Build Background

• Ask students if they have ever heard the phrase "let sleeping dogs lie." Allow them to offer meanings for the phrase. Tell students that a phrase that offers advice, especially one that seems to apply to one situation, but really applies to many situations, is called a proverb. Proverbs often come from stories where the advice is demonstrated (use Aesop's fables as examples). The proverb "let sleeping dogs lie" advises us not to stir up problems that aren't already troubling us.
• Ask students if they have ever read a folktale before. Ask them to retell the folktale. After several retellings, have students try to name some things that many folktales have in common.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Make, revise, and confirm predictions

• Tell students that a fun way to read and understand a story is to guess what will happen next.
• Show students the front and back covers of the book. Ask them to read the title. Ask what they think the book will be about. If necessary, remind students that they have just discussed folktale features and proverbs.
• Think aloud: Let's look at the front cover. I see a sleeping dog and a monkey hanging from a tree. The same animals are on the back cover. I wonder what the monkey has to do with the sleeping dog. Maybe it wants to be the dog's friend, or maybe it wants the dog to be its pet, or maybe it wants to tease the dog. I'll have to read the book to find out.
• Ask the students what they can tell about the dog by looking at the picture on the front cover. Ask them when the story is taking place, and how they can tell. Direct students to the back cover. Ask them what they can tell about the monkey (it is looking at the dog). Ask if the dog knows that the monkey is there (no).
• Encourage students to make predictions about what they think they will find out about the monkey and the dog in the book.
• Show students the title page. Talk about the information that is written on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).
• As students read, they should use other strategies in addition to the targeted strategy. For a review of additional reading strategies, click here.     

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Go through each page of the book with the students. Talk about the illustrations and use the vocabulary they will encounter in the text. Ask the students to talk about what they see in each picture. Provide opportunities for students to say the new vocabulary words, talk about their meanings, and use the words in sentences.
• Reinforce new vocabulary and word-attack strategies by pointing to an object in a picture. For example, ask the students to point to the picture of the elephant on page 7. Ask the students to name the picture and tell what sound they hear at the beginning of the word. Ask the students to find the word on page 7 and explain how they know that the word is elephant. Ask the students to look at the picture and decide if the word elephant makes sense. Repeat with other vocabulary words if necessary. Remind the students to look at the beginning and ending sounds and/or parts within words to help them sound out words.
• Encourage the students to add the new vocabulary words to their word journals.
• As students read, they will use a variety of word-attack strategies. For a review of additional word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Tell students to think about how they can confirm or revise the predictions they made about what they would learn about the monkey and the dog.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Give students books and direct them to read to the end of page 5. Tell students to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• Think aloud: I'm beginning to get the idea that the monkey really wants to know what the dog is. He's looked at it from the front, the back, and even upside down. I'm still not sure if the monkey wants to be the dog's friend, its owner, or its enemy. I'll have to keep reading to find out, and to find out if the monkey figures out what the dog is. I predict that he will find out what the dog is.
• Direct the students to page 3. Ask the students what they think the monkey will do next.
• Encourage the students to confirm or revise their predictions as they read the remainder of the story.

    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

• Word-attack: Ask the students what words were difficult for them. Have students look at page 9. Ask how they figured out the word scales. Ask what sound is at the beginning of the word, and what sound it ends with. Ask if the word scales fits in the sentence.
• Comprehension: Reinforce that making a guess about what they will find in a book helps them understand the story. (Making predictions creates interest in the topic and motivates the reader to keep reading.)
• Think aloud: I thought I would find out what the monkey had to do with the sleeping dog, and I did. It's okay that my guesses that the monkey wanted to be the dog's friend, or have the dog as a pet, were incorrect. I don't have to be right all of the time. Making guesses about what is in the book and then finding out if I am right or not helps me think about what I am reading.
• Continue the discussion by asking students to tell the names of the animals that tried to guess what the dog was (all on page 10). Direct the students to page 11. Ask if they think a tortoise can climb a tree (most will say no, but some tortoises do climb trees). Ask the students why the tortoise knew that the animal was a dog (it was old and knew everything there was to know). Guide students to give a retelling of the story.

