Who Lays Eggs?

by Claire Llewellyn

Institute of Education

These animals lay eggs.

bird

snake

butterfly 2

wasp

lizard turtle 3

Pink B band

Who Lays Eggs?

Claire Llewellyn

Using this book

Learning outcomes

Developing reading comprehension

Children can:

This non-fiction report provides information on the ways that animals keep their eggs safe. This text works in a different way than a story and has simple captions of the names of the animals. Children need to be guided to understand that the text refers to generic groups – all lizards, for example, not just the one in the illustration.

• know that print carries meaning and is read from left to right, top to bottom • read some high-frequency words and use phonic knowledge to work out some simple words • indicate how information can be found in non-fiction text.

Three language structures are used on each page. Tracking three lines of text may be challenging for some so rehearsing tracking and return sweep across three lines of text needs to be secured as part of introducing the book.

A guided reading lesson

Grammar and sentence structure

Give a book to each child and read the title.

• Support the change in vocabulary by attending to letter information (soil, nest, log).

Orientation

• Reinforce use of the pronoun ‘it’ to refer to the animal being discussed.

Word meaning and spelling • Check knowledge of technical vocabulary lays, soil, log, nest, leaf.

• Rehearse blending easy to hear sounds into familiar words in eggs.

• Reinforce recognition of frequently occurring words are the A.

Curriculum links The information in this book could be used as part of classroom activities in science and nature to discuss mammals/non-mammals or characteristics of egg-laying animals (some are reptiles, some are birds, some are fish, for example). These animals have developed ways of keeping their young safe. Children could use other texts to inform making charts of predators and prey.

Other Pink B texts in this series can be used to develop one-to-one correspondence and tracking across 2-3 lines of text.

Introducing the text

Give a brief orientation to the text: In this book, we find out which animals lay eggs and where they lay their eggs to keep them safe.

Preparation P2: Lots of animals lay eggs. Let’s check that we know the names of the animals in this book.

Provide the names of the animals not known by the children, drawing attention to the first letter information that will help them check in the case of bee/wasp and lizard/snake.

P4. Where does the bird lay eggs? Yes, that’s right, in a nest. Put your finger under the word ‘nest’ – look for the word that will sound like ‘nest’. Can you find another one the same? Do you think the eggs are safe? Can you find the word that says ‘safe’?

If locating the words is easy for the children, turn through the pages to draw out responses to support the use of animal names. If locating the specific words is challenging, continue through the book, modelling the names of the animals if necessary.