Build Background

• Make connections to other stories that students may have read about making wishes (The Magic Fish, The Mystery Wind). Ask students how they feel about making wishes. Ask if anyone has ever made a wish that came true.
• Ask students to close their eyes and visualize, or picture, a very wealthy king's palace. Ask them to share what they see.

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 and offer ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about.
• Invite students to preview the rest of the book by looking at the illustrations and chapter titles.

Introduce the Strategy: Visualize

• Tell students that one strategy readers use to understand what they are reading is to make pictures in their minds as they read. Visualizing, or making mental pictures, helps them remember what they are reading.
• Model how to visualize.
• Think-aloud: Whenever I read a story, I always pause after several pages to picture in my mind what the author is describing. This helps me keep track of everything, and it also helps me make sure I understand what is happening. I am going to try to visualize what is happening in this story as I read.
• 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

• Remind students of the strategies they can use to work out words they don't know. For example, they can use what they know about letter and sound correspondence to figure out the word. They can look for base words, prefixes, and suffixes. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Direct students to page 5. Have them find the word enlist. Model how they can use context clues to figure out the meaning of the unfamiliar word. Explain that the sentences before the word include information about the king's daughter wishing for something impossible. The sentence containing the unfamiliar word says that the king set off to visit a wizard to enlist his help. The sentences after the one containing the unfamiliar word say that the king asked the wizard to grant one wish. Tell students that these clues make you think that the word enlist means to gain the help of. Have students follow along as you reread the sentence on the page to confirm the meaning of the word.
• Remind students that they should check whether a word makes sense by rereading the unfamiliar word in the sentence.
• For additional tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• As students read the book, have them stop and visualize what they're reading to help them remember and understand the story.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 9. Ask if they stopped to visualize, or picture in their minds, any of the images the author described in the book.
• Think-aloud: When I read about the king turning everything to gold, I paused to picture in my mind how that would look. I envisioned the glittering path of golden rocks at his feet and the flowers and trees he touched glistening with gold.
• Have students share pictures they visualized while reading.

    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. Ask how using the strategy of visualization helped them understand and remember what they read.
• Think-aloud: When I read about the king trying to eat, I paused for a moment to visualize. I pictured in my mind the silver fork and goblet turning to gold when he touched them and the food turning to solid gold as it touched his lips. This helped me to understand what I had read, and it helped me remember that part of the story.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Problem and solution

• Discussion: Review with students what the king's problem was. (Everything he touched turned to gold, including food and people.) Ask students how the story ended. (The wizard removed the power, and the king became poor.)
• Introduce and model the skill: Explain that writers have reasons for what they write. Write the following words on the board: problem and solution. Tell students that in this story, the writer poses a problem for the king. The rest of the story shows the events that lead to solving the problem. Review or explain that a problem is something that is difficult to deal with or hard to understand, and that must be worked out or solved (such as not being able to touch food or people without turning them to solid gold). A solution is an act or a process of solving the problem (such as asking the wizard to remove the power).
• Explain to students that after the problem is revealed in the story, a series of events usually takes place before the solution occurs. These events all lead up to the solution of the story. Point out that in this story, readers might first think that the problem is that the princess's bird couldn't lay a golden egg. The true problem is revealed as the plot continues.
• Check for understanding: Have students identify the sentences in the book that show the problem. (What have I done? Whatever shall I drink or eat? Penelope froze in her loving embrace, stiff as a statue…) Then have them find the words that describe the final solution to the problem. (The wizard removed the power that had become the king's curse. He learned that there was much more to life than glitter and gold.)
• Independent practice: Have students complete the problem and solution worksheet. Discuss their responses aloud once students have finished.
• Extend the discussion: When the wizard warned the king that he would regret his wish, he said, "It is more important that I keep my daughter happy." Ask students if they would have had the same response. Ask them if they would have made the same wish the king made.

Grammar and Mechanics: Possessives

• Review or explain that a possessive is formed by adding an 's to the end of a word to show ownership, or possession.
• Direct students to page 10. Ask them to find the possessive word (father's). Explain that the 's added to father indicates that the neck belongs to her father.
• Review or explain that not all words with an 's are possessives. Some words are contractions in which the 's takes the place of the word is (as in he's worried, short for he is worried).
• Explain that when making a word that already ends in an s possessive, 's is added to the end of the word when the s is pronounced (as in King Midas's clothes). If the s is not pronounced, a single apostrophe is added (as in Lincolns' mother).

    Check for understanding: Have students turn to page 15 and ask them to circle the two words that are possessive (King's and Midas'). Have them underline the words that the king and Midas have ownership of (curse and clothes).

• Independent practice: Have students complete the possessives worksheet. When they have finished, discuss their answers aloud.

Word Work: Content vocabulary

• Tell students that many of the difficult words in the book are found and defined in the glossary. Provide opportunities for students to talk about difficult words such as dithered and pheasant.
• Check for understanding: Provide opportunities for students to say the new vocabulary words in the book and to use the words in sentences.
• Independent practice: Give students the vocabulary worksheet. Each worksheet provides the opportunity for students to work with two vocabulary words. Supply multiple copies for students to continue working on more words if time permits.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently of with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section in the book.

Home Connection

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

Writing Connection

• Have students write about a wish they would make if they met the wish-granting wizard. Explain that they must make a wish that will solve a problem. Have students explain the problem and how the wish would solve it.

Art Connection

• Use the illustrations in the book as examples to show students the many ways that illustrators show a character's emotions. Have students draw a picture of themselves meeting the wizard in the book. Have them draw the picture showing how they would feel--happy, scared, excited, etc.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the reading strategy of visualizing to better comprehend the text
• analyze the problem and solution in the story to complete a worksheet
• recognize and use possessives to successfully complete a worksheet
• understand and use content vocabulary words