Teacher's Guide for Feathers, Flippers, & Fur Nonfiction ReaderPrepared by Mary E. Shea, Ph.D. Dr. Shea teaches graduate literacy courses and directs the Graduate Literacy Program at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY.
The following guide is designed to facilitate students' reading and responding to Feathers, Flippers, & Fur. It is suggested that the text be used as an ancillary resource in a study related to animals, their characteristics, protective systems, and/or interdependent relationships. This selection can be used as content for guided reading during developmental reading instruction, integrating a science theme into the Language Arts block, or as the content for science lessons.
Throughout the guide, instruction will incorporate the collaborative strategic model (Klinger and Vaughn, 1999) that includes prereading, during, and post reading activities, facilitating reading fluency and comprehension at deeper levels.
Before reading, students preview the selection to be read. First, they brainstorm what they already know about the topic. Then, they skim and scan (take a "picture walk") through the selection, noting pictures and captions, graphs and charts, bold, underlined, or italicized words, and questions/statements in the margins. Finally, students make predictions related to what they expect to learn from the selection. This sets purposes for reading.
During reading, students act metacognitively as they clink and clunk through the passage. Metacognitively means that they are mindfully aware when the text is making sense, when they're hardly understanding it, or not understanding it at all. This lack of understanding can be at the word or idea level - or both. Students check themselves at the paragraph or subsection level (sometimes even sentence level) to determine whether they've gotten the gist (main idea) of the message. They should be able to restate the gist in their own words - using 10 words or less. What is the most important idea? If they can do this, they're clinking along in their reading. When understanding breaks down, they're clunking and need to use fix-up strategies to get back on track. It's critically important that readers develop self-monitoring skills, recognizing when they are clinking and when they are clunking. They also need the know efficient fix-up strategies and have the ability to self-initiate these when declunking the problem.
After reading, students review, reflect, retell, summarize, elaborate and/or evaluate the overall content of the reading. They can do this orally or in writing. Sharing ideas with others leads to clarification, broadening of perspectives as well as inferences, and confidence in presenting and/or defending one's point of view. Klinger, J. & Vaughn, S. (1999). Promoting reading comprehension, content learning, and English acquisition through Collaborative Strategic Reading. The Reading Teacher. 52, (7), 738-747. The Plan
Note: One basic plan will be used for each selection (1. Keepers of the Prairie, 2. The Wolf in the Dog, 3. Feathers, 4. Amazing Sea Lions) contained within Flippers, Feathers, & Fur. Selections are read in separate lessons. Change the title of the selection to be read for each use of the plan.
Title: Guided Reading Lesson with science related text
Time: approximately 45 minutes Objective:
Following instruction in and practice with the collaborative strategic reading model, students will apply this process in their reading of and interaction related to Keepers of the Prairie, a selection in Feathers, Flippers, & Fur.
Bloom's Taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis
Materials: copies of Feathers, Flippers, & Fur
Motivation: - Review overall goals of the theme unit related to this reading selection.
- Ask students what they know or have heard about prairie dogs (topic changes with each selection). Construct a web on chart paper as they share ideas, categorizing or grouping ideas that are presented. Accept all ideas. However, if there's a "challenge" to the accuracy of an idea, write "ch" after it. Remind students that this signals something we should watch for as we read. Can we verify the idea or should it be amended or eliminated? Reinforce that clarifying or correcting our ideas when presented with valid evidence that contradicts them is an important skill. (This is related to the assimilation and accommodation process in learning.)
| | | | | | |______________ | | ______________| | | _________ | _________ | | | | | | | | strategies for self-protection |
| | | benefits to people and animals |
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- Tell students that today we'll read a selection about prairie dogs, using our collaborative reading strategy process.
Teacher Input:
*Step 1-4 for first lesson only when introducing the text as a whole. - Introduce the text Feathers, Flippers, & Fur. Read the captions on the cover and have students respond to these and the picture of the wolf.
- Direct students to the back cover. Invite a student to read the first bulleted item and lead off with a response to it. Repeat with the remaining 3 items.
- Have students turn to the Table of Contents on the inside cover and review the selections included in this text.
- Direct students' attention to the Glossary and Index at the end of the text. Discuss how these supports can be used for reading and reviewing.
Today's selection: 5. The teacher will read the title of the first selection, Keepers of the Prairie, as well as the name of the author and photographer. Have students skim and scan pages 3-7, examining pictures and captions. Invite students to share their predictions on information that will be presented in the selection as well as questions they hope will be answered. The teacher will scribe these on a chart.
6. Introduce new words for this selection using the transparency presenting words in context. (It is assumed that some of the words associated with the first reading have been previously introduced in the theme study and will be reinforced in this reading. Other words will not be pretaught, allowing children to conclude meanings from context clues. These will be examined in follow-up discussion of the selection to confirm that they were understood.)
The teacher reads each sentence and explains how context helps him/her understand the meaning of italicized words. Guided Practice: - Students read pages 3-5; 6-7 (with midway stopping point) in Keepers of the Prairie mindful of the charted predictions and questions they posed as well as vocabulary discussed. Discuss the content. (Adjust pages to match other selections.)
- Students give a gist statement for each paragraph; the section; the selection as a whole.
- Students retell salient points (details) for the first part; the selection as a whole.
- The teacher will ask students to explain the meaning of the following words based on their use in the selection - environment, habitat, inhabitant, population.
- Students share successful declunking strategies they used when confused. They will also identify any need for clarification. Open discussion will allow collaborative declunking.
- Students do a think, pair, share with the following question. (1 min. think on their own - 1 min. pair with a partner and share ideas - partners share conclusions in larger group)
How is interdependence evident in the plight of the prairie dog?
Think, Pair, Share questions for other selections:
The Wolf in the Dog: How should someone work with an animal's instinctive behaviors throughout its training?
Feathers: In what ways did our feathered friends inspire man's success with flight?
Amazing Sea Lions: Reflect on this statement - Destruction of environments endangers animals well suited to particular habitats.
Independent Practice:
(To be completed after reading all four selections in Flippers, Feathers, & Fur.) - Over a period of several days, each student will select an endangered animal to research. Students will work in class and at home on the project. They will consider:
- Why is the animal endangered?
- Has its characteristics played a part in the situation? (e.g. Has the animal been a nuisance to man? Does it have valuable fur, antlers, or tusks? Is it a delicacy for eating?)
- How, if at all, has man had an impact on the animal's situation?
- Suggestions and reasons for saving the species.
- Students will draft, revise, edit, and "publish" their reports in a class book. Copies will be placed in the classroom library, in the school library, in the community library, and in a local book store.
Evaluation:
The teacher will assess students' ability to: - contribute to the group brainstorming, clearly expressing background knowledge.
- develop an understanding of new vocabulary as reflected in their discussion of the passage.
- generate a gist statement for paragraphs; sections; and the selection as a whole.
- retell salient points (important details) from the reading.
- independently reflect on an open-ended question, share ideas with a partner, and then discuss conclusions with the larger group.
- construct a report on an endangered animal that will be included in a class book.
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