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This strategy is intended to build children's confidence in their abilities to:
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What opportunities does the book contain for children to:
What types of "Responding to Literature" activities could be developed? |
As can be seen in the sequencing of a week's activities, the whole, to part, to whole process is a general pattern to follow with variations within it. The general pattern is one that starts with a whole text, focuses upon particular parts of that whole, and ends with an application of the new skills learned to whole texts. However, the movement from whole to part within this process can take place many times.
The activities in the following chart involve reading the same predictable book to children each day for a week, and building upon their increasing knowledge of the story and the language it contains.
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Sample of Days One, Two, and Four
"The Napping House" is a cumulative story about a granny who takes a nap on her bed during a rainy day. She is joined by a child and some animals who climb onto the bed with her and sleep on top of each other. Before the story is over, the pile on the bed is quite high. Everything changes when a flea who is not sleepy, bites the mouse at the top of the pile. The book was selected for the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book Award.
Day One
Developing Concepts of Book. Draw children's attention to the gold medal on the cover. Do they notice anything special about the cover of the book? Do they remember other books that had a similar gold medal on the cover? Explain that this book won an award for the illustrations (New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book Award). Do the children remember what the illustrations are? Can someone point out the illustration on the cover? Show them the illustrator's name and the author's name. Do they notice anything about these names? Why do they think that both people have the same last name? Confirm the idea that author and illustrator are married if someone suggests it. Show the picture of the Woods on the back cover.
Reading for Enjoyment. Point to and read the title, and draw attention to the cover illustration. Ask children about what they think the book will be. Keep the discussion short at this point and show them the frontispiece and dedication page. Accept comments about the illustrations such as, that it looks like it is raining. Begin the reading and read the book through stopping once or twice to ask What are your ideas about who might get on the bed next? OR What clues are you finding in the pictures about who else might get on the bed?
You might also use this book for a Picture Walk and have children look for:
Day Two
Shared Reading. Put the phrase "in a napping house where everyone is sleeping" on a large sentence strip in a visible place and within children's reach and your storytime chair. When children are gathered in front of you for the rereading, draw their attention to the phrase, read it and frame each word as you do so. Ask for a volunteer to point to each word as the children reread it with you. Tell them you will read the story The Napping House again and whenever you come to this phrase, they should read it from the sentence strip. Have a child with the ability to "voice-print match" point to each word as the phrase is read. Reread the story.
Categorizing Words. Draw students' attention to the adjectives that describe all the animals and people sleeping on granny's bed. Put the following part of the story on an experience chart.
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There is a flea… Can it be? A wakeful flea On a slumbering mouse On a snoozing cat On a dozing dog On a dreaming child On a snoring granny On a cozy bed In a napping house Where everyone is sleeping. (From The Napping House, Wood, 1984) |
Read the text aloud inviting the children to join in with you as they can. Make a new chart that says "Words that describe people and things" OR "Adjectives in The Napping House" (if you have already been using the term adjectives with your class). Ask, How did the author describe the flea? Frame the words wakeful flea and write the word wakeful under your heading, discuss what it means and letters and/or sounds in the word with which the children are familiar, etc. Continue this process with the adjectives that describe the mouse, cat, dog, child, granny, bed, and house. Draw attention to all the adjectives that end in ing.
Reread the chart with the children. Have volunteers come up and find particular words. For example, Who can find the adjective that starts with 'd' and tells something about the child? Who can find an adjective that describes a noise that people and animals make sometimes when they are sleeping? Who can find three words that have a 'z' in them? (You might also ask, What sound does the 'z' make in each word? and note that the 'z sound' is used sometimes to describe snoring. Make a long line of z's on the chalkboard or chart and ask if anyone has ever seen that symbol used in a book, comic, or cartoon to show that the person is snoring. Suggest they might want to use this device in their own writing.)
| Be sure to use your adjective chart on each of the following days for some kind of reading, writing, and/or graphophonic activity. |
The Napping House also contains verbs that describe what each animal or person on the bed does beginning when the flea bites the mouse. Other verbs include scares, claws, thumps, bumps, and breaks. This might be the focus for another chart to be used for reading and writing activities.
