KINDERGARTEN Sample Sessions

KINDERGARTENSample SessionsUnits of Study for Teaching ReadingLuc y C a lk inswith C olle agues from the R e ading and W r itingP roject

KINDERGARTEN Componentsu Four Units of Study: including one foundational unit and threeother units to address reading fiction and informational texts.We Are ReadersBigger Books, Bigger Reading MusclesSuper PowersLUC Y CALKINS , SERIES EDITORu Online Resources for Teaching Reading: A treasure chest ofadditional grade-specific resources, including bibliographies,short texts, illustrations to show completed anchor charts,reproducible checklists, pre- and post-assessments, mentortexts, videos, and Web links.u Large-Format Anchor Chart Post-it notes: Preprinted Post-it notes with summarized, illustrated teaching points help teacherscreate and evolve anchor charts across each band and unit.u Read-Aloud Post-it notes: Preprinted Post-it notes highlightpossible teaching points the teacher might address duringthe read-aloud.u Trade Pack: Grade-level book set for teacher demonstration,modeling, and read-aloud (recommended optional purchase;available in bundles with the units and also separately).For complete details, please visit unitsofstudy.com/teachingreadingGrade KUnit 3Grade KUnit 2READING WITH PRINT STRATEGIES AND SIGHT WORD POWERNATALIE LOUISLUCY CALKINS K ATIE M. W E ARSREBECCA CRONIN ANGELA BÁEZu A Guide to the Reading Workshop, Primary Grades: Details thearchitecture of the minilessons, conferences, and small-group strategysessions and articulates the management techniques needed tosupport an effective reading workshop.u If . . . Then . . . Curriculum: Assessment-Based Instruction, Grades K–2:Contains additional units to support and extend instruction and toprepare students for work in the main units as needed.Grade KUnit 1Becoming Avid ReadersLUCY CALKINS AMANDA HARTMAN ELIZABETH DUNFORD FRANCOWITH COLLEAGUES FROM THE TEACHERS COLLEGE READING AND WRITING PROJECTA Guide to the Reading WorkshopP R I M A RY G R A D E SLUCY CALKINSI F. T HEN.CURRICULUMASSESSMENT-BASED INSTRUCTIONLUCY CALKINSLUCY CALKINSWITHELIZABETH MOOREAND COLLEAGUES FROM THE TEACHERS COLLEGE READING AND WRITING PROJECTGrades K–2 MARJORIE MARTINELLI CHRISTINE HOLLEYGrade KUnit 4

Powerful instruction produces visible and immediate results; when youngsters are taught well, the thinking, talking, and writingabout reading they produce becomes far more substantial, complex, and significant. Good teaching pays off. When you providestudents with constant opportunities to read and to write and when you actively and assertively teach into their best efforts,their literacy development will astonish you, their parents, the school administrators, and best of all, the students themselves.—L u c y C a l k i n sWelcome to the Kindergarten Units of Study for TeachingReading Sampler. This booklet includes sample sessions fromeach of the four units of study for this grade level, chosen to broadlyrepresent the range of work that students will do and to provide asnapshot view of how instruction develops across the school year.SAMPLER CONTENTSUNIT CONTENTS AND SUMMARIESunit 1We Are Readers.2Super Powers.4unit 3 Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles.6unit 4 Becoming Avid Readers.8unit 2SAMPLE SESSIONSunit 1We Are Readerssession 1: Readers Read the World. 10unit2 Super Powerssession 2: Super Readers Use Pointer Power to Check TheirReading, Making Sure What They Say Matches What They See. 15unit2 Super Powerssession 3: Readers Don’t Let Longer Words Slow Them Down. 23unit3 Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Musclessession 15: Readers Can Read Snap Words with Inflected Endings. 30unit4 Becoming Avid Readerssession 7: Playing Pretend. 361

GRADE K UNIT 1 OVERVIEW and CONTENTSWe Are ReadersNATALIE LOUISYour biggest message in this, your children’s first-ever unit is that yes,indeed, they can read! You’ll know that this unit has succeeded if, by theend of it, your kindergarten students declare, “We are readers!” While you willbe teaching reading strategies and habits, the most important teaching will beabout desire and identity.The first bend of the unit invites kids to read information texts and thesecond adds storybooks to the mix, so that by the second half of the unit,reading time for your kindergarteners will include time to reread and storytellfamiliar storybooks as well as time to study the pictures and figure out words(as best they can) in concept books and other nonfiction books.At the start of kindergarten, you won’t be able to teach a minilesson, say “Offyou go,” and expect your kindergarteners to sustain involvement with a stack ofbooks. As a result, shared reading, read-aloud, and word study will be especiallyimportant to this unit. Your kids will be able to sustain one kind of reading forfive or ten minutes, another kind of reading for another ten minutes, so that ishow reading workshop will proceed. The predictability of the different kinds ofreading will help your youngsters know that yes, indeed, they can do this thingcalled school. The routine matters, the predictability matters, and the crystalclear structure and transitions between parts of the workshop all matter.Of course, most of your kids will be doing emergent rather thanconventional reading, which doesn’t mean that their skills won’t develop in2leaps and bounds—they will. Children will develop concepts of print (that is,an understanding that books are read from cover to cover, left to right, top tobottom), phonemic awareness (learning to rhyme, to hear component soundsin a word), phonics (learning letter names and sounds), and the knowledgenecessary to use story language to support their approximations of reading.Children will meanwhile pore over texts with flaps and mirrors and creatureswith weird noses and trucks with big cranes. They’ll also read “Old Favorite”storybooks, returning to books that you’ll read over and over to them. Theconstant refrain of kindergarten— “Do it again!” — means that kids are primedto learn from rereading, and in this unit you lean heavily on that. Your childrentake comfort in and also love familiar texts. One aim will be to draw themtoward conventional reading. By the end of this unit, many of your students willreach a point where they want to read a text conventionally but can’t, whenthey are craving the skills and powers to read conventionally. The next unit,Super Powers, will move them another big step closer to the reading that theydesperately want to do.

