Text Type: Fiction/Fairy Tale
Page Count: 14
Word Count: 971

Book Summary
The Three-R Plan is a story about a once-lovely kingdom that has grown barren. The king sends out a proclamation stating that he is looking for someone to solve the problem of their decaying land. Whoever can solve the problem will be invited to live in the castle for the rest of his or her days. Ricardo, Roger, and Randy each has useful ideas and brings them to the king: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. The king accepts them all together and names it the Three-R Plan. Improvements are soon witnessed in the land, and the kingdom begins to flourish once again. Illustrations support the text.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Summarize

Objectives

• Use the reading strategy of summarizing to understand text
• Analyze the problem and solution in the story
• Identify and understand the use of quotation marks in text
• Identify synonyms

Materials

• Book -- The Three-R Plan (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Dictionaries
• Problem and solution, content vocabulary, quotation marks worksheets
• Discussion cards

      Indicates an opportunity for students to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are reused.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: abused, anticipate, barren, benefits, citizens, compost, consequently, decaying, frugal, intelligent, magistrate, natural, polluted, recycle, reduce, resources, reuse, stewards

Build Background

• Discuss ways people can help protect the environment. Write the results of the discussion on the board.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students their copy of the book. Guide them to the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers. Encourage them to offer ideas as to what type of book it is (genre, text type, fiction or nonfiction, and so on) and what it might be about.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Summarize

• Explain to students that one way to understand and remember information in a book is to write a summary, or a brief overview, of the most important information in a chapter. Point out that a summary often answers the questions who, what, when, where, and why.
• Create a chart on the board with the headings Who, What, When, Where, and Why. Read the first chapter, "Save the Kingdom," aloud to students and model summarizing.
  Think-aloud: To summarize, I need to decide which information is the most important to remember in a chapter. To do this, I can consider who and what the chapter was about, what information it contained, and when and why events happened. Then I can organize that information into a few sentences. This chapter is mostly about a king and queen discussing a major problem and trying to find a solution. I will write king and queen under the heading Who. The author explains that their kingdom was growing barren--that the land was abused and overused. The king sent out a decree calling for citizens to devise a plan to help their decaying land. I will write problem: barren land, abused and overused and solution: king's decree asks citizens to help under the heading What. The king and queen knew that if the problem went unsolved, their future would be threatened. I will write this under the heading Why. This book is talking about a problem in the present time, because it tells about the kingdom once being beautiful and clean. I will write today's problems under the heading When. When I organize all of this information, a summary of the chapter might be: A king and queen realized that their kingdom was in trouble. Once beautiful and productive, the land was now barren and decaying. They sent out a decree calling for their citizens to find a solution to the problem, which I knew because they knew that if the problem remained unresolved, their future was threatened.
• Write the summary on the board. Discuss how you used the information in the chart, along with your own words, to create the summary.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Comprehension Skill: Problem and solution

• Write the following words on the board: problem and solution. Review or explain that a problem is something that is difficult to deal with or hard to understand and must be worked out or solved (such as the kingdom's land becoming barren). A solution is an act or a process of solving the problem (such as restoring the land).
• Tell students that in fictional writing, an author usually poses a problem to one or more characters and that the rest of the story evolves around solving the problem.
• Explain to students that good readers look for problems and solutions as they read. Model finding problems and solutions.
  Think-aloud: I know that good readers read to find out more about the problems and solutions in a story. So, I'm going to look for problems and solutions in this book as I read. In this story, the kingdom has a problem. The land was abused and overused and was dying more every day. The king and queen were working toward a solution. They sent out a decree calling for citizens to find a way to revive the land.
• Introduce and explain the problem and solution worksheet. Have students fill out the first section, labeled Problem.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Write the following content vocabulary words on the board: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Read the words aloud with students. Ask them to share what they already know about the meaning of each word. Point out to students that these words are similar, but they each have a different meaning.
• Write each of the content vocabulary words on a piece of poster board. Place students in small groups and assign each group to a poster. Have them discuss what they know about the meaning of their word and write a definition on the paper. Rotate the groups until each group has visited all three posters.
• Review each word and the information about the word that students wrote on the poster. Create a definition based on students' knowledge and write it on the board. Introduce and explain the content vocabulary worksheet. Have students write their definition and draw a picture for each word on their worksheet.
• Have a volunteer read the definition for each word from the dictionary. Compare students' definitions with the dictionary definitions. Use the comparison to modify the definition for each word on the board.
• For tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find out more about the kingdom and its problem. While reading, encourage students to underline information in each chapter that answers the questions who, what, when, where, and why.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read from page 7 to the end of page 10. Encourage those who finish before others to reread the first three chapters.
• Model summarizing important information in the second chapter, "Reduce."
  Think-aloud: I made sure to stop reading after the second chapter to summarize what I'd read so far. First, I thought about the information that answered the questions who, what, when, where, and why. Then, in my mind, I organized the important information into a few sentences. In this chapter, I read about Ricardo's habits. He got by with only the things he needed and realized that he didn't need much at all. I underlined got by with only things he needed and didn't need much at all. I also read about his plan for the king. I underlined reduce your load, increase your joy, and save your environment in the book. I read that even if his plan wasn't accepted, he believed the king should know that it's possible to live with less. I will also underline possible to live with less in the book.
• Write the underlined information on the chart on the board. Have students share any additional information they underlined that answers the questions who, what, when, where, and why. Write this information on the chart. Create a summary with students based on the information on the chart. (Ricardo's way of life was about living with less yet having more. His plan to help save the king's land included an invitation to reduce his load, increase his joy, and save his environment.)
• Have students work with a partner to reread chapter three, "Reuse". Remind them to look for answers to the questions who, what, when, where, and why. When they have finished, create a summary as a class. (Roger's plan to save the king's land involved reusing things, trading services, and replacing what they took from the land. Roger couldn't afford new stuff, but his family lived happily by finding ways to reuse the things he did have. His goals for the king were not to waste anything and instead to find other ways to use things.)
• Review with students the underlined information they used to summarize the chapters on reducing and reusing. Have them use their summaries to fill in the next section of their problem and solution worksheet, Possible Solutions. Point out that there are three possible solutions and that they have identified two so far.

