The Trouble with English

Book Summary
The Trouble with English is the story of a girl named Ting Yao who moves from China to the United States. The book is a first-person account of her experiences learning English at school. She has many difficulties with the unfamiliar idioms, pronunciations, and spellings of the English language. Ting Yao relates her frustrations with learning this new language but realizes that she will eventually master English.

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: Using context clues.

This book has some vocabulary that may be unfamiliar to readers. They can use the strategy of going back and rereading to help them decipher the text.

Word and Print Skills

Phonics
Syllabication
Identify syllables in words and use this to help read the words.

Word Work
Grammar
Adverbs and adjectives

Word structure
Suffixes

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: Author's point of view.

Have children describe what the author is feeling on page 6, 10, 24, and 26.

Visual Learning
Have children look at the picture on page 5 and compare this picture to the one on page 22. Have them describe the two pictures of Ting. Ask: How are the pictures alike and how are they different from each other?

Targeted Vocabulary Words

Content Words
incredibly, especially, correctly, certainly, differently

Explain to children that these words are adverbs. They describe the verbs in the sentence.