FWPS Kindergarten Module 3 Cycle 2–Learning Through Research
This lesson map for Module 2 provides a snapshot of combined reading and writing lessons in a specific sequence. Please note that although we have numbered them
1, 2, 3 …some lessons could easily span more than one day or have days in between. The focus standards are suggestions which you will want to narrow for the day and
the suggested book title may be replaced with a similar text if more appropriate for your purpose. Priority standards are highlighted in gray. Many of the lesson rationales
have been pulled or adapted from Schoolwide Inc. units whom we purchased our Mentor Texts from. If you have the binders, you’ll notice that in some cases we have
substituted titles from the original suggested texts for better flow. Schoolwide (SWI) units are available for purchase from Schoolwide Inc. Contact Lauren Buglione at
631-468-6732 or Lbuglione@schoolwide.com for more information. Another great resource is Portland Public School’s writing Curriculum that follows Lucy Calkins’
Writers Workshop. Here is the link: http://www.pps.k12.or.us/departments/curriculum/2071.htm. The Lesson Maps are designed primarily for your whole
group instruction. As described in the FWPS Literacy Blueprint, whole group is only part of a balanced literacy program. It’s important to remember that during this
“unit” you should also be doing small group instruction based on student need and instructional level and ensure students have time for independent practice reading
and writing.
Cycle one for this module is a Study on learning through research.
Cycle two for this module centers on researching a topic and writing their own informational text.
The following culturally conscious teaching strategies are important to keep in mind throughout your lessons1) Provide multiple opportunities for structured oral language practice, including turn and talk, small group, and whole group discussion. Developing the culture of
your classroom learning community is a continuous process. During whole group, provide on-going opportunities for oral language. This language support can
be done by “Turn and Talks” in partnerships or groups of three. Having targeted students share their thinking or sharing their partner’s thinking in whole
group supports the development of language and the learning community.
2) Provide sentence frames as a starting point for discussion and written responses, e.g. “I believe_______________ because _______________.” Providing
language supports such as sentence frames with the expectation of answering in complete sentences (Complete Answer Technique – CAT) supports the oral
language development of all students especially ELL students and vulnerable students.
3) Deliberately teach academic vocabulary needed to be successful on the tasks. For example, if asking a student to compare, first define compare and provide
examples of how to compare.
4) Give positive and specific affirmation of student effort and habits of mind, along with academic outcome.
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Starting with an Immersion Phase
One way to set the stage for this cycle is to immerse students in the Mentor Texts prior to starting the following lessons. It is recommended that you spend 3-5 days
reading all books or excerpts from longer texts in the cycle while students listen just for pleasure. This allows them to “marinate” in the genre, focus solely on listening,
and gives them an opportunity to discuss patterns they see and hear. By doing this for the first read, teachers can keep their subsequent lessons focused on the strategy
or craft by highlighting specific areas of the text, and allows students to shift from attending to the text with a “reader lens” to attending to the text with a “writer lens”
depending on the focus of the lesson.
Lesson 1-How do you learn new things?
Reading:
“Exploring
Nonfiction!”
Writing:
“What is How-to
Writing?”
Rationale:
Review of Lesson 1 from Cycle 1.
Readers explore interesting topics, learn new things
about their world, enhance their curiosity, and discover
answers to their questions when they read nonfiction
texts. Students will be introduced to a new genre study
by examining the different types, looks, and structures
of nonfiction texts.
SWI Reading Nonfiction Unit- Lesson 1
Rationale: Review from Cycle 1
Students will be excited about a new type of writing—
how-to texts.
By listening to and discussing How to Be by Lisa Brown,
students will collaboratively create an initial list of
features of how-to writing.
SWI Writing Nonfiction Unit-Writing – Day 1
Lesson 2-What are the important parts of a book?
Reading:
Rationale:
Readers use what they think they know along with titles,
“ What We
pictures, headings, and content to help them confirm
Think We Know their understandings, clear up misconceptions, and learn
. . . What We
new information. They also develop questions about
Want to Learn”
topics as they learn. Students will use their background
knowledge and questions they have in order to enhance
their understanding of topics found in nonfiction texts.
