Reading Lesson Plan

Book Title: Fire by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley

Year level: 5

Focus reading skill: Comprehensionobserving text and illustrative features.

Grouping: Whole class

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Relevant aspects of the Achievement standard:

By the end of Year 5, students explain how text structures assist in
understanding the text. They understand how language features,
images and vocabulary influence interpretations of characters,
settings and events.
Relevant content descriptors:
Navigate and read texts for specific purposes applying appropriate
text processing strategies, for example predicting and confirming,
monitoring meaning, skimming and scanning (ACELY1702)
Introduction (10mins):
Before reading:
- Display and introduce the book, addressing the title
and author. Ask students if they have read Fire or any
other books by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley. Discuss
their writing style e.g. their books are mostly set in
Australia, in country towns or the bush and often feature
wildlife.
- Communicate learning goal to students: During this
lesson I am going to introduce a comprehension strategy
that we will be able to use to help us understand and make
meaning from texts. Remember that we use all the
strategies covered so far when reading. Can anyone tell me
some reading strategies covered so far? [Students
respond]. Great remembering class! Well, the strategy we
will be focusing on today is predicting. Can anyone tell me
what it means to predict? Can anyone give an example of
when we may need to use prediction? [Students respond].
Provide a formal dictionary definition to clarify.
Explicit teaching (15mins):
- Explain that by predicting we can gain ideas of what a book
is about before reading it. In turn making it easier for us to
read and understand the text. Continue to explain that you
not only make predictions at the beginning of a text but can
continue to make predictions throughout the entire text.
- Model to students using prediction cards. For example: I
predict the story is about bush fires and the danger and
damage they can cause because of the books title, the bold
image of raging fire on the front cover and the description
on the back cover.
- Teacher writes prediction on the board.

Bridging: After modelling/explicit teaching, provide

students with prediction cards (see appendix A) for student
practice.

Student Action (30mins):

- Provide each group with an A3 sheet of paper. In groups of
four, students create a mind map around the theme of
bushfire. Explain: we can predict by drawing on our prior
knowledge about themes or topics in the text. Ask What
ideas, words and themes come to mind when you think of
fire? What do you know about bushfires? Where are they
likely to occur? When? Do you remember recent news
stories about bush fires?
- Provide examples: controlled and uncontrolled fires, house
fires, warmth, life giving and life taking, often occur in
summer. Prompt students when needed.
- Students watch YouTube clip (See Appendix B) of the book
Fire with no sound to observe the sequence of pictures
throughout the story.
- Ask students to look at their prediction card and answer if
their predictions look like they may be correct after seeing
the picture sequence without reading the words. If
predictions have changed ask students to fill out a new
prediction card, keeping their first predictions also.
- Read story:
- During reading teacher models prediction (and other taught
strategies) by thinking aloud: clarifying, challenging and
changing predictions made before reading the story.
- After reading teacher aloud asks herself were my
predictions correct? How might I add to or correct my
predictions to make better sense of the story?
- Ask students to reflect on their predictions and discuss with
a partner whether or not their predictions were correct or
incorrect and how their prior knowledge of fire and their
observations of the pictures and title of the text helped them
to predict and make sense of the text.
Review (10mins):
- Have a whole class sharing time. Volunteers share their
prediction process and how and if their predictions changed.
- Teacher summarises the newly learnt strategy of predicting
and confirming, discussing how this strategy will assist
reading and comprehension of a text while also listing some
areas in which this strategy will be useful in other real life
contexts.
- Teacher collects student prediction cards as evidence for
assessment.

Appendix A
Prediction card

Name..........................................................................................
Title and Author.........................................................................
Make two predictions about the story you are about to read:
Based on the .........................................................................
I predict..................................................................................
Based on the .........................................................................
I predict..................................................................................
Was my prediction correct?.......................................

YouTube Clip- Watch with NO sound:

Lo, Himman. (2015). Fire by Jackie French. Retrieved August 24th 2015, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYiVoYYNpDY