Shared Reading: Friends

Summary: This non-rhyming poem explores various aspects of friendship, emphasizing the reciprocity of friendship.

Text Features
Print Concepts
• consistent placement of text at the bottom of each page, with photos above
• two lines of text with return sweep, last page three lines of text
• repeated use of the word ‘Someone’ at the beginning of most pages (signalling where to start reading)
• punctuation: commas, question marks

Visual Literacy
• photos that support ideas in the text and convey emotions

FIRST READING

• a range of comprehension strategies is integrated throughout the lesson
(Making Connections, Predicting, Self-Monitoring, Evaluating, Inferring, Synthesizing, Analyzing)
• the comprehension purpose for reading focuses on Predicting/analyzing

Working with Words
• comprehending vocabulary from context and pictures

Assessment Opportunities
Note each student’s ability to:
• attend to print
• analyze visual information and make predictions based on the pictures
• ask and respond to questions
• apply the inquiry question: Why should we be friends?

Time: approximately 30 minutes

BEFORE READING

• We’ve learned that we may look different and sound different but we are all the same on the inside, with the same feelings.

  Ask students to think about what we have learned from the read aloud about how people are the same. [Analyzing]
  

• Today, we are going to read a poem about friends. We are going to be thinking about what a friend is and how people show friendship.

  Prepare the way for further inquiry about why we should be friends.

• Show students the front and back covers of Friends and read the author’s name. Read the question on the back cover. Hold the book open so that students can see both front and back covers.

• What do you think the author will tell us about friends? Why do you think that?

  Use prompts to help students make predictions about the possible content of the book. [Predicting]

• Invite students to share their personal responses to the back cover question ‘What is a friend?’

• When I think of my friend, I think about how she cares for me. When I was sick, she called every day to cheer me up. When she could visit, she made me feel better.

  Ask students to think about a friend and why that person is a friend. Encourage students to think about all kinds of friends (e.g., older and younger friends, neighbours, family members, animals). Provide a personal example of friendship. [Making connections]
• Allow students time to share with a partner their thoughts about their friend. Provide time for a few students to share their responses with the group.

• This book will give us lots of information and help us to answer the question ‘What is a friend?’ It will also help us understand why we should be friends. Be sure to pay attention to the photos as we read because they help us to understand some tricky words.

  Ask students to read with you to find out what a friend is. [Analyzing/making connections]

DURING READING

• Remember to look closely at each of the photos. They give us more information about the text.

  Begin reading Friends. As you read, track the print with a pointer. After reading pages 2 and 3, encourage students to chime in with you as they are able to. On a first read, the chiming in may be limited. Be sure your reading is strong, clear, and fluent. On each page, after reading the text, provide extra time for students to examine the photos before continuing to read.

• Clarify any vocabulary that may not be clear to students and may affect comprehension. For example, pause to look at the photo on page 7 after reading the text, ‘Someone who places trust in you.’ Use the following prompts to discuss the content of the photo:
  

  When you ‘place trust’ in someone, it means you believe they care about you and won’t do something to hurt you.

  • What are these friends doing? [Analyzing/inferring]
  • Why do you think the girl is wearing a blindfold? [Inferring]
  • Why do you think the boy is doing this to his friend? [Inferring/synthesizing]
  • Would you let a friend give you food if you didn’t know what it was? [Making connections]
    
• Pause to look at the photo on page 9 after reading the text (‘Someone who really cares for you’). Use the following prompts to discuss the content of the photo:
  • Why do you think the dog is shown with the boy in the top photo? [Inferring/analyzing]

  • I think this service dog would be a good friend to the boy. The dog would really care for the boy and help him as much as she can. I like how this photo shows how animals can be our friends, too. I know I really care about my dog, too.

    How might the dog care for this boy? (service dogs help children with disabilities to perform tasks and gain independence) [Inferring/analyzing/synthesizing]
  • How might the boy care for this dog? [Inferring/analyzing/synthesizing]
  • What do you notice about the children in the bottom photo? [Analyzing/synthesizing]
  • Do you have an older friend who cares for you and helps you? How? [Making connections]

AFTER READING

• Tell your partner what you think is the answer to the question “What is a friend?”

  Ask students to explain what they think a friend is, explaining any new ideas they have learned from reading the text. [Inferring/synthesizing]

• What was one thing that the book told us about what a friend does? What ideas surprised you?

  Create a simple chart with the question ‘What is a friend?’ at the top to list ideas presented in the text about what a friend is. Offer prompts and refer back to the big book to support and confirm the ideas referred to by the students.

Teaching Tip: To make a simple graphic organizer, write the question ‘What is a friend?’ in the middle of a piece of chart paper or on an interactive white board. Write students’ ideas on lines that radiate out from the question. Post this at the drama centre.