Day Four
Interactive Writing. A cumulative summary story could be developed making use of the concepts of on, under, beside, above, below, and in. This would make a good focus for an Interactive Writing experience. You might start with The granny is sleeping on the bed. Ask, Who else is sleeping in the Napping House? Where are they sleeping? Tell me some sentences to write about them. After a sentence has been dictated and some children have helped to spell words (or parts of words) and scribe (write) them, ask What do we need to say next? Continue until all the people and animals have been described. Reread your summary from the beginning each time a new sentence is added. Before concluding, ask Do we need to change the order of these sentences in any way? In what order did the child and the animals crawl onto the bed in the book? When everyone is satisfied with the summary of the story, make copies for each child to illustrate, read with a buddy, read independently, and take home to read to family members.
Sample of Day Three "The Piggy in the Puddle" is a funny story about a little pig who sits in a puddle and will not come out when asked in turn by her daddy, mommy, or brother. The book makes extensive use of language play including repetition, rhyme, and alliteration and has a rhythmic quality that draws in the listener. Many descriptive words are used to describe the mud. The plot has a wonderful turning point that lends itself well to inviting predictions about what might happen next and critical thinking about what other solutions the family might try. When, after much cajoling and commanding the little pig still will not come out of the mud, the other family members join the little pig and "we're very, very, merry".
Day Three
Focus on Graphophonics/Spelling Patterns. The Piggy in the Puddle contains many possibilities for developing graphophonic knowledge and spelling abilities. With young children, you might wish to focus on p as an initial consonant in the words piggy and puddle. Students in grade one might be introduced to, or reinforced in, the appearance and sound of the sh digraph in words like squishy, squashy, mooshy, and squooshy. Students in grade two and three could be supported in their understanding of the use of double consonants in the middle of many words. This would also be a good focus for a word categorization activity. Selected pages in the book could be photocopied so that children would each have a copy to mark. They could be asked to find all the words that contain a double consonant. Use the double g in piggy and puddle as examples. For students who appear ready, you might also draw attention to the double vowel pattern oo. Examples include:
| muddy, little, puddle, waddle, merry, middle, fuddy-duddy, fiddle-faddle, skedaddle, mooshy, squooshy, silly billy, willy-nilly, oofy, poofy, oofy-poofy, waddling, paddling, wiggling, giggling, Boo-hoo-hoo, yelled, piggies, mommy, daddy. |
When everyone has circled or underlined all the words with double consonants, a class list could be generated. If you make a copy of this list and photocopy it, children could cut it up into words and work alone or with a partner to categorize the words further. For example, they might put all the hyphenated words into one category, all the double d words into another, etc.
Personal Response to Literature. This book would lend itself well to dramatization. Children could work in groups of four with each child taking the role of a different family member. Each group could act the story using actions and some of the language from the story. (At this point, you would have reread the story together many times and the language will have been incorporated into many children's own repertoires.) Encourage the child who is the little pig to use lots of expression and emphasis whenever she says, "Nope!"
A miniature sand table, a pitcher of water, and a set of four plastic pigs would make a good language activity to add to Center Time. One or two children at a time could create the puddle and reenact the events of the story.
Piggy in the Puddle would also be a good story for individual responses using paint, crayons, or other art media. Each child could be invited to make an illustration of her/his favourite part of the story and write or dictate one sentence about it. These could be shared in large or small groups, made into a book, or sequenced on a bulletin board.
Sample of Day Two
"Whose mouse are you?" is a story about families with large simple drawings and large print. The story is told in a question and answer format with one sentence per page. It contains rhyme, repetition, and a surprise ending. The simple format and focus on familiar themes of loyalty and bravery make it a good pattern book to use as a focus for student writing. This book could also be used as part of a literature unit on "Animal Families" with other predictable books that contain the same central vocabulary (mother, mommy, father, daddy, brother, sister, etc.). A few such books include "Are you my Mother?" and "Piggy in a Puddle".
Key vocabulary
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Day Two
Focus on Word, Sentence, Punctuation. Reread the book as a Shared Reading activity. Draw children's attention to the text on the first page and ask questions that support their development of the concepts of word, sentence, and punctuation. For example, the first page contains a drawing of a mouse and the sentence "Whose mouse are you?" It offers the following possibilities.
Focus on Development of a Sight Vocabulary. Develop a making words activity from the key word whose (he, she, hoe, shoe, whose) (see Making Words, p. 104, for guidance). Focus also on the words for family members, mother, father, sister, brother (draw attention to the er ending). Add these words to the Word Wall and practice them each day for the rest of the week (see page 122 for suggestions for a routine to follow in practicing words added to a Word Wall).
The following strategies in English Language Arts: A Curriculum Guide for the Elementary Level (1992) also offer important ideas for working with predictable books:
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Mini-units Using Predictable Books