Standards: Connecticut has adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as the Connecticut State Standards (CSS).

BIG IDEAS

• Readers know that certain elements of books require more attention than others.
• Readers can talk back to the book with questions and comments in order to develop ideas and strengthen comprehension.
• Readers know that predicting, retelling, and questioning a book can support developing an understanding of the text.
• Readers know that discussion of a book with peers serves to deepen understanding.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS - Students will keep considering . . .

• How do readers build a full reading life?
• How do readers create reading goals and remember to live by them daily?
• How do readers work to best understand the story?
• How do readers tackle more challenging text?

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to . . .

Sessions 1-6: Readers build a powerful reading life.

• set goals and track their progress.
• choose books at their just right reading level and track their progress using reading logs.
• create systems that engage them in their reading.
• follow systems that have been designed to find and share books within the classroom.

Sessions 7-12: Readers use comprehension strategies to understand stories.

• envision "make a movie in their mind" as they read.
• predict using their knowledge of how stories go and evaluate their predictions as they read.
• retell parts of a story to deepen comprehension.

Sessions 8-19: Readers use multiple strategies to read more complex texts.

• use strategies (context clues, chunking...) to figure out unknown words and figurative language.
• monitor understanding of the text by asking questions and considering the author's purpose.
• communicate their thinking about reading through written response.

BIG IDEAS

• The mystery in a story can be solved by pausing, making and revising predictions, and identifying clues in the story as they read.
• Subsequent books in a series introduce other settings and new characters while also having some predictable elements from previous books within the same series.
• By looking closely and interpreting even the smallest of a character’s actions, deeper meaning and life lessons can be hidden within mystery stories.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS - Students will keep considering . . .

• How do readers use what they know about how fiction books tend to go in order to make powerful predictions in mysteries?
• How do mysteries tend to go?
• How do readers become knowledgeable enough about mysteries that they can compare and contrast different mystery series?
• What life lessons can be learned from analyzing the characters and the plot in a mystery?

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

Students will learn to . . .

Sessions 1-7: Readers understand Mystery as a genre.

• understand the components of a mystery (clues, suspects...) and use them to better understand their books.
• continue to predict, envision, and retell to monitor their comprehension.
• apply word solving strategies to solve unknown words.

Sessions 8-14: Readers apply their knowledge of mystery as a genre to multiple books.

• talk with partners about their books using all they know about mystery as a genre.
• set goals for reading.
• know when to slow down and pay attention to clues the author is leaving.

Sessions 15-18: Readers will use skills they've accumulated from reading mysteries and apply those skills to any fiction book.

• make and revise predictions.
• identify and track problems and how they are resolved.
• study characters actions and words to understand traits and motivations.

BIG IDEAS

• Nonfiction text structure supports a reader's understanding of the text.
• Readers of nonfiction determine the main idea of a text and support their thinking with text evidence.
• Readers grow ideas as they read nonfiction text.
• Readers effectively communicate their ideas about nonfiction to others.
• Readers ask and answer questions to deepen understanding text.
• Readers remember that authors present their own point of view and it may differ from one's own.
• Nonfiction information can be found in both illustrations and in text.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS - Students will keep considering . . .

• How does text structure support a reader's understanding?
• How do readers determine main ideas in a text?
• How do readers determine the author's perspective on a topic and use that understanding to lift the level of their thinking about the text?
• How do readers grow ideas about nonfiction text?
• How do readers effectively communicate their ideas about nonfiction to others?
• How readers read narrative nonfiction well?

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to . . .

Sessions 1-6: Readers will determine importance in expository texts.

• preview expository texts to prepare for reading.
• summarize portions of expository texts by identifying the main idea and listing supporting details.
• utilize text features to aid in the development of main ideas and details.
• draft and revise main ideas as they read on.
• take notes on what they reading using their own words.

Sessions 7-10: Readers will learn to think and talk about expository texts they are reading.

• distinguish between first and third person and name what an author's perspective is on a topic.
• use talk prompts to discuss the books they are reading.
• distinguish their opinion about a topic from the author's.

Sessions 11-19: tudents will synthesize and grown ideas in narrative nonfiction.

• read narrative nonfiction and biographies through the lenses of story or information.
• apply word solving strategies to understand new vocabulary.
• identify the subject's traits, wants and struggles.
• summarize narrative nonfiction.

BIG IDEAS

• Readers know that paying close attention to how a character responds to challenges will lead to making inferences.
• Noticing character patterns will foster building theories about characters.
• Making inferences and theories about a character lead to a deeper understanding of the character, of the text, and of life.
• In fiction, characters move through a story on a predictable story mountain.
• Readers compare and contrast characters and other story elements across books.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS - Students will keep considering . . .