• Together with students discuss the different types of friends a person might have: classmate, neighbour, sibling, cousin, older person, younger person, animal, parent, grandparent, bus buddy.

SECOND READING

• a range of comprehension strategies is integrated throughout the lesson
• the comprehension purpose for reading focuses on Making connections/inferring

Working with Words
• learning high-frequency words (‘a,’ ‘at,’ ‘to’)
• identifying letters (‘s,’ ‘S’)

Assessment Opportunities
Note each student’s ability to:
• participate by chiming in as you read
• show interest in the inquiry
• ask and respond to questions
• recognize high-frequency words
• identify letters

Time: approximately 20–25 minutes

BEFORE READING

• We may be different in many ways, such as where our family comes from, what languages we speak at home, and what activities we like to do, but we all need our friends. Can you think of a time when you were sad and your friend made you happy?

  With the students, look at the class chart ‘What is a Friend?’ Remind them that although people may come from different places in the world and may look different from one another, they still have so much in common that it is easy to be friends. Have the students talk with a partner about things a friend has done for them. Ask some students share their responses with the class. [Making connections/analyzing/synthesizing]

• Using two child puppets from the collection, dramatize an act of friendship you have observed in your classroom (e.g., sharing, loaning
  a sweater, helping someone get up after he or she falls).

• I can pretend to be playing with my friend. We can pretend to jump in the leaves together. It is so much fun and makes us laugh a lot.

  Now ask students to dramatize an act of friendship with their partner. Students may select ideas from the book to dramatize (e.g., reading together: One of them can place their open hands side by side to form a book as they read side by side. Each student can have a turn making the book with their hands). [Making connections/analyzing]

The question at the end of the book is a really good one. What does my friend see when she looks at me? Let’s think about this as we read the text together.

• Ask the students to read the story and think about the question ‘What does your friend see when he or she looks at you?’ [Inferring/analyzing/synthesizing]

DURING READING

• Invite students to chime in more and more as you read. To encourage participation by all, tell students that you will read page 2 and you want everyone to be ready to read with you on page 3. Point to the words carefully as you read page 2.

• I see two happy friends. Both seem to be smiling. They might be thinking that they have so much fun when they’re together.

  Pause at the end of page 2 and revisit the purpose for reading. Together speculate on what each friend in the photo would see when she looks at the other friend. [Inferring/analyzing/synthesizing]
  

• Place the pointer on the first word of page 3 (‘Someone’) and pause briefly to see if the students begin to read the word. As you point to each word, keep your voice soft and in the background, only if needed. Continue to read the text together.

• After reading page 3, ask students to tell a partner about a friend who likes to play with them. Encourage students to think about all kinds of friends (e.g., older and younger friends, neighbours, family members, animals).

• At the beginning of the book, the author asks us ‘When you look at a friend, what you see?’ Now the author asks us ‘And when your friend looks at you, what does she see?’ I think the author has an important message for us.

  Pause after reading page 12 and note to students the two questions that appear at the beginning and ending of the book (pp. 2, 12). [Inferring/analyzing/synthesizing]

AFTER READING

• The two girls on the last page of the book look as if they might have just shared a special secret. I know my friend trusts me and would keep my secrets, too. When I look at my friends, I see someone I can trust. What would a friend see when he or she looks at you? How are you a friend to that person?

  Invite students to talk to elbow partners about what they think their friends see when they look at them. [Making connections/synthesizing]

• I am thinking the author wants us to think about how we are friends to others, and what is important about friendship. All of the things listed in the book are ways that I can be a friend to someone else.

  Conclude by having some students share their thoughts with the class. Try to select a few students to share who have been talking about friends who are older or younger than them.

• Provide the smaller versions of Friends for students to read independently or with a partner.

Teaching Tip: Chopsticks make wonderful student-sized pointers. Plastic rings (e.g., bat rings, fake gemstone rings) placed on their pointing finger help to entice the most reluctant readers.

• Provide people or animal puppets for students to use in the drama centre to dramatize what they like to do with their friends. Provide a small version of the book for students to reference in their dramatizations. Consider posting a sign for the puppet show that reads ‘Friends.’ You may also choose to post the ‘What is a Friend?’ chart as a reference for students.
  
• To extend the understanding of the inquiry question (‘Why should we be friends?’), keep a digital camera handy to capture photos of ‘friends in action’ around the classroom. Print and display the photos in the drama centre. Captions can be added to the photos (e.g., ‘Bezhad and Ibrahim playing,’ ‘Lula helping Penny’). Alternatively, a class book titled “Friends in Room XX” can be made by expanding the captions into complete sentences and placing the photographs above the text as in the book Friends.
  

