Read-Aloud Lesson Plan
Title: Moe McTooth
Author: Eileen Spinelli
Illustrator: Linda Bronson
Suggested Grade Level: First Grade
Strategy: Summarizing
Submitted by: Mindy Noles
School: Wrens Elementary School
Planning
This is a beautiful piece of fiction. Some would call it an “alley
cat’s tale.” The illustrations are wonderful. Moe McTooth
provides a context for teaching children to summarize a story
because it has a very clear beginning, middle, and end.
Before Reading:
I have two pet dogs. I love my dogs dearly. I don’t know what
I’d do if they were to ever run away. Do you have any pets?
Prepare
The title of the book I am going to read to you is Moe
McTooth. It is about an alley cat. While I am reading to you, I
want you to practice summarizing. Summarizing is one of the
things that good readers do. When you summarize, you use
what you know about stories and the parts of the stories. We
know that stories have a beginning, middle, and end. In the
beginning, we learn about the setting and the characters. In
the middle, one of the characters usually has a problem, and
in the end, the problem is solved. Think about this as you
listen.
During Reading:
Guide
When winter came, Moe seemed to become very miserable
living outside on the streets. Then, she was taken in by a
young woman. Wow, Moe really got lucky! Now, let’s see
what happened at the beginning of the story? Who can tell
me the characters? What about the setting? Do we know the
problem? So in the beginning, Moe McTooth was an outdoor
cat. He prowled through the city and danced down the alleys
in the moonlight until it became winter. Then Moe became
cold and hungry.
After being taken in by the young woman, life for Moe was
good, but Moe began to miss running the streets wild, so she
ran away.
At the end of the story, Moe missed the young woman and
decided to go back to the woman’s apartment. Together they
prowled the streets and gazed up at the stars, and life was
good, together.
After Reading:
Extend
Who can summarize? Remember when we summarize, we
use what we know about the story to tell what happened. In
the beginning, we meet the characters and find out the
setting. In the middle, the problem is introduced. At the end,
the problem is solved.
If you were the young woman, would you let the cat come
back in and live with you again?
Vocabulary Lesson
There were some interesting words in that book that I think we
need to know.
The first one is dumpsters. In the book, Moe ran the streets
and jumped in the dumpsters looking for food. A dumpster is
a trash can. Can anyone use the word dumpster in a
sentence?
Another word was prowl. In the story, the cat prowled down
the street. Prowl means to roam. A cat usually prowls around
looking for food. Can someone else use or word?
Today we’ll put two new words, dumpster and prowl, up on
our word wall.