SWI Reading Nonfiction Unit- Lesson 2
Possible text:
All of the mentor
texts from the unit.
Possible Texts:
All of the mentor
texts from the unit,
particularly How to
Be by Lisa Brown.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.5
K.RI.10
Notes:
This lesson is just a review of nonfiction
texts. Go as in-depth as you think your
students need on the different types of
nonfiction texts there are and how they are
the same/different than fiction. If you have
any anchor charts from cycle 1, this may be
a good time to review some of them.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.SL.1
Notes:
Review with students the different writings
they did in cycle 1. You may want to look
back at some of the modeled writing lessons
you did. This cycle will be about expanding
their writing by adding more
details/information and doing some
editing/revising to improve their writing.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.1
K.SL.2
K.SL.3
Notes:
This lesson reinforces using background
knowledge to help with gaining meaning
from text, but also allows students to
confirm or find evidence that what they
know is true.
Before reading, could brainstorm what they
think they know about soccer and then as
you read confirm or prove if they were
correct.
Or student writings
from cycle 1
Possible text:
Soccer by Charlotte
Guillain.
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Writing:
“Talk Readers
Through Your
How-to”
Rationale: Review from Cycle 1
Procedural writers speak directly to readers to instruct
and advise them on the processes about which they
write. Students will think about the specific audience to
whom they wish to direct their own how-to pieces.
Possible text:
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.W.5
Notes:
When students write they want to think
about who their audience is. You can
brainstorm how their writing might look
different if you are writing to different
people. How might the author of “Walk
On!” have changed their writing if they were
writing to a mom about how a baby walks?
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.1
K.SL.2
K.SL.3
Notes:
The last section in the book What We Wear
has headings and pictures that can support
your students to ask questions and use these
tools to help them think about what they are
going to read and to bring in personal
connections.
Possible Texts:
Building a House by
Byron Barton.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.SL.1
K.SL.4
Notes:
Help students think about something they
can do well or are an expert at. Can
generate a list of things that they are experts
at…this may help those that don’t see
themselves at experts. What information do
they know that they can teach others?
Possible text:
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.2
K.RI.8
K.SL.2
Notes:
Model how you activate your background
knowledge to help you make connections
and deepen your understanding when
reading new information.
How Bees Make Honey has been used in
numerous lessons. Recommend the Insects
and Arachnids text as students may have some
misconceptions and may learn new
information.
Walk On! A Guide
for Babies by Marla
Frazee.
SWI Writing NF Mini-Lesson 3 – Generating Ideas
Lesson 3-How do you develop questions about a text using prior knowledge?
Reading:
“ What We
Think We Know
. . . What We
Want to Learn”
Writing:
“You’re the
Expert”
Rationale:
Readers use what they think they know along with titles,
pictures, headings, and content to help them confirm
their understandings, clear up misconceptions, and learn
new information. They also develop questions about
topics as they learn. Students will use their background
knowledge and questions they have in order to enhance
their understanding of topics found in nonfiction texts.
SWI Reading NF Lesson 2
Rationale:
How-to writings are written to teach readers how to do
some activity or understand some process about which
the writer is an expert. To generate ideas for writing,
students will explore the topics and activities on which
they are experts and what topics they could supply some
information about.
SWI Writing NF Mini-Lesson 1 – Generating Ideas
Possible text:
What We Wear by
Maya Ajmera, Elise
Hofer Destine and
Cynthia Pon
Lesson 4-How do you share new learning?
Reading:
Rationale:
Readers of nonfiction stop, think, and react in order to
“Stop . . . Think . remember and share new information. Students will
. . React”
activate their background knowledge in order to
confirm the facts they already know and then identify
and share the facts that are new.
