ACTIVITY: This activity entailed reading A Very Special Critter.

In order to see if students were paying attention to the details of the book, activities will be centered on retelling the story. Activities included stating what the beginning, middle, and end of the story is, do a five finger retell, putting pictures from the story in order from first to last, and lastly the students will write or draw about the beginning, middle, and end of the stories. GRADE LEVEL: Kindergarten and First grade DURATION: 20-30 minutes RESOURCES AND MATERIALS NEEDED -A Very Special Critter -paper and pencils -crayons or colored pencils -scanned copies of some illustrations in the book

GOALS
1. Why is it worthwhile: I believe that exposure to people with disabilities is very

important. The students in my placement are not exposed to students in wheelchairs so I thought it would be great to read them a story about a student in a wheelchair coming into a new classroom. 2. Why this activity is important: Recalling or retelling the beginning, middle, and end of the story is very important when working with young children. Learning how to read can be learned by young children but the understanding of what they are reading is very important. Doing read alouds encourage children to retell and

discuss literature instead of just reading it and never looking at it again. Students can use other strategies like predicting and questioning.
3. What led me to this activity: I had read a few books to the class before but I

had not asked them lots of questions pertaining to the details of the story. I wanted to see how much they would remember after reading to them.

STRUCTURE OF ACTIVITY: Step 1: Ask the student to look at the cover and predict what the story is about Step 2: Read the story, but ask 2 or 3 questions pertaining to the possibility of situations in the book happening in real life. For example: what would you do if a student in a wheelchair came into the classroom? How would help the new student? Step 3: Ask student what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story Step 4: Ask personal questions like: would you be this persons friend? Do you think he would be a good friend? How is he similar to you? How is he different? Step 5: Five Finger Retell: Somewhere (setting), somebody (main character and characters), wanted (what did the main character want), problem (what was the problem), solved (how was the problem solved)-Students use this method in order to understand not only the concept or overall message but the different types of information given in the story. Step 6: Take 6 illustrations from the book and have six students stand up, hold each picture, and the rest of the class put the pictures in order. Step 7: Have the students sit at their seats and give them each a black sheet of paper and pencil. Students are to divide the paper into three segments, the letters B, M,E in each segment. Instruct the students to either write or draw what happened in the beginning, middle, and end. Culmination of product: I would like each student to get an idea of how to retell a story. I also would like them to recall the sequence of the story. If students are able to do this, they were listening and understand each part of the story.