Text Type: Non-fiction: Persuasive — Poster
Summary: This poster advertises a clean-up day in the schoolyard. Students are given reasons for picking up litter and some tips on how to do it safely.
Text Features
Print Concepts
• poster format with headlines and inset boxes: print format not consistent
• punctuation: periods, bullets
• checklist of what to wear for the clean-up
Visual Literacy
• speech bubble (raccoon speaks)
• illustrations to support the text, e.g., child dressed appropriately for the clean-up
FIRST READING
Reading StrategiesComprehension
• a range of comprehension strategies is integrated throughout the lesson
(Analyzing, Sequencing, Making Connections, Predicting, Inferring, Synthesizing, Evaluating, Self-Monitoring)
• the comprehension purpose for reading focuses on Analyzing/synthesizing
Working with Words
• comprehending vocabulary from context and pictures
Assessment Opportunities
Note each student’s ability to:
• attend to and understand the text layout in a poster
• joins in with echo reading
• make connections across ideas from the Read Aloud and the first Shared
Reading piece
• predict and infer based on the information (visual and print) on the poster
• discuss the text with a partner (on-topic)
Time: approximately 25 minutes
BEFORE READING
Establishing the Inquiry FocusDoes litter help things grow? Why or why not? What did people do with litter in Somebody Cared for a Flower? Why did they do that?
Ask students what they learned about litter in the last story.
[Self-monitoring]
Now we are going to think about ways we can clean up our world so that it’s not dirty.
Tell students that they are going to learn more about litter and how we can take better care
of our world.
What do you think this poster is telling us? What gives you some clues? Why do you think someone made this poster?
Show the students the poster and ask them what they think the poster is about. [Predicting]
Were we close? Did we think it was about cleaning up litter? Which clues were the best?
Read aloud the headline ‘Clean Up Litter’ and the supporting headline ‘Have a day to clean up litter in your schoolyard.’ Check predictions made previously.
Setting a Purpose for Reading
- Ask students to read the poster with you to find out what it is telling us about having a day to clean up litter. [Analyzing/synthesizing]
DURING READING
It’s not like reading a book. We need to look in this box for information. And this balloon tells us what the raccoon says. Let’ read the headlines for the poster again.
Look over the whole poster with the students and point out key sections, as print does not follow a consistent arrangement on a poster.
Teaching Tip: There are many new text features in this poster so you could consider using echo reading to offer extra support to the students. Read a small section of text, invite students to read it following your model, and keep alternating. When the students feel more comfortable in later readings, they will be able to join in more confidently.
- Read each inset with the class, showing the students where to start reading and tracking the print with a pointer. Discuss content by offering prompts:
- Why do you think you need to wear a hat, sunscreen, and gloves? [Inferring/synthesizing]
- Why do you think that litter isn’t safe for animals like the raccoon? [Inferring]
- What kinds of garbage will they need to pick up here on the poster? [Analyzing]
- What kinds of garbage might need to be picked up in our schoolyard? [Making connections]
It asks YOU to pick up litter and it shows a picture of a child ready to pick up litter, so what do you think ‘Do your part’ means?
Clarify any vocabulary that may limit comprehension, e.g., ‘safety,’ and ‘Do your Part’ using pictures and contextual support.
AFTER READING
-
How can we clean up litter and keep our world clean? Why is it important to do this?
Ask students to discuss with a partner what they learned about cleaning up litter. Invite a few students to share their thoughts with the class.
- Ask students to bring one piece of litter to the classroom for the next lesson. They could pick it up from the classroom or school hallways, or bring it from home. They should take a look around and notice if there was a lot of litter or just a little litter in the spot where they found it. [Making connections/analyzing: researching]
Teaching Tip: Remind them to bring a piece that is small and not too dirty! Caution them never to pick up anything sharp.