• Three words on the Kindergarten high-frequency word list are used more than once in the text: ‘a,’ ‘to,’ ‘at.’ Select one of the words at a time and reread the text where it first appears. Then frame the word with a cardboard frame, a rectangle of coloured acetate, or Wikki Stix.
  

• How many letters are in the word ‘at’? Let’s count them together. Now let’s say the letter names as I point to each one. What is the word again? Let’s say the letter names again and clap for each letter, ‘a’…’t’… spells ‘at.’

  Have students find the chosen high-frequency word elsewhere in the book and frame it there, as well. Help students remember the word by doing a brief activity. Make the word in magnetic letters on a magnet board or in the pocket chart using the letter cards. [High-frequency words]
  
• On another day, frame the first instance of the word in the text, but cover the subsequent instances of the word with sticky notes. As you read with students, have them chime in to predict the correct, covered word, using meaning and structure clues. Reveal the first letter of the word if students miscue, and have them read the chunk of text again. If they still miscue, reveal both letters. Always be sure to praise students’ reading work.
  
• More practise with high-frequency words can be provided for students by having them form the words with large-sized letter cards. (See the ‘Jumbo’ lesson plan in the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide, p. 78.) Magnetic letters can also be used for this purpose.
  
• Choose a target letter to feature, such as ‘s.’ Frame or mask the letter as it appears in the text. Both upper and lower case ‘s’ appear in the text (e.g., ‘see,’ ‘likes,’ ‘shares,’ ‘toys,’ ‘spends,’ ‘places,’ ‘trust,’ ‘secret,’ ‘cares,’ ‘gives,’ ‘just,’ ‘looks,’ ‘does,’ ‘she,’ ‘Someone’). You can focus on the formation of the letter in your morning message. (See ‘Focusing on the Target Letter in the Morning Message’ lesson plan in the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide, p. 40.)

THIRD READING

• a range of comprehension strategies are integrated throughout the lesson
• the comprehension purpose for this reading focuses on Inferring/synthesizing/evaluating

Working with Words
• building words

Assessment Opportunities
Note each student’s ability to:
• chime in with the reading
• evaluate information
• build words from letters
• evaluate the author’s big idea, or message
• apply the inquiry question: Why should we be friends?

Time: approximately 20-25 minutes

BEFORE READING

• I’ve learned that we all need friends, there are many different kinds of friends, and that friendship is important for lots of reasons.

  Ask students to think about all we have learned about friends so far. Model a response to support their thinking. [Evaluating]

• Ask students what they have learned so far about friends and why we should have them. [Self-monitoring/synthesizing]
  
• Students can discuss in partners, with a few partners sharing with the class, or alternatively, you may wish to have a whole-class discussion. Use prompts to keep the discussion focused:
  • Do friends have to be exactly alike? Why do you think this?
  • Should we only have friends who are the same age as us? Why? Why not?
  • What are some of the ways that we show friendship to someone else?  

• I am thinking the author is trying to tell us something important about friends and friendship. Think about this as we read.

  Ask students to read the text with you and ask them to think about what the author’s big idea is, or, the message she is trying to give us.

DURING READING

• Read the story together, encouraging all students to participate. If students read confidently, make your voice quieter until they need more of your support.

• I think the author is saying that it is important to have someone who you can trust, and who trusts you, too.

  Pause after reading page 7 and discuss why the author has included the idea of ‘trust.’

• Have the students share their personal thoughts with a partner. Encourage a few students to share with the class. Use prompts such as:
• The text says that we place trust in our friends. Why do you think the author thinks trust is so important? [Inferring/evaluating/synthesizing]
• Can you think of a time when you trusted your friend? What happened? [Making connections]

• This reminds me of how my friend took care of me when I was sick, even though I was not nice to be around. I think the author wants us to know it is important to care about each other.

  Pause after reading page 9 and discuss why the author has included the words ‘cares for you’ in the text. [Evaluating]
• Have the students share personal thoughts about caring for friends with a partner. Encourage a few students to share with the class. Use prompts such as:
• Tell me about a time when a friend cared for you. How did they help you? [Making connections]
• How did your friend’s caring for you make you feel? Why? [Making connections/evaluating]

AFTER READING

• What is it the author wants us to understand about friends? Why do you think she wrote this book?

