Build Background

• Provide 5 to 10 minutes for students to do free writing about their favorite holiday that falls between November and March. You might suggest words from the text that will stimulate ideas, such as tradition, family, friends, celebrate, decorate, and festival. Suggest that students include as many words in their writing as they can. In order to help students make personal connections to the text, allow them to record ideas through any associations that come to them. Allow them to write in whatever format they wish, and allow them to keep their writing private.
• When writing time is over, ask students to offer any ideas they wish to share with the group.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Make personal connections to the text

• Give students a copy of the book and have them preview the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers and offer ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about. Model how to make connections to the cover illustration: This picture of the family on the cover reminds me of my family when we get together to celebrate. We light candles and have lots of food, too.
• Have students turn to the table of contents. Remind students that the table of contents gives them an overview of what the book is about. Each chapter head provides an idea of what they will read in the book. Model making connections to the book using the table of contents. Then ask students to share any thoughts they have about the book. Ask if it reminds them of any personal experiences.
• Think aloud: I see that one of the holidays is Chinese New Year. This reminds me of the lion dance I went to last year in Chinatown. I remember thinking that the lion must be very heavy for someone to have to carry for so long.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos, captions, and sidebar text. Encourage them to make personal connections as they look at the photos.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Remind students of the strategies they can use to work out words they don’t know. They can use what they know about letter and sound correspondences; look for base words, prefixes, and suffixes; and use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Point out a word in bold, such as the word traditions on page 5. Have students follow along as you read the sentence in which it is found. Model how they can use the context to figure out the meaning of this word. Point out that the second sentence provides a definition of the word. Read the second sentence and ask students what the word traditions means.
• Remind students that they should check if words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• For additional teaching tips on reading and word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find out how the different holidays are like holidays they have personally experienced.
• Remind them to draw on personal knowledge and experience to help them appreciate the holidays being described in the book.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 7 and then stop and wait for others to finish.
• When all students have finished reading, ask them what they have learned so far about holidays in general. Ask what they have learned about Ramadan. Ask them if they have any personal knowledge about or experience with this holiday.
• Ask if Ramadan is similar in any way to the holiday they wrote about in the pre-reading exercise. Ask how they think it is different.
• Tell students to read the rest of the book to find out more about Ramadan and other holidays. They should keep in mind how the holidays are similar to the holidays they wrote about or any other holidays with which they are familiar.

    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 Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using word-attack strategies and context clues.
• Have students share how they were able to make personal connections to the text as they read. How were the holidays in the book like the holiday they wrote about? What experiences did they recognize?

Comprehension: Compare and contrast

• Introduce and model: Explain that good readers compare and contrast ideas and details as they read. They compare how things in the book are alike and different. They also compare how something they read is like or not like something they have experienced themselves. This helps the reader be active and involved with the text. Drawing on personal knowledge and comparing it to the new knowledge leads to better understanding.
• Check for understanding: If you feel that students do not understand the process involved in making comparisons, provide real-life objects, such as an apple and an orange, and ask students to say how the fruits are alike and different. Explain that the same process can be applied to elements in the text.
• Discussion: Ask students for some general things that are similar for all of the holidays. (Possible responses: they bring family and friends together, they offer a time for reflection, they involve special traditions.) Then ask for differences, such as how Ramadan is different from Chinese New Year. Have students refer to the text as needed to find differences.
• Independent practice: Give students the Compare and Contrast worksheet. Explain that they are to write in the special details of each holiday in the appropriate space in the chart. When they have finished, have students use the chart to make oral statements about how the holidays are similar and different.
• Extend the discussion:

    Instruct students to use the last page of their book to write 4 facts they learned from reading the book.

Grammar and Mechanics: Complete and Simple Subjects

• Remind students that the subject is who or what the sentence is about or who or what performs the action in the sentence. The simple subject is the noun that names who or what. The complete subject is the entire group of words that makes up the subject, including the noun and any adjectives, adverbs, articles, or other words that modify it.
• Have students turn to page 4 and identify the subjects of the sentences. Have students circle the nouns and underline the words that modify them. How do the modifiers describe the nouns?
• Have students practice identifying subjects on the Sentence Subjects worksheet.

Vocabulary: Suffixes -ion and -tion

• Write the word celebration on the board. Ask students what the base word of celebration is. When they say celebrate, write it on the board.
• Tell students that celebrate is a verb, and use it in an oral sentence: People like to celebrate with their families. Explain that the verb celebrate tells what people do.
• Explain that when we add the suffix -ion to the word celebrate, we create a noun. To add the suffix, we need to drop the e and add -ion.
• Explain that sometimes we need to add other letters in addition to -ion when we add the suffix. Write the following words on the board and have students discuss what letters have been added or dropped to create the new words: add/addition; adopt/adoption; consult/consultation; reserve/reservation.
• Give students the Suffixes worksheet.

Vocabulary: Content words

• Have students work in pairs to find words in the book that are specifically related to the concept of holidays, including the names of the holidays. Have students share the words they found and discuss the word meanings. Give students the Content Words worksheet, and have them read the clues and fill in the correct words.

Independent Reading

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

Home Connection

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

Writing

• Have students write a personal recount of a holiday event in which they have participated. Remind them that such a recount is written in first person and uses past tense verbs. They should include words that indicate the passage of time to the reader, such as when, after that, next, before, and the next day.

Social Studies Connection

• Students can research one of the holidays in more depth. Alternatively, you might have them find and research other holidays that occur during the months of November to March, or during other times of the year.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• identify the details about each holiday and tell how the holidays are similar and different.
• recognize complete subjects and simple subjects.
• make new words by correctly adding the suffixes -ion and -tion.
• read and understand content words.