SECOND READING
Reading StrategiesComprehension
• a range of comprehension strategies is integrated throughout the lesson
• the comprehension purpose for reading focuses on Evaluating
Working with Words
• matching words
• awareness of word and letter concepts
Assessment Opportunities
Note each student’s ability to:
• make connections between the litter they found and the poster
• attend to print in the poster layout
• attend to visual/text features, e.g., a speech bubble, checkmarks on the list,
large type for headlines
• evaluate if the poster catches people’s attention (give a reason)
• match words
Time: approximately 25 – 30 minutes
BEFORE READING
Revisiting the Inquiry Focus- Ask students what they learned about taking care of the world from the poster. Students can share ideas with a partner and then invite a few students to discuss their thoughts with the class. [Self-monitoring]
Was it the only piece of litter there? What did you think about the litter? Could it have hurt the animals?
Invite each student to get out their piece of litter. Ask them to share with a partner what the litter was and where they found it. They can also share their observations about other litter in the area. [Making connections]
‘We found this litter!’ Alternatively, you may wish to ask the students to sort the litter into categories,
e.g., plastic and paper.
Have you seen a poster? Why do you think people make posters? Where do they leave them?
Ask students to search their background knowledge to think of a poster they have seen before. [Making connections]
-
Why do you think this poster was made? It’s hanging in our classroom. Could it hang anywhere else? Why do you think that?
Connect their knowledge to
the Clean Up Litter poster.
The people who made the poster wanted to make sure you looked at it because it’s important to them that you think about cleaning up litter.
Ask students to read the poster with you to see how it catches your attention. [Evaluating]
DURING READING
Teaching Tip: Again, you may choose to do echo reading with the class or you could invite them to join in as you read. Choose the method
that meets the needs of your students.
Why do you think the headline ‘Clean Up Litter’ is written so big?
Read the headlines with the class, tracking the print as you read, and discuss how they catch your attention. [Analyzing/inferring/evaluating]
- Read each of the sections of print with the students and use prompts to help students think about the text features. [Analyzing/inferring/evaluating]
- How do the reasons for picking up the litter stand out?
- Where does it show us the raccoon is talking?
- Why do you think there are checkmarks on the ‘Safety Tips’ list?
Point to where we will start reading here. Where is the first word?
Ask students to show you where they start reading in the inset boxes and bubble. [Print concept/tracking]
AFTER READING
- Ask students how the poster caught their attention. They can discuss this in pairs and then a few students can share their ideas with the class.
Think first, is litter a problem? How do you know?
Ask the question ‘Is litter a problem in our world?’ Ask students to discuss the question with a partner and then discuss it as a whole group. [Evaluating]
What is the first letter of the word? What is the last letter of the word? What two letters can you see in the middle of the word? Can you see ‘litter’ with a big (capital) L at the beginning? What sound do you hear at the beginning of ‘litter’?
Find the word ‘litter’ and ask some students to point out all the times they can see ‘litter’ on the poster. Take the opportunity to weave in concepts about words and letters. [Word matching and word/letter concepts.
If this says ‘pick,’ can you find ‘pick’ on the next line?
Point out the repeated word pattern ‘Pick up litter because it’ and ask students to find the words that make that pattern in the other two sentences. Break it down to word-by-word matching. [Word matching]
Let’s clap for each word I read. ‘Do Your Part’… three claps. Now you try.
Read and clap for each word. Start with easy phrases, e.g., ‘Do Your Part,’ ‘Wear a hat,’ and ‘Wear gloves.’ Clapping for each word becomes harder when words have more than one syllable. [Awareness of word]
THIRD READING
Reading StrategiesComprehension
• a range of comprehension strategies is integrated throughout the lesson
• the comprehension purpose for reading focuses on Analyzing/making connections
Working with Words
• high-frequency word recognition
Assessment Opportunities
Note each student’s ability to:
• join in with the reading
• demonstrate understanding of clean-up techniques through mime
• apply information from the poster to planning a class clean-up project
• recognize high-frequency words
Time: approximately 25 minutes for the shared reading lesson, plus 20 minutes of modelled/shared writing to plan a chart for a kindergarten clean-up session. Time will then be needed for an active clean-up of a section of the schoolyard. (All of these lessons and activities do not need to occur on the same day.)