  Invite the students to talk to a partner about what they think the author’s big idea is in the book. [Synthesizing/evaluating]
  Use prompts such as:
  • What do the different photos in the book tell you about what a friend is? [Inferring/analyzing]
  • Why do you think the author chose photos of many different kinds of friends? [Evaluating/synthesizing]
  • Why do you think the photos all show people who look happy or comforted? [Inferring/analyzing]
  • What did you notice about the two questions at the beginning and ending of the text? [Analyzing/inferring]
  • What clues tell you that the author wants the readers to think that friendship is important? [Analyzing/inferring]
• Use a modelled/shared writing session to help students extend their ideas about what a friend is. Record students’ ideas on a chart, then include them in the writing as you ‘share the pen.’ To assist students in their own writing, say a word or two ‘as slow as a snail’ to stretch it out and record the sounds heard.

Teaching Tip: If you use a black marker to record student ideas, select another colour to record the sound units heard by the students. This allows them to see how they helped you with the writing and builds their confidence as writers.

• Continue to provide people and animal puppets for students to use in the drama centre. Encourage students to dramatize what they like to do with their friends, in particular, showing situations where caring and trust between friends is evident.

• For a demonstration lesson for the following word solving and building activity, see Literacy Place for the Early Years Kindergarten Working with Words Guide, pages 61 to 64. See also the reproducible large letter cards on pages 115 to 128 and small letter cards on pages 111-114 of the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide. [Building words]

Key Word: Someone
Context: Friends, pages 3-11

• see (I see the flowers in the garden.)
• on (The book is on the table.)
  

• sister (I want to write ‘I like my sister.’ Which letter does ‘sister’ start with?)

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 in the big book.

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 using the small versions of the text to provide more individualized assistance.

In each rereading, select ideas from the following three areas based on the needs of your students.

• Where do we start reading? Point to each word as you read. When you say ‘to,’ your finger or the pointer should be on the word. Where do we go next?

  Encourage students to participate in using a pointer or chopstick to track print. Offer prompts to refine and expand print concepts. [Tracking print]

• Ask students to find a capital ‘S’ and a lower case ‘s’ (e.g., on p. 3). [Print concepts]

• Ask students to find and frame the word ‘at’ (e.g., pp. 2, 12). [High-frequency words]

• Provide small versions of the book Friends and the fluent reading on the Media Key or online to support students as they read along.

• Reread to think about what children are actually doing in some of the photos (e.g., p. 3, p. 4). [Inferring/analyzing]

• Reread to think about what each child is seeing on page 12 as they look at each other. Use prompts such as:
• Do you think the friends can tell what each other likes to do by just looking at one another? [Inferring/analyzing]
• Do you predict that these friends will take care of each other? How? [Inferring/evaluating]
• How do you think the friends are feeling? [Evaluating/inferring]
• How would you be feeling if you were one of the children in the photograph? What would you be thinking as you looked at this friend? [Making connections]

• 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 the digital texts.

• I have the word ‘at.’ It has two letters. How can I make the word ‘sat’? I sat on the floor. Say the word ‘sat’ slowly with me. What sound are you hearing at the beginning of the word? Which letter shall I choose?

  Take a word from the story (e.g., ‘at’) and build rhyming words with large-sized letter cards in the pocket chart or with magnetic letters. (See the reproducible large letter cards on pp. 115-128 in the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide.) You may also encourage the students to make the words with small letters. (See the reproducible small letter cards on pp. 111-114 in the Kindergarten Working with Words Guide.)

Teaching Tip: As you build words in the pocket chart or a magnetic board, individual students may use the smaller letters to build words along with you.

Teaching Tip: After several rereadings, the big book, the six small books, and the fluent reading of the text can be transferred to centres. They can be used for rereading and practising print tracking, for building fluency of an increasingly familiar text, and for extending comprehension through story retelling.

EXTENDING THE INQUIRY

• Have students partner up or divide them into small groups. Remind students of the sentence pattern used in the text (‘Someone who _______’). Read the first page of the text to introduce the activity, then have students look at one another and use the sentence pattern to tell about why each person is a friend (they may use the same examples as in the text or devise their own).

• Provide materials for students to create their own books modelled on Friends. Students may illustrate their books and add labels with support, or they may use the sentence starter ‘Someone who ________’ and text suggestions on chart paper to write sentences to accompany their illustrations.

• Read aloud other stories that demonstrate friendship and why people should be friends.
  
  Some suggestions include:
  Literacy Place for the Early Years materials:
  • David’s Drawings by Cathryn Falwell (Read Aloud)
  • The Very Cranky Bear by Nick Bland (Read Aloud)
  • We Are Different (Guided Reading)
  • Sisters (Guided Reading)
  • My Puppy (Guided Reading)
  Other Materials:
  • Boo Hoo Bird by Jeremy Tankard (Read Aloud)
  • Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard (Read Aloud)
  • A Friend Like You by Tanja Askani (Read Aloud)
  • Gilbert the Great by Jane Clarke (Read Aloud)
  • Half a World Away by Libby Gleeson (Read Aloud)