Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 24
Word Count: 2,449

Book Summary
Talking to Each Other is a fictional story about a young girl named Amanda, her stepfather Chris, and her mother. While Amanda and Chris are able to communicate with few words, Amanda and her mother don’t seem to communicate at all. This book provides an opportunity to discuss the importance of talking and listening to one another.

About the Lesson 

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Retelling

Objectives

• Use the reading strategy of retelling to understand and remember fictional text
• Understand and identify character’s thoughts, feelings, and actions
• Use quotation marks
• Recognize and use sensory words

Materials

• Book -- Talking to Each Other (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Character analysis, sensory words worksheets

Indicates an opportunity for student to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if you choose not to have students consume the books.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: radioactive, Cameron

Build Background

• Involve students in a discussion about how people communicate with each other. Discuss different types of communication, such as verbal and nonverbal communication (i.e., body language)

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. Ask them what the pictures tell about the characters in the story.

Introduce the Strategy: Retelling

• Model retelling as you preview the book.
• Think-aloud: Since I haven't read the story, I don't have much to retell. I do know that the title of the book is Talking to Each Other, so I think it may be about the characters on the front cover. I’ll have to read the book to find out who and what the author is referring to.
• Ask students what they think the book will be about. Write their responses on the board.
• 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 sound 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 and prefixes and suffixes. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Write the word radioactive on the board and direct students to page 13 to find the word. Model how they can use context clues to find the meaning of the unfamiliar word. Explain that by reading around the unfamiliar word, they can infer that radioactive means something dangerous.
• Remind students that if they are unable to determine a word's meaning from context clues, they can look in the glossary or a dictionary, or ask you what the word means.
• For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students think about how they’ll retell the story once they’ve read it.

Student Reading

    Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 11. Tell them to underline the words or phrases in the book that tell the names of the characters, where and when the story takes place, and any important events. If they finish before everyone else, they can go back and reread.

• Have students tell what they underlined. Use the information generated above to model retelling a story.
• Think-aloud: In the first part of the story, I learned that Amanda and her stepfather Chris seem to be able to communicate with one another using few words. Amanda does not communicate with her mother as well. During a shopping trip that Amanda isn’t interested in, she finds out that her mother isn’t happy with Chris’s inability or unwillingness to talk to her. I’ll have to keep reading to find out if their lack of communication leads to problems.
• Tell students as they read the remainder of the book to think about how they can retell 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

• 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.
• Reinforce how thinking about how to retell the story keeps them actively involved in the reading process and helps them understand and remember what they have read.
• Discuss the author's purpose for writing the story. Have students tell what they think the author wanted them to understand about how people communicate with each other.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Character analysis

• Discussion: Review or explain that some writers let their readers get to know the characters through the characters’ words, thoughts, and actions. Explain that writers often change a character’s personality as the story develops.
• Introduce and model the skill: Have students tell what they learned about Amanda from reading page 4. Use a think-aloud strategy to guide the students.
• Think-aloud: From reading this page, I learned that Amanda is comfortable with her stepfather. As he watches a game on TV, she is able to relax and look at the sky without feeling the need to fill in the quiet with extra chatter.
• Have students tell what they learned about Chris from reading the same page. (He doesn’t mind watching a ball game with Amanda.)
• Check for understanding: Have students read the fifth paragraph on page 5. Ask them to tell what this paragraph tells about Amanda and Chris (they don’t need words to communicate).
• Independent practice: Have students complete the character analysis worksheet. Discuss their answers.

Grammar and Mechanics: Quotation marks

• Review the punctuation of dialogue with students. Write the following sentence on the board: “I like having Chris around,” Amanda said. Underline the words Amanda said and review that this is called a dialogue tag. Circle the comma and review that it is always placed between the spoken sentence and the dialogue tag. Tell students that the comma is always placed inside the quotation marks. Review that a period is always placed at the end of the sentence.
• Write the following sentences on the board: “Why do I have to go shopping?” whined Amanda. and “This is so unfair!” she cried. Point out that the question mark and exclamation mark are placed inside the quotation marks because the first sentence asks a question and the second sentence expresses emotion.

   Have students use the inside cover of their book to write sentences that need quotation marks and punctuation. Have students exchange books with a partner and punctuate each other’s sentences. Monitor students’ progress, and provide additional examples if needed.

Word Work: Sensory words

• Review or explain that writers often use sensory words, or words that appeal to the five senses, to help readers see, touch, taste, smell, or hear the words in their stories. Read the following sentences to students, and ask which sentence helps them “see” the words. The bug crawled on a blade of grass. and The tiny red bug crawled on a blade of dew-kissed grass.
• Have students find the first paragraph on page 5. Ask them to find a word that helps them “hear” the writer’s words (jingle).
• Have students turn to page 9. Ask them to find a word that helps them “feel” the writer’s words (itchy).
• Have students brainstorm lists of words that help them use their senses. For example, sight: shiny, dark, brilliant; hearing: screeching, clinking, rattling; touch: slimy, fuzzy, velvety; smell: rotten, lemony, flowery; taste: spicy, bitter, sweet.
• Give students the sensory words worksheet to complete. Have students share their sentences when finished.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section or the entire book (in the case of short books). Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book.

Home Connection

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

Writing Connection

• Have students work with a partner to write the next chapter in the book. Tell them to build on the information they have read, to add new characters if they wish, and to end on a note that leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. Have students share their chapters with the group.

Science Connection

• Show students a video, book, or magazine article about Koko, the gorilla who has a vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs. Discuss how people learn to communicate with each other. If possible, ask a sign language interpreter or a language translator to speak to the class about differences in communication styles.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the strategy of retelling to understand a fiction story
• understand characters through actions, words, and thoughts
• understand why and when quotation marks are used, and identify where exclamation, question marks, and commas are placed inside them
• recognize and use sensory words

Comprehension Checks

• Retelling Rubric