Opportunity to do a close reading with the text
Insects and Arachnids
SWI Reading NF Mini-Lesson 4
Insects and
Arachnids, text
from the
Kindergarten
Nonfiction Toolkit
Texts
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Writing:
“Do What Other
How-To Writers
Do”
Rationale:
How-to writers get ideas by gathering information
through observing others, asking experts, practicing
procedures themselves, and sketching or drawing.
Students will consider how writers get inspired and will
use one or more of these methods to generate ideas.
Possible Texts:
Road Builders by B.
G. Hennessy and I
Can Draw People by
Ray Gibson.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.W.5
K.SL.1
K.SL.5
Notes:
Have students share where they get their
ideas for writing. What are they interested in
learning? They can get ideas from asking
others who are experts at something, reading
books, watching others, etc.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.4
K.L.4
Notes:
This lesson is a review from cycle 1. You can
revisit the strategy of using the picture or the
text around the word(s) that one is trying to
gain meaning from.
Learning to Fish has a picture glossary that
could be used to help students find the
meaning of words.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.W.5
K.SL.1
K.SL.5
Notes:
Using a simple picture to define a word may
be a great way to introduce the students to
utilizing a glossary in their writing of
nonfiction.
If you use the Learning to Fish text in your
reading lesson, you could easily have them
incorporate this one in their own writing.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.2
K.RI.4
K.SL.2
K.SL.4
Notes:
Recommend using the text Our Garden
Helpers as the students would be able to
activate their schema on a new text. They
may have some misconceptions about
worms, which would provide an opportunity
to change their thinking. This text would be
a bit challenging for a close reading.
SWI Writing NF Mini-Lesson 4 – Generating Ideas
Lesson 5-How do you figure out the meaning of a unknown word?
Reading:
“Features That
Help Us
Discover
Meaning”
Rationale:
Readers figure out the meaning of content-specific
vocabulary by using nonfiction text features to help
them. Students will discover the meaning of new words
found in their nonfiction books by using the pictures
and the Glossary.
Opportunity to do a close reading with Learning to Fish if
you did not do so in cycle 1.
Writing:
“Using a
Glossary to help
the reader”
SWI Reading NF Mini-Lesson 6
Rationale:
Writers often add a glossary to help the reader learn the
meaning of new words. Students will explore a
couple/several different types of glossaries. Students
will consider how they could incorporate a glossary in
their nonfiction writing to help others understand what
they wrote.
Possible text:
Soccer by Charlotte
Guillain.
Learning to Fish
from the
kindergarten
Nonfiction toolkit
texts
Possible Texts:
Learning to Fish
from the
kindergarten
Nonfiction toolkit
texts
Not a SWI Lesson
Lesson 6-What strategies do you use to clear up misconceptions when you are reading?
Reading:
“Oops! I Used to
Think . . . But
Now I Know …”
Rationale:
Readers revise their thinking about the topics they read
about in order to enhance their schema and clear up any
confusion or misconceptions. Students will read and
discover new information that adds to what they already
know and changes the way they think about a topic.
SWI Reading NF Mini-Lesson 5
Possible text:
Our Garden Helpers
from the
Kindergarten
Nonfiction Toolkit
Texts
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Writing:
“How-to
Writing:
Teaching and
Telling”
Rationale:
Writers draw on what they already know and use a plan
to help them write their “how-to” books.
Writers need a structure to help them plan and write
their books. Together with your students develop an
anchor chart with the steps for writing a “how-to”
paper.
(Opportunity to use Make a Flower Sandwich as a
close reading during your reading block)
Possible Texts:
Make a Flower
Sandwich from the
kindergarten
Nonfiction toolkit
texts
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.W.5
K.SL.1
K.SL.5
Notes:
Together as a class make an anchor chart on
writing a “How-to” writing piece using
numbers to show the steps in making/doing
something. Make a Flower Sandwich show
and tells how to make a special sandwich
using pictures and numbered steps to show
the sequence.