      Check for understanding: Have students read pages 11 and 12 about recycling. Remind them to underline information that answers the questions who, what, when, where, and why while reading. Then have students work with a partner to write a brief summary of the chapter on a separate piece of paper. Have them share and discuss their summaries as a class.

• Have students use their summaries to fill in the last possible solution on their problem and solution worksheet. Discuss their responses.

      Have students read the remainder of the book. Have them underline information in the chapter that answers the questions who, what, when, where, and why.

      Have students make a question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. Encourage them to use the strategies they have learned to read each word and figure out its meaning.

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding skills and context clues.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Divide students into small groups. Have each group discuss the information they underlined in the final chapter. Have them use the information to write a group summary of the chapter. When students have finished, share and discuss their summaries aloud.
• Think-aloud: I know that summarizing keeps me actively involved in what I'm reading and helps me remember what I've read. I know that I will remember more about reusing, reducing, and recycling because I summarized as I read the book.
• Ask students to share whether they think the three Rs work best when applied together or done separately.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Talk about the fact that after the king's decree was announced, three possible solutions were considered. Invite students to identify and discuss the three possible solutions brought before the king (reducing, reusing, and recycling).
• Discuss the solutions that were offered the king. Ask students which of the solutions they think are being practiced where they live.
• Check for understanding: Have volunteers tell the page numbers where the explanation of each solution can be found (page 7: Reduce your load, increase your joy, and save your environment—that was Ricardo's plan to help save the land; page 10: Roger's goal, out of necessity, was not to waste anything and just find other ways to use it; page 12: Randy believed that by recycling things that were already made, the citizens wouldn't need to use up the land and other resources, and the land could be saved.)
• Independent practice: Have students fill in the final portion of their problem and solution worksheet. Discuss their responses aloud once students have finished.
• Enduring understanding: In this book, you learned about a kingdom that was revived once its people learned to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Now that you know this information about the three Rs, how does it change the way you think about protecting the environment? How might your new knowledge affect your actions toward keeping our world beautiful?

Grammar and Mechanics: Quotation marks

• Have students find the first paragraph on page 3. Ask a volunteer to read it aloud. Ask students to tell who is speaking and what he is saying. Review or explain that quotation marks are placed before and after the exact words a speaker says. Point out the comma and explain that the comma is placed before the quotation marks to separate the speaker's words from the rest of the sentence.
• Have students read the second paragraph. Point out that the quotation marks are placed at the beginning of the speaker's words and again at the end. Tell students that a question mark is placed at the end of the last sentence because the group of words expresses a question instead of a statement. Ask students to tell who is speaking.

      Check for understanding: Have students read page 4 again. Have them underline the characters' words using a colored pencil. Have them use a different colored pencil to circle commas, periods, and exclamation points. Ask students to take turns reading the quotations from pages 3 and 4. Discuss the punctuation marks students underlined and circled.

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the quotation marks worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Word Work: Synonyms

• Direct students to page 3. Have them find and read the sentence in which the word beautiful is found. Ask students to identify the meaning of the word.
• Tell students that many other words mean the same thing as beautiful. Explain that instead of repeating the same word several times, authors often choose to vary the text by using synonyms, or words that mean the same thing. Ask students to think of other words for beautiful (lovely, picturesque, pleasing, pretty, scenic, and so on). Ask students if the new words make sense in the sentence.
• Check for understanding: Have students read the first sentence on page 4. Ask them to think of a synonym for the word unhappy (gloomy, miserable, sad, and so on).

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their book independently. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

• Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have them discuss with someone at home how to summarize as they read each chapter.

Fairy Tale Writing Connection
Have students write a fairy tale that explains what happens after the Three-R Plan is put into effect in the kingdom. Invite students to share their stories when finished.

Visit Writing A–Z for a lesson and leveled materials on fairy tale writing.

Science Connection
Provide print and Internet resources for students to learn more about why land becomes barren. Have them look for examples of once-fertile land that has been stripped of nutrients, and have them find out if anything is being done to help the situation. Lead a round-table discussion in which students may share their opinions and have their questions answered. Assign additional research to volunteers as necessary.

Skill Review
Discussion cards covering comprehension skills and strategies not explicitly taught with the book are provided as an extension activity. The following is a list of some ways these cards can be used with students:

• Use as discussion starters for literature circles.
• Have students choose one or more card and write a response, either as an essay or a journal entry.
• Distribute before reading the book and have students use one of the questions as a purpose for reading.
• Cut apart and use the cards as game cards with a board game.
• Conduct a class discussion as a review before the book quiz.