Reading Level:
Q

Word Count:
1355

Pages:
22

Text Summary
Chinzaemon the Silent is a Japanese folktale. Chinzaemon is the best armorer in the kingdom, and his swords make no sound when drawn. He goes to court to serve a good prince and plays jokes that seem quite silly but are in fact very wise. Beautiful, historically accurate illustrations accompany the text.

Lesson Objectives

Reading Strategies
Children should use a variety of strategies to determine word meaning and comprehend text. The targeted strategy for this lesson is: Going back and rereading

Children are likely to use various strategies to help them decode words in this story. Encourage them to go back and reread to make sure the sentence makes sense, to look for words within words, and to use the pictures in the book to help them with difficult words.

Once children are able to see the idea of the story, they may be able to predict and/or visualize the outcome of some of the situations Chinzaemon finds himself in throughout the story.

Word and Print Skills

Phonics
Vowel Digraphs

Word Work
Mechanics - Punctuation
Synonyms

Comprehension

You will likely address a number of comprehension skills as children work to understand the text. The targeted comprehension strategy for this lesson is: Problem/solution and cause/effect

• Use the different events in the story to show the life that Chinzaemon lived and how his life changed to talk with children about cause and effect. Also use events to show how Chinzaemon took an active roll in making his life change. You can also talk about the other characters in the story and how Chinzaemon affected them.

Visual Learning
Children will notice details in the illustrations to reinforce vocabulary and help them understand the text.

Targeted Vocabulary Words

Content words
The following words are words children may find difficult while reading: Chinzaemon, armorer, ministers, courtiers, scabbards, apprentice, fidgeted

You may want to review the story and see if there are any other words you would like to add to this list. You should review these words prior to reading and go over the meanings. This will help children when they beginning reading independently. You may wish to have them add words to the list.

Before Reading

Introducing the Book
Introduce the book by showing children the front and back cover, and title page.

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
To help children get an idea of the people in this story, you might build background that relates to familiar things like castles, soldiers, and the renaissance time. This gets them in the right frame of mind for the subject at hand. You can write the words they come up with on a piece of paper or on the board to be referred to later. For example, you may want to focus on soldiers, and the armor they wear and what it is called, etc.

Book Walk
Before passing out the book, remind children to look at the pictures to help them if they get stuck on a word. You may want to go through pages that have difficult words and have children brainstorm words they think might describe what the characters are doing.

Reading Strategies
As children are reading the story, ask them questions to help them remember different strategies they know or have learned. Suggest questions such as:

• How will the pictures help you understand the text?
• How does what you read connect to what you already know?
• What can you do when you come to a word you do not understand?
• What can you do if you don't understand a part you have just read?

During Reading

Student Reading
Hand out the books to children and have them read quietly or aloud at their own pace. They should point to each word as they are reading. Remind them to break the words down, sound them out, and look at the pictures to help them.

You may consider breaking the book up into sections. You can have questions that children need to answer according to where you have them stop in the reading. This is something you can do over several days.

You may want to have children use post-it notes to help identify synonyms as they are reading. You can also have them circle or identify various punctuation marks as they go through the text. This is a good time to reinforce the skills focus on in the Word Work section of the lesson plan.

After Reading

Comprehending the Text
Using the follow-up Comprehension worksheet, you can see how much of the story children understood. You can also ask some or all of the following questions to check their understanding of the story:

What did Chinzaemon do for a living?

How did Chinzaemon get the job working for the prince?

What was the trick Chinzaemon played on the guards?

What was the wish Chinzaemon asked the prince for?

What did the ministers and courtiers think Chinzaemon was doing each time he sniffed the prince's ear?

How did Chinzaemon become rich?

This section can be used to explore and discuss other print issues such as punctuation, vocabulary, figurative language, and other things children encounter as they read. You may want to ask questions that get at retelling, author purpose, theme, author's message, etc.

Visual Learning
Have children look at the pictures and see if they can tell what is happening without the words. Have them go through the book, retelling the story only using the pictures. Ask children to look at the specific illustrations and explain what the characters are thinking or doing. Ask how they would have done the illustrations if they were the illustrator of the book.

Building Skills

Phonics
Vowel Digraphs
Chinzaemon the Silent provides many opportunities to introduce or review the idea of vowel digraphs with children. Choose one of the words in the story to explain that, when a word has two vowels next to each other that make one sound, it is called a digraph.

Some examples of vowel digraphs from the story are: Chinzaemon, court, famous, guards, would, etc.

Show children a few of the vowel digraphs from the story, then see if they can find more. Brainstorm to find even more. You can create a class list and use the words for spelling or you can put a list up and children can add to it as more related words come up in class.

Word Work
Mechanics - Punctuation
This story provides a wonderful opportunity to discuss many different types of punctuation in our language. In this story, there are: periods, commas, quotation marks, question marks, apostrophes, and exclamation points. See how many different punctuation marks children can identify. Also, have them explain how and when to use the different types.

Synonyms
Choose a section from the story that has many describing words or adjectives. Have children come up with other words the author could have used in the sentence to describe what was happening in the story. Point out that the words they come up with are called synonyms.

Have children come up with synonyms for the italicized words in this section of the story:

"And so it happened. Before anyone dared speak to the prince, he or she would see Chinzaemon first and give him an amazing gift. Soon, the simple armorer was a very rich man. He had piles of money, beautiful gold jewelry, jade statues, and other fine treasures. He had so many things that he didn't know what to do with all of them. In truth, he was now as rich as the prince, but he still lived as he always had."

Expand the Reading

Writing Connection
See the comprehension worksheet.

Art Connection
Have children create/draw a sword or set of armor that Chinzaemon may have made.

Reading Independently
Have children read the book independently or with a partner. You can also encourage them to read other books of their choice at the appropriate level.

Home Connection
Send the book home to be read to or with parents and siblings. You can also have them take their paragraph with them to read at home.

Assessment

• Monitor children's responses in the Comprehending the Text section to assess how well they understand the text or story.
• Monitor reading to see if children are using the effective reading strategies.
• Assess children's knowledge of punctuation marks and synonyms.