How-to Writing
1. Tells what to do, in steps
2. Numbers the steps
3. Has a picture for each step
Not an SWI Lesson
Lesson 7-How can you use additional information to further your reading?
Reading:
“Learning as
Much as We
Can”
Writing:
“Labels &
Captions”
Rationale:
Readers of nonfiction use additional information
found in the back of their nonfiction books to further
explore the topic(s) they are reading about. Students
will discover how maps, references, and additional
resources help guide readers as they continue to learn
about a topic.
SWI Reading NF Mini-Lesson 8
Rationale:
How-to writers use labels, captions, and other
environmental print to enhance readers’
understanding and to create visual interest. Students
will identify how labels and captions are used in the
unit literature and will then create an illustration for
their own how-to piece that Uses labels and captions.
SWI Writing NF Revising I
Possible text:
I See a Kookaburra!
Discovering Animal
Habitats Around the
World by Jenkins and
Page, Healthy Habits
by Weber, and What
We Wear: Dressing Up
Around the World by
Ajmera, Hofer
Derstine, and Pon.
Possible Texts:
Growing Vegetable Soup
by Lois Ehlert, I Can
Draw People by Ray
Gibson, and
students’ drafts.
From the Primary
Comprehension
Toolkit Texts: The 3
Goats and/or Kids at
Play
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.1
K.RI.5
Notes:
For this lesson you may want to use several
books which have text features such as
glossary, added information at the end of the
book, maps, etc. You will focus on just
those pages, vs. reading the entire book.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.W.5
K.SL.5
Notes:
Most of your students are probably
proficient at adding labels to their pictures
and may have moved beyond this to writing
about their picture in a more formal way.
Students may want to try adding “captions”
which describe in a condensed phrase or
sentence.
Attached: Writing paper w/picture and caption
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Lesson 8-What fun facts can you use when reading different topics?
Reading:
“The “Fun” in
Fun Facts”
Rationale:
Readers use fun facts in order to expand their
knowledge and understanding about different topics.
Students will explore the different ways nonfiction
writers provide fun facts and how these facts help
them better understand the topics they read about.
SWI Reading NF Mini-Lesson 9
Writing:
“The “Fun” in
Fun Facts”
Possible text:
Healthy Habits by
Rebecca Weber, How
Bees Make Honey by
Louise Spilsbury, I
See a Kookaburra!
Discovering Animal
Habitats,
“Insects and Arachnids”
and “A Mexican
Market” from the
Kindergarten
Nonfiction Toolkit
Texts
Rationale:
Possible Texts:
Writing and reading nonfiction can be “fun”. We want Utilize the text from
to encourage our young writers to write things that
the reading lesson
others may find interesting.
above.
This is an extension to the reading lesson listed above.
Lesson 9: Performance Task
Reading and
See Performance Task
Writing
The performance task will give the directions, time
frame and passages for this module.
“ELA
It will take 2-3 days depending on how you break
culminating
up the tasks.
performance
task for
nonfiction
standards”
Possible text:
“At the Seashore”
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.2
K.RI.8
Notes:
Share the fun of writing and especially with
interesting tidbits of information. Use any
of the text listed or one of the other short
passages in the toolkit. There are some
other passages that may inspire the students,
but will need to be read by you. You
probably have students that know fun
facts…have them share.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.W.2
K.W.5
K.SL.5
Notes:
Encourage students to write about
interesting facts that they know. They may
choose something from the texts that were
shared in the whole group reading lesson.
Common Core
State Standards:
K.RI.1
K.RI.10
K.W.2
Notes:
See attached Performance task for
Nonfiction ELA standards.
Celebration: Be sure to include a day for celebrating students’ hard work on their narratives at the end of this cycle. This may be another lesson, or
at another time of the day, with your reading buddies, or whatever way works best for you and your students.
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Resources:
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Module 3 Mentor Texts
PreK-1st Grade Nonfiction Texts
*Primary Comprehension Toolkit – if available at your school
Writing Paper with Caption Picture
Kindergarten Performance Task for Nonfiction
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