Comprehension: Main idea and details

• Introduce and model: Review or explain that many stories are about one thing. Ask the students to think about the book they just read. Ask if they can tell what the book is about (the monkey wanted to know what the dog was). Reinforce that the main idea is what most of the sentences are about. Explain that the title and cover may also give hints. Ask students if they think the title and covers of this book are good hints. Ask the students what happened at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the book (the monkey found the dog, the animals tried to name it, the tortoise named it). Explain that other information in the story is detail. Direct the students to page 8. Ask the students to find the word that tells something about the okapi. Tell the students that this is a detail that adds to the story. Ask the students to describe the pangolin. Tell the students that the details about the pangolin make the story more interesting. Explain that remembering the details in a story helps them understand what the book is about.
• Check for understanding: Direct the students to page 13. Ask them to find at least 3 things the dog did when it awoke (asked who awakened it, bared its teeth, growled, and barked).
• Independent Practice: Introduce and explain how to complete the Main Idea and Details worksheet.

Phonics:

• Write the words sleep, tree, and eat on the board. Underline the vowel digraphs ee or ea in each word. Explain that these letters stand for the long /e/ sound. Segment the sounds in each word: /s/, /l/, long /e/, /p/; /t/, /r/, long /e/; and long /e/, /t/. Then blend the sounds together and ask the students to repeat the words. Tell the students that the rule for vowels that are side by side is "when two vowels go walking, the first does the talking." Explain that this means that the first letter makes its long sound while the second letter is silent.
• Give pairs of students sets of long /e/ word cards and non-long /e/ word cards. Ask the students to place the long /e/ words in one stack, and the words without long /e/ in another stack.
• Explain the Vowel Digraphs worksheet, go over the example provided, and instruct students to complete the worksheet. When completed, discuss their answers.

Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage: Quotation marks

• Direct students to the second paragraph on page 7. Ask them to tell what is different about the sentence (quotation marks). Explain that the marks before and after the monkey's words mean that these are the words that the monkey said. Tell the students that these marks mean that a character is talking. Direct the students to the next paragraph. Ask them to point to the sentence that shows that the elephant is talking. Check for understanding. Ask students to tell how they know these are the words the elephant is saying.
• Write the following sentences on the board:

"Thanks a lot," said Monkey.
Monkey wants to know what the animal is.
The pangolin fell asleep. 
The okapi said, "It's not a giraffe."
The tortoise is very old.
Tortoise said, "His name is Dog."

• As you read each sentence, ask students to give a "thumbs up" if the sentence shows that a character is talking.     
• Click here for a Quotation Marks worksheet.

Vocabulary: Synonyms

• Direct the students to page 3. Write the following sentence on the board: A dog was found sleeping in the middle of a dark forest. Circle the word dark. Explain that this word describes the forest. Ask the students to think of another word that means the same thing as the word dark (black, dim, shadowy etc.). If the students need help, prompt by telling them to close their eyes and form a picture in their minds of a dark forest.
• Tell students that there are many words that mean the same things. Explain that instead of using the same word all of the time, they can choose another word. Write the following sentence on the board: The dog was happy. Repeat the above process. (Synonyms for happy: glad, cheerful, joyful, content)
• Click here for a Synonyms worksheet.

Independent Reading

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

Home Connection

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

Writing

• Ask the students if they think The Sleeping Dog is the best title for the book. Ask why or why not. Discuss the 2 main characters. Ask why they think the monkey wasn't mentioned in the title. Ask the students to write 2 other titles for the book. Ask the students to share their titles with the group. Decide, as a group, which title is best.

Science Connection

• Tell the students that although they know that the story took place long ago in a dark forest, they don't know the exact place. Explain to the students that some of the animals in the story might live in different places. But there is only one place where all of the animals live. Tell the students to write each animal's name in a column on a sheet of paper. Provide resources for the students to research where the different animals in the story live. Once they have found the place or places each animal lives, ask them to find the one place that is common to all of the animals. Show the children the continent (Africa) on a map.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• make, revise, and confirm predictions about the text.
• understand the main idea and details.
• recognize vowel digraphs ee and ea.
• understand that quotation marks identify a speaker's words.
• identify synonyms.