Using the 5 W's

Building academic language

Word

• Explain to the students that they will learn new vocabulary before they read the story. Reiterate that learning words from the story will help them understand, or comprehend, the story better.
• Pass out the Vocabulary Cards worksheet and have students help you read the student friendly definitions.
• Ask students if they can figure out what all the words have in common.
• Allow a few students to offer their ideas.
• Clarify that the words on their vocabulary cards are all nouns. Ask students if they can help you remember what a noun is.
• Call on a few volunteers to offer ideas. Clarify any misconceptions and reiterate that a noun is a person, place, or thing.
• Group students in pairs and pass out whiteboards and markers. Give students a few minutes to generate as many nouns as they can. Call on students to offer their responses.

Sentence

• Put students in small groups, pass out whiteboards and markers, and have them create sentences for each new vocabulary word.
• Provide the following sentence stems on the board:
  • A bear is a(n) ____ with ____.
  • The woods are filled with ____ and ____.
  • A nest is for ____.
  • Birds have ____ and can ____.
• Allow a minute or two for students to orally share their sentences with the class.
• Ask students to make a prediction about what the story will be about, based on their vocabulary words and definitions.
• Write the following sentence stem on the board to support students as they share out:
  • I predict the story is about ____ because _____.

Discourse

• Keep students in their small groups and pass out the And Then What Happened? worksheet to each student.
• Read the story aloud to the class. Circle the vocabulary words and give students a chance to find other examples of nouns in the text.
• Have students do a brief think-pair-share, explaining to a partner if their prediction was correct about the story.
• Write the following questions on the board:
  • Who are the characters in the story?
  • What is happening in the story?
  • Where does the story take place?
  • When does the story take place?
  • Why was the ____ crying?
• Read the questions aloud and explain that using the 5 W's can help us understand what we read, just like it helped us understand what was happening in the picture in the beginning of the lesson.
• Explain that good readers take the time to understand what they read.
• Put the students in pairs and ask them to read the story again and ask each other and answer the questions on the whiteboard with their partners.
• Have a student read the questions on the bottom of the And Then What Happened worksheet and encourage a few students share their answers orally.