• How do readers get to know a character?
• How can readers follow a character across a story?
• How do readers revise their developing theories as they accumulate more information?
• How do readers compare and contrast characters across books in order to synthesize ideas into themes that are applicable across books?

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to . . .

Sessions 1-6: Readers will get to know characters in their fiction stories.

• notice how a character talks and acts to infer who they are and identify character traits.
• synthesize patterns in the character's actions to create text based theories about their characters.
• predict character behaviors based on inferences that have been made.

Sessions 7-14: Readers will track character across a story in book clubs.

• follow a character using a story mountain (character, setting, plot...).
• notice that characters encounter multiple problems.
• pay attention to how characters react to problems to better understand their characters.
• pay attention to secondary characters and their impact on the main character's journey.
• notice that illustrations add to the story.
• identify the climax of the story and understand that it's the turning point in a character's journey.
• understand how an author writes a story to incorporate suspense and tension.

Sessions 15-19: eaders will compare and contrast characters across books.

• compare and contrast main characters and how they are similar and different focusing on what they say, do, how they respond to problems, and what the characters learn.

BIG IDEAS

• Readers use similar skills and strategies for reading fiction texts when reading biographies.
• Biography readers should consider why the character's achievements matter to the world and ourselves.
• Biography readers grow ideas and theories.
• Biography readers must read across multiple texts and synthesize ideas.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS - Students will keep considering . . .

• How do readers of biography draw on all that they know about reading narratives and about character development to read biographies well?
• How do readers of biography use everything they know about reading informational texts to learn about the subject of a biography, as well as about the time, place, and the world in which he/she lived?
• How do readers of biography develop theories about the subject of a biography that are not unlike the theories that are developed about characters in fictional books?
• How do readers of biography think about the person's motivations and struggles, and about what resources the person draws upon in order to overcome difficulties?
• How do readers of biography think about why this character's achievements matter to the world?

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to . . .

Sessions 1-5: Readers will use their knowledge of narrative story structure to read biographies.

• learn about a person by studying his actions, speech, and interactions.
• map out a story arc of a person's life.
• examine the relationships of the subject with secondary characters and their influences.

Sessions 6-15: Readers will use their knowledge of informational texts to read biographies.

• understand the setting (time and place) and how it impacts the subject.
• read from related sources about the time period of the biography to grow background knowledge.
• note and discuss parts of an informational text aht teach about the subject's world beyond their personal life.
• develop connections between the subject's life and historical events.
• understand the impact of the historical events on the subject's life and the decisions the subject made.

Sessions 16-20: Readers will develop theories about the subject in a biography.

• understand the person's motivations and struggles.
• identify the resources the person draws upon in order to overcome difficulties.
• interpret how the subject impacted the world, why their achievements matter, and how these achievements impact his life.

BIG IDEAS

• Text features support readers in locating pertinent information.
• Readers synthesize information across multimedia texts in order to further grow ideas.
• Nonfiction readers can find answers to their questions by consulting additional texts on the same topic.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS - Students will keep considering . . .

• What does a reader need to know about nonfiction texts in order to access all of the information and acquire new knowledge?
• How does a reader research a topic and build upon that research?
• How can a reader synthesize and compare and contrast information?

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to . . .

Sessions 1-6: Students will research a topic.

• work in a small club to organize the work of studying an animal.
• gather texts that relate to a subtopic.
• orient themselves to a text and draw on prior knowledge of the structure of the topic.
• use a text preview to confirm or revise expectations once they begin reading.
• draw on prior knowledge when researching a topic and link it to new learning.
• infer what he or she can learn from a research topic.

Sessions 7-12: Students will cycle through another research project.

• apply previously learned research skills to another research topic.
• read with a "teacher/explaining" voice.
• identify main idea and details of a text.
• compare and contrast books on the same topic.
• organize notes into subsections.

Sessions 13-19: Students will synthesize, compare and contrast across subtopics.

• develop expertise about a topic by thinking about patterns and relationships.
• ask questions and form theories about their subject, then make plans to read further to test those theories.
• study all the evidence they find to grow new evidence-based theories.

BIG IDEAS

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS - Students will keep considering . . .

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to . . .

Sessions 1-4: Readers learn about issues in the world and in their lives.

• identify life lessons that people can learn from books.
• apply lessons to their own lives.

Sessions 5-10: Readers will look read at texts through different literary lenses.

• read a text through the lens of an issue to help them better understand the story.
• compare issues across books.
• identify character perspectives of an social issue.

Sessions 11-20: Readers read with a new social issue lens and apply what they learn to the world around them.

• come up with a plan to study a social issue.
• identify how characters react to a problem and what they can learn from that reaction.
• figure out why an author selects specific words or phrases and what those words or phrases mean.