BEFORE READING
Revisiting the Inquiry FocusTell your partner one reason for not littering. I could tell my partner, “You shouldn’t litter because animals may think its food.”
Ask students why people should not litter. Model the giving of a reason. [Evaluating]
I could ask Dov what kind of litter he is picking up and if it’s hard work. What could you ask him?
Ask students to mime or act out how they would clean up litter from the schoolyard. Ask some students to share their actions with the class. The other students could then ask the actors some questions. Model how to ask questions.
- Tell students that the class will have a clean up litter day in their schoolyard, so they should read to find out what to do. [Analyzing/making connections]
DURING READING
- Read the poster with the students, inviting them to join in with the reading.
- Pause to discuss the directions and tips given by the poster to help you have a clean-up day in your schoolyard. Offer prompts:
- How does the ‘Safety Tips’ checklist help us? Do you always need to wear sunscreen? Why or why not? Do you always need to wear gloves/a hat? Why? [Evaluating/making connections]
- What kind of bag would you need? [Evaluating/making connections]
- What kinds of litter do you think we’ll find in our schoolyard? Will it be the same as the litter on the poster? [Predicting/making connections]
AFTER READING
- Ask students to meet with a partner and discuss what they think they need to plan for a clean-up day. Offer prompts:
- What will students need to wear?
- What will we use to collect the garbage in?
- Extend comprehension by using the poster to plan an active clean-up of the schoolyard.
- Use chart paper and modelled/shared writing techniques to plan a
clean-up day. - Consider the date and time, what to wear, where to pick up garbage, the types of bags to use, and especially the reasons for doing it.
- Use small drawings to illustrate the chart and make it easier for young students to follow, e.g., include a picture of gloves in the ‘What Shall We Wear?’ list.
- Use chart paper and modelled/shared writing techniques to plan a
- After the clean-up, ask the students to evaluate ‘doing their part’ to keep the world clean. Also, ask them how they think the litter problem could be solved. Offer prompts: [Self-monitoring/evaluating]
- How did the clean-up work out?
- Did you need to pick up lots of litter? How hard was it?
- Let’s look back at our plan. How did that work out? Did you need to wear a hat, etc.?
- Does the schoolyard look better?
- Could you do a litter clean-up anywhere else? [Making connections]
- How could we stop all this litter in the schoolyard?
We’ve found the word ‘it’ here. Can you find it again?
Ask students to look at the poster and frame each of the five Kindergarten high-frequency words (‘a,’ ‘do,’ ‘in,’ ‘is,’ ‘it’) with a cardboard cut-out frame, a coloured acetate rectangle, or Wikki Stix. Reread the section of the text that includes the word so that a context is provided. If the word is repeated in the poster, ask students to match up the two or three examples (‘it’ and ‘a’ occur more than once, and you could also point out the big (capital) letter in ‘Do’). [High-frequency word recognition]
Make ‘is.’ Tell your friends why litter IS not safe for us. Take the last letter off ‘in’… (Demonstrate in the pocket chart.)
Provide students with letter cards and ask them to build each word in turn. Model making the words with large-size letter cards in the pocket chart. Always provide a contextual sentence. Using the sentence from the poster will work well. [Word building]
Teaching Tip: Reproducible large letter cards and small letter cards can be found in the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide on pp. 111–128.
- After the clean-up, ask the students to evaluate ‘doing their part’ to keep the world clean. Also, ask them how they think the litter problem could be solved. Offer prompts: [Self-monitoring/evaluating]
- How did the clean-up work out?
- Did you need to pick up lots of litter? How hard was it?
