Ask: What do you see on the covers? What does this tell you about the book's contents? What do you think the book will be about? There should be a lot of prediction going on at this stage.

Building Background
Ocean Animals is a great book to use if you are doing a unit of study on the ocean. You may want to ask questions to elicit prior knowledge and build background to help children get an idea of what they are going to read and help you to see how much they know about this topic. Depending on where you live, you will get a different level of knowledge.

Ask: Have they had any experience with the ocean or animals that live in the ocean? What do they know about the animals that live in the ocean? What makes these animals special or unique? Have them think about the different animals using their senses. Ask: What do the animals look, smell, and feel like?

Book Walk
You might consider doing a book walk with children before they begin reading the book. You don't need to go through each page, but you may want to point out any words you think they may have difficulty with. You might want to show them what the text looks like to help them feel more comfortable with the amount on each page, etc.

Reading Strategies
Discuss any reading strategies children can use to help them read. Maybe you have a list of reading strategies they have used in the past. You may want to review these strategies or brainstorm ways children can help themselves as they are reading. Stress that children make sure the sentences make sense and they use context clues to help them. You should ask questions such as:

• How will the pictures help you read the words?
• What can you do when you come to a word you cannot read?
• What can you do if you don't understand a part you have just read?