Access Needed)