- Let’s look back at our plan. How did that work out? Did you need to wear a hat, etc.?
- Does the schoolyard look better?
- Could you do a litter clean-up anywhere else? [Making connections]
- How could we stop all this litter in the schoolyard?
FURTHER READINGS
Many texts benefit from being reread with students to enable the books to become familiar and to increase participation in the shared reading. Over time, share the pointer with students in turn, so that they demonstrate how to track print on the poster.
Teaching Tip: Rereadings can occur with a whole-class group, or in small groups. If you have students who need more support, consider a small-group session, as teaching can be more individualized.
Print Concepts, Book Handling, and Media Awareness
Show me the first word. Point to the first letter in that word. Where do we move to now? (Movement to the next line)
Encourage students to participate in
using the pointer to track print. Students’ confidence will develop as the text becomes more familiar. Offer prompts to refine and expand print concepts. [Tracking print]
- Attend to ‘big’ letters and ‘little’ letters, e.g., There’s a big (capital) ‘P’ in ‘Pick’ (point to it). Can you find a small letter ‘p’ here? (Point to ‘up.’)
Focusing on Comprehension
- Reread to compare what the poster told you to do when cleaning up the schoolyard and what the students actually did. [Making connections: comparing]
- Reread to explore the reasons for cleaning up the schoolyard. Are there more reasons? [Inferring/synthesizing/evaluating]
- Display the digital cloze version of the text on the Media Key. Working with the whole class, or with a small group, reread together and encourage students to supply the missing words (spaces for words highlighted in yellow). You may decide to pause to consider word predictions and prompt, “Does that make sense?” or “Does that sound right?” Then click on the colour-highlighted spot to reveal the word, saying, “Let’s check that out.” An option on the tool bar allows you to create your own cloze versions of the text to meet the needs of the students you are working with. Click on the ‘Help’ button to find out how to use the different features of digital texts.
Working with Words
- Direct students’ attention to words from the poster such as ‘animals,’ ‘hat,’ ‘keeps,’ ‘pick,’ ‘clean.’ Have students say the words v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to help them break down the words into phonemes. (See the ‘Speaking as Slow as a Snail’ lesson in the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide, p. 28.) [Phonemic and phonological awareness]
- Build words from the high-frequency words ‘it’ and ‘in.’ Identify the words in the context of the poster. Make each word in the pocket chart. Demonstrate how you can say ‘in’ and make it ‘pin’ by adding a ‘p’ at the beginning. Encourage the students to help you and suggest what letter could be added to make ‘tin’ and so on. You may decide to work on this concept as a whole-group activity using the pocket chart, or you may distribute letter cards and ask the students to build the words with you. (See the reproducible large letter cards and small letter cards in the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide on pp. 111–128.)
EXTENDING THE INQUIRY
You may consider using some of the following suggestions to extend the inquiry.- Ask students to go to other classes in the school to tell them about why we need to clean up our world and to encourage them to use garbage cans and pick up litter. (Students could go in small groups together with their older buddies whom you may have included in the schoolyard clean-up day.)
- Make a collage of the schoolyard before and after litter clean-up. Cut paper off a roll of paper and pin it to the wall. Divide the paper into ‘Before Our Clean-Up’ and ‘After Our Clean-Up.’ Some students can paint the background while other students make cut-out paintings of themselves cleaning up litter. Other items can be stuck on (e.g., pieces of plastic to represent garbage bags, bits of paper, empty pop cans.)
- Plan a role-playing session where students act out what they would say if they saw somebody littering. The students can work in pairs with one person pretending to litter and the other person helping the litterbug to make a better decision. Model the role-play to support students, and encourage politeness and offering a solution, e.g., “Maybe you didn’t know that there’s a garbage can over there.” Students can try this out in the drama centre (acting it out themselves or using puppets) and some can present their ideas to the class.
- Encourage students to re-enact a litter clean-up day at the sand table.