An Orientation to the UnitBEND I Launching with Learn-About-the-World Books1. Readers Read the World2. Readers Read Books to Learn about the World3. Readers Read by Themselves and with Others4. Readers Read a Book from Cover to Cover16. Readers Use More and More Words that Are Exactly the Samein Their Old Favorites17. Readers Can Point to and Read Some Words in Their Old Favorites18. Readers Work with Their Partners, Using All They Know,to Read Old Favorites19. A Celebration of Old Favorite Storybook Reading(and Learn-about-the-World Reading, Too)5. Readers RereadRead-Aloud6. Readers Reread a Book by Putting All the Pages TogetherShared Reading7. Readers Reread to Rethink8. Rereading Helps Readers Learn from Words in Books, Too9. Readers Sound Like Teachers When They ReadLearn-about-the-World BooksBEND II Reading Old Favorite Storybooks10. Readers Can Read Stories They Have Heard a Zillion Times11. Readers Work Hard to Make the Words They Read Matchthe Page They Are Reading12. Readers Know How to Get Their Own Old Favorite Storybooks13. Readers Use Exact Character Words14. Readers Reread Old Favorites, Remembering to SayMore and More of the Story15. Readers Use Special Connecting Words to Put Storybook Pages Together3

GRADE K UNIT 2 OVERVIEW and CONTENTSSuper PowersReading with Print Strategies and Sight Word PowerLUCY CALKINS AMANDA HARTMAN ELIZABETH DUNFORD FRANCOAt this point in kindergarten, most of your children are 4 and 5 years old,still so young! But they’re also brimming with energy and desire to read.And they are familiar enough with the daily rhythms of reading workshop thatthings work with a hum rather than in spurts and starts. This means that you arepoised to do some important teaching. To do this, it is important to rememberthat young children learn through play, through drama, through exploring.This unit glories in children’s love of play. You’ll dramatize the idea that toread, people call on super powers, just like superheroes do, thus imbuing thisunit with a spirit of fun and accessibility. Instead of conveying, “Let me instructyou in how to read,” you’ll say, “Oh my gosh, we have to use our super-strength,extra special powers to read this book!” Equally important will be the messagethat “Superheroes don’t give up in a jam!”This is also the age where your children are begging anyone and everyoneto “Read it again!” They can read the same text a hundred times over, and thateagerness to reread beloved texts characterizes the kinds of work you’ll do andthe kinds of material you’ll use. You can make dramatic strides with kids bychanneling them to practice their reading superpowers with books you’ve readover and over to them, songs you’ve sung repeatedly, and charts you’ve madetogether. Your kindergartners’ introduction to paying attention to print will bewith familiar and beloved texts, and this will allow them to bring their energyand enthusiasm to the work of one-to-one matching.4At this stage in the year, children at benchmark will read emergentstorybooks, shared reading texts, and unfamiliar level A and B books.“Unfamiliar” books are ones you’ve read only once or twice during sharedreading or books you’ve introduced to kids, perhaps reading just the first fewpages of the book.In the first bend, you’ll announce that children have “super powers” forreading, and you’ll spotlight “pointer power,” helping children point as theyread, tapping each word just once, checking that their reading makes sense, andanchoring their pointing by noting the words they know “in a snap.”The second bend rallies kids to move from familiar to unfamiliar ones andadds to students’ repertoires of super powers (reading strategies), teachingthem to search for meaning, use picture clues, and to use the sound of the firstletter of a word to help them read.In the final bend, you’ll invite students to draw on all of their super powersas they work to make their voices smoother (fluency), and to communicate theirunderstanding of the text (meaning). Partners will share favorite parts of booksduring book talks.

An Orientation to the UnitBEND I Using Super Powers to Look and Point,and Then Read Everything15. Super Readers Talk about Books, Too!16. Readers Retell Books after They Read Them17. Celebration: The Gift of Reading1. Readers Have Super Powers to Look, Point, and Read Everything They Can!2. Super Readers Use Pointer Power to Check Their Reading, Making SureWhat They Say Matches What They SeeRead-AloudShared Reading3. Readers Don’t Let Longer Words Slow Them Down: Every Word Gets One Tap4. Readers Use Snap Words to Anchor Their Pointer Power5. Partner Power Gives Readers Even Stronger Pointer PowerBEND II Taking On Even the Hardest Words6. Super Readers Put Powers Together7. Super Readers Learn Words and Practice Reading Them in a “Snap!”8. Super Readers Make the First Sound in the Word to Help Them Read the Word9. Super Readers Don’t Give Up!10. Celebration: Readers Show Off Their PowersBEND III Bringing Books to Life11. Readers Use Their Voices to Bring Books to Life12. Readers Use the Pattern to Sing Out Their Books13. Readers Use Punctuation to Figure Out How to Read14. Readers Change Their Voices to Show They Understand the Book5