More Comprehension Ideas

Here are two more comprehension lesson that I came up with to go along with the Common Core Curriculum Maps ELA, Grade 1 Unit 2 (The Amazing Animal World).

 

Using this Common Core Standard:

 

RI.1.5 Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types.

 

And these books:

 

 

 

First I began by reading Earthworms pointing out the headings, information, pictures, and captions on each page. I told the students to listen very carefully about earthworms because they would be writing about something they know or learned about earthworms today. After I read several pages of the book {definitely left out the mating page}, I told the students that they would be practicing writing nonfiction using headings, information, pictures and captions. I modeled first using the caption "Enemies of Worms" and I wrote about how moles like to find worms underground and eat as many as 30 a day. The students made me include the part where moles bite off a worms head and stores it in a burrow for later (yuck). I also wrote how birds like to eat worms too. On my picture I drew a picture of some worms in a moles burrow. On my caption I wrote "worms are stored in a moles burrow for him to eat later." Then I handed out this little sheet and asked the students to write about something that they know or learned about worms. They had to include a heading, information, picture and caption.

 

 

The next day I read Diary of a Worm and we compared the two stories together using a Venn Diagram. Make sure you use words like: tells a story, gives information, has headings, pictures, captions, fantasy, real, fiction, nonfiction...etc. If you are feeling ambitious you could give this sheet to partners first to see what they can do, then summarize together on a large Venn Diagram on chart paper.

 

 

Click the picture to download. {sorry, it keeps messing up a little at the bottom on google docs...send me a comment if you know how to fix or what I'm doing wrong.}

 

When I think of and teach more lessons to go along with the unit I'll share. Let me know what you think.