Snakes Nonfiction
Teachers and parents
Before tackling these Green Level Readers, a child will need to be able to:
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Recognise the basic 42 letter sounds; Recognise the alternative letter-sound spellings in the leaves below, including the ‘hop-over ‹e›’ digraphs in words like take, these, bike, code, mule; Read (blend) regular words containing these letter sounds; Recognise the twenty tricky words shown in the flowers below; Recognise the names of the three main characters, as well as Phonic.
Snakes are reptiles. They have no arms or legs. There are about three thousand different sorts of snakes. Some snakes are very long and some are quite short.
scales
A snake has scales to protect its skin from the hot sun. A snake’s skin feels cool and smooth.
As a snake gets bigger, it has to shed its skin. The skin looks dull when it is about to be shed. The snake rubs its nose to loosen the old skin, which splits to let the snake slide out.
old skin
Snakes can glide on the ground and slide up trees. As a snake slithers along, the scales on the underside of its body grip onto the ground. Some snakes can swim too.
Snakes need the sun, but they cannot cool down by themselves. They have to hide from very hot sun. When it is cool, snakes are sluggish and sleepy.
Snakes normally hatch from eggs. The eggs have strong, leathery shells which do not crack if they are dropped. eggs
young snake egg tooth
A snake hides its eggs in holes in the ground or sand, or in gaps in rocks. A young snake is born with an egg tooth to help it get out of the egg when it hatches.
An adder has zigzag markings on its back. It is poisonous but the poison cannot kill you. An adder’s eggs hatch inside its body so the young adders are born alive.
Some snakes spend the whole winter sleeping. They look for a hole to shelter inside, in the ground, or in a rock or a tree. They do not wake up again until spring comes.
Snakes are hunters. The bones in a snake’s mouth are joined together quite loosely so they can spread wide apart to fit food in. The skin stretches around the food, too, as if it were made of elastic.
Rattlesnakes, or rattlers, live in North America. A rattler has a bit of dead scale at the tip of its tail. When it shakes its tail, the dead scale makes a buzzing, rattling sound.
rattler
Rattlers hunt small animals such as frogs, toads, and lizards. But rattlers are hunted themselves, too, by king snakes, opossums and roadrunners.
roadrunner
frog
constrictor
The biggest sorts of snakes are called constrictors. When it catches an animal, a constrictor coils its body around the animal and squeezes it hard.
The anaconda, which lives in South America, is the biggest snake of all. Anacondas can be more than 30 feet long.
anaconda
Some snakes are poisonous and have poison, called venom. When a snake bites, it injects venom into its victim with its fangs.
fangs
The poison can be milked from the snakes. It can be used to make an antidote so that if a snake bites someone, they can be made better.
Reading Comprehension
Teachers and parents
An important part of becoming a confident, fluent reader is a child’s ability to understand what they are reading. Below are some suggestions on how to develop a child’s reading comprehension.
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Make reading this book a shared experience between you and the child. Try to avoid leaving it until the whole book is read before talking about it. Occasionally stop at various intervals throughout the book.
Ask questions about the characters, the setting, the action and the meaning.
l Encourage the child to think about what might happen next. It does not matter if the answer is right or wrong, so long as the suggestion makes sense and demonstrates understanding.
l Ask the child to describe what is happening in the illustrations.
l Relate what is happening in the book to any real-life experiences the child may have.
l Pick out any vocabulary that may be new to the child and ask what they think it means. If they don’t know, explain it and relate it to what is happening in the book.
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l Encourage the child to summarise, in their own words, what they have read.
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l l What’s in the book?
What sort of animals are snakes?
What do snakes usually hatch from?
What is venom?
What
do you think?
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Why do snakes shed their skin? Are snakes dangerous?
Jolly Phonics Readers
These readers have been written with a carefully controlled vocabulary, and are specifically designed for children who are learning to read and write with Jolly Phonics.
• The text in these Green Level Books (third level) uses only decodable regular words that use the letter-sound knowledge taught so far (the 42 main letter sounds, the alternative spelling of ‹y› for the /ee/ sound at the end of words like happy and sunny and the ‘hop-over ‹e›’ spellings of the long vowel sounds) and a small number of tricky words (frequently used words that are not fully decodable at this stage).
• All new tricky words and alternative vowel spellings used are shown on the front inside cover; these can be used as a quick practice activity before starting the book.
• Faint type is used for silent letters, like the ‹b› in lamb.
• Comprehension questions and discussion topics are included at the end of the book. These ensure that children are not only able to read the text, but also get meaning from it.
Green Level Readers
Inky Mouse & Friends
The Tree That Blinked
What’s in the Box?
The Old Red Tractor
The Model Boat
Wait and See!
The Bad-Tempered Goat
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Fox and the Stork
The Outing
The Little Merman
The Cricket and the Ants Little Monsters
To see the full range of Jolly Phonics products, visit our website at www.jollylearning.co.uk
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