Build Background

• Ask students to tell what they know about bar graphs and mathematical predictions. If applicable, make connections to math lessons where these skills have been taught. Ask students where they have seen bar graphs used in the past. Ask what kind of information can be displayed in them.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students a copy of the book and have them preview the front and back covers and read the title. Have them discuss what they see on the covers, offering ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about. Ask: What do you see on the covers? What do the pictures tell you about the book’s contents? What do you think the book will be about? Encourage any and all predictions.
• After introducing the book and building background, invite students to continue previewing the book. Point out the illustrations, graphs, and bold vocabulary words in the text. Explain that these words are bolded because they are all terms that are defined in the glossary at the back of the book.
• Direct students to the glossary and review the information it gives the reader (a list of difficult words and their meanings, along with the page numbers where the words can be found in the text). 

Introduce the Strategy: Self-monitoring

• Tell students that good readers check to see if they understand what they’re reading by asking themselves questions as they read. Review or explain that any time a word or section of the book becomes difficult, readers should slow down, look at the illustrations, and continue on to the end of the sentence. They should then go back and reread the sentence, making sure they understand what they have read.
• Model self-monitoring by asking, Does this make sense?
• Think-aloud: When I’m unsure about something I’m reading, I pause to reread the sentence, or sentences, and think about whether or not they make sense to me. Since I know good readers do this, I’m going to do it in this book if I come across words or points that don’t make sense to me and see if I can figure out what they mean.
• 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

• Review decoding the content words (listed at the start of the lesson) with students to increase their chance of a successful reading experience.
• Remind students of the strategies they can use to work out words they don't know. Review any strategies that have learned in the past. Ask: What can you do when you come to a word you do not understand?
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Remind students to use what they know about word parts and think about how a word is used in a sentence to work out the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Also remind students that they can use context clues in text to help figure out what a word means.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students monitor their understanding of the book by stopping periodically to reread and ask themselves, Does this make sense?

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 9. Remind them that saying the words aloud, even at a whisper, will help them listen to the words and ensure that they make sense. If students finish before everyone else, they can go back and reread.
• When they have finished reading, direct students to page 9. Model self-monitoring.
• Think-aloud: The first time I read this page it didn’t make sense to me, so I read it again. The second time I read it, I noticed the word chart. Then I looked at the illustration, and I noticed that the book has a chart with columns. By rereading and looking at the picture, I realized that Nora was reading the chart with columns of information from the book. Then I was confident I had read it correctly.
• Ask how self-monitoring by rereading and looking at the illustration can help students to correctly decode the words and make more sense of what they’re reading. Ask students to share examples of how they’ve monitored their reading so far.

    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.
• Have students share any other questions they had while they were reading. Discuss how self-monitoring helped them stay actively involved in the reading process and helped them better understand and remember what they read.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence Events

• Discussion: Talk with students about the specific sequence of events the characters used to find their best guesses. Say: This book shows how Harlan and Nora solve a mathematical problem by following a sequence of steps.

    Introduce and model the skill: Review or explain that common sequencing words, such as first, next, then, after that, now, and finally, are used to show the order in which events occur. Ask students to turn to page 11. Read through this page together, having students circle the time order, or sequencing word, they see used in the text (Then). Repeat on page 12, having students circle the time order word they see used (Now).

• Explain how Harlan and Nora needed to do things in a specific order to fully understand the data they researched. (Understanding the data helped them make the best guess needed to win the contest.)

    Check for understanding: Have students work in pairs to identify the sequence of steps involved in solving the problem. Instruct them to mark in their books where each new step is explained. Discuss the specific order in which these events occurred (researched data, recorded the data with tally marks, made a bar graph, analyzed their results, made their guesses).

• Independent practice: Have students practice identifying the sequence of events by completing the sequencing worksheet. Discuss answers aloud when students have finished.
• Extend the discussion: Ask students what they thought of the book. Ask if they would be interested in winning free snow cones for a year. Ask if they think all the work Harlan and Nora did was worth the prize.

Grammar and Mechanics: Quotation marks

• Write the following on the board: “That’s a great idea!” said Harlan. Ask students if they can tell what words are being spoken. Explain that quotation marks are the punctuation marks around dialogue in the text. Discuss the difference between what is being said aloud by the character (That’s a great idea) and what is not (said Harlan).
• Direct students to page 6 in the book. Read the page aloud as students follow along. Ask students to raise their hands in the air while dialogue is being read aloud (When would you like our guesses, etc.),\ and to lower their hands when a character is not speaking (Nora asked Mr. Mack, said Mr. Mack, etc.).
• Discuss the different words used in the text to depict dialogue. Remind students that these words come directly before or after the quotation marks to show that the character is speaking. Ask students to find the words used in the text. Write them on the board as students find them:

said
shouted
replied
asked
complained    

Ask students to tell which of the above shows that the words should be read loudly (shouted) and which should be read in a normal voice (replied). Ask them to think of other words that depict dialogue that they might see in other books (screamed, shared, added, etc.). Add these words to the board.

    Check for understanding: Have students work in pairs to find where dialogue is found throughout the text. Instruct them to underline the words that depict dialogue (said, asked, etc.) and circle the quotation marks throughout.

• Independent practice: Have students complete the quotation marks worksheet. Discuss answers aloud when students have finished.
• Extend the discussion: Have student volunteers read the dialogue out loud and act out the different characters’ parts.

Word Work: Contractions

• Review or explain that a contraction is a word formed by joining two words and that an apostrophe shows where the letter or letters have been left out.

   Direct students to page 13. Ask them to find the contraction in the text and circle it (I’m). Ask which two words were joined together to make the new word (I and am) and have them write the words in the margin of their book next to the word I’m. Ask which letter was dropped in order to make the contraction (the a in am).

    Direct students to page 7. Ask them to find two contractions in the text and circle them (I’m, I’d, I’ll, we’ll, We’ve). Ask which two words were joined together to make each of the new words (I and am, I and would, I and will, we and will, we and have) and have them write them in the margin of their book next to the contractions. Ask which letters were dropped in order to make the contractions (the a in am, the wi in will, etc.).

• Point out the phrase Mr. Mack’s ice cream truck on page 3. Explain that the contraction is a possessive form of the name Mr. Mack, meaning that Mr. Mack has ownership of the ice cream truck. Possessives have an ’s at the end, to indicate ownership. Mr. Mack’s is not short for Mr. Mack is.
• Check for understanding: Have students complete the contractions worksheet. Discuss their answers aloud when they have finished.

    Extend the discussion: Have students underline all of the contractions they find in the book and count how many there are. Discuss their answers.

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

• Have students practice creating dialogue in a writing assignment, using at least two characters. Direct them to the list of words on the board depicting dialogue that was created after reading The Best Guess. Encourage them to use as many different dialogue words as they can while writing conversation among characters in their own stories.

Math Connection

• Have students create their own bar graph to measure high temperatures. Supply Internet and print resources for them to find their hometown’s first one-hundred-degree day for a number of years. Following the example in the text, have them tally their results and then create a bar graph. Have students create a poster to display their findings. (If one-hundred-degree days are uncommon in your area, substitute for the first day below freezing.)

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• consistently and successfully self-monitor their understanding of text while reading
• accurately recognize and recall events using sequencing words
• identify and understand the use of quotation marks
• recognize contractions in the text and identify the two words that are joined to make the contraction

Comprehension Checks

• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric