Big Ships Need Tugboats / The Tugboat Team Lesson Plan

Lesson Plans Early reading stage Level F (10)

Big Ships Need Tugboats is a report about how small tugboats guide big ships into and out of the docks.

Running words: 214 Text type: Report

In The Tugboat Team, three little old tugboats find out that if they work as a team, they are not too little or too old to help big ships.

Running words: 264 Text type: Narrative

High-frequency words

Key vocabulary

New: by each from long need or old other take things very work when

around back boat/s bumping bumped close dock first help hit hitting holds leave meet need pads rocks ropes safely second ship soft strong team third three tug tugboats tugged two yellow

Phonics

• Identifying “sh” as in ship • Identifying “ck” as in dock, back

Text features Big Ships Need Tugboats The Tugboat Team

• Labeled photographs; diagrams • Repetitive pattern; diagrams

Reading strategies

• Reading diagrams to add meaning • Self-monitoring when reading

Correlations with State Standards Reading literature 1.RL.5 Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types.

Informational texts 1.RI.7 Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.

Foundational skills 1.RF.2c Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.

Writing 1.W.3 Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

Speaking and listening 1.SL.2 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

Language 1.L.4b Use frequently occurring affixes as a clue to the meaning of a word.

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Big Ships Need Tugboats

Key concepts • L arge vehicles are difficult to maneuver in water.

• When people cooperate and work as a team they achieve more than they could on their own.

Before reading

After reading

Getting ready to read

Talking about the book

Encourage students to activate their prior knowledge.

Give each student a copy of the book Big Ships Need Tugboats.

Ask the students to look at the photograph on the cover.

Ask: Where do you think the big ship is going? Why might the little boat be nearby? Have you ever seen ships like these? Explain that the little boat is called a tugboat. Ask: What do you think a tugboat does? List the students’ responses on the board.

Ask the students to talk about the book. Promote discussion by choosing questions that are appropriate for your students. Ask them to support their answers by referring to the photographs and the text in the book.

How do big ships come in to the dock? (Literal) Why don’t the big ships need the tugboats when they are out at sea?

(Inferential) Why are tugboats important? (Synthesizing) How would the author have learned the information she used to write this book? (Critical)

Vocabulary building Looking at the picture on the cover, point out the rope that runs from the tugboat to the big ship, and the tugboat’s soft pads. Write the words “rope” and “soft pads” on the board. Make a list of things that the tugboat would use the rope and soft pads for.

Introducing the book Say: This book tells us about why big ships need tugboats. Tugboats are small, but they are very strong and able to help big ships come in safely to the dock. Ask the students to talk about the book.

Have them discuss what is happening in the photographs and introduce any challenging words (strong, team, dock, soft pads). Focus on the diagrams. Ask: What do these pictures tell us? Point out the use of arrows and emphasis marks to indicate direction and movement.

During reading Ask each student to read the text independently. Monitor the students as they read and support them where appropriate. If necessary, ask the students to stop reading and remind them to use the reading strategies you are focused on. For example, are the students paying attention to the diagrams? Point to a diagram and ask: What is this picture called? What does it tell us? Ask the students to explain the information in the diagram.

Reviewing reading strategies Encourage the students to identify what they did to help themselves as readers. What are some of the things you did that helped you make sense of this book? What are some of the things you did to help yourself? If appropriate, comment on how well the students attended to the diagrams. You were making sense of the words by looking at the diagrams.

ELL support • Photographs and diagrams support the text.

• Labeled photographs support the content vocabulary.

The Tugboat Team

Returning to the book

Key concepts • Large vehicles are difficult to maneuver in water.

• When people cooperate and work as a team they achieve more than they could on their own.

Provide multiple opportunities for the students to read and interact with the book again – with teacher support, with a partner, and independently. Choose activities that are appropriate for your students.

Returning to the book Provide multiple opportunities for the students to read and interact with the book again – with teacher support, with a partner, and independently. Choose activities that are appropriate for your students.

Developing fluency

Developing fluency

Encourage the students to read the book again, adjusting their rate of reading so that the information is clear.

Say: You might need to slow down on some pages so that the information is clear.

Word work Phonemic awareness and phonics Invite the students to find words from the book that have the /sh/ sound. Ask them to find additional words by looking in familiar books. List the words on a chart according to where the /sh/ sound occurs in them.

Exploring words Ask the students to play word bingo with the word cards from the Blackline master (BLM). Provide two sets of cards (use different colored paper to differentiate the sets) and a bag. Divide one set evenly between the students, and place the second set in the bag. Have one student be the caller, taking one card at a time from the bag. If the word matches one in a student’s hand, the student turns that card over. The first student to turn all of his/her cards over wins.

Writing Modeled writing Ask the students to talk about what they have learned about tugboats. Make a “tugboat facts” list. Invite the students to contribute using their knowledge of highfrequency words. For example: Who can write “are” on our list? Encourage students to identify sounds within words.

For example: We need to write the word “strong”. Who can hear the sounds in “strong”? Who can write those letters on the chart?

Independent writing Ask each student to make a labeled diagram that shows how tugboats help big ships.

Sharing and presenting Ask the students to share their diagrams with partners.

Discuss the information shown on the diagrams.

Before reading

After reading

Ask the students to read the book again, making sure that they make their voices sound like each of the characters.

Say: The first little tugboat says he is too old. Make your voice sound the way he would sound.

Getting ready to read

Talking about the book

Word work

Show the students the cover of The Tugboat Team. Ask them to think of words that they think will be in this book.

Compile these words into a list.

Ask the students to talk about the book. Promote discussion by choosing questions that are appropriate for your students. Ask them to support their answers by referring to the illustrations and the text in the book.

Why did the tugboat say he couldn’t help the big ship? (Literal) Why did the first and second little tugboats change their minds about being too old or too little? (Inferential) How do teams help to get jobs done? (Synthesizing) Are teams always the best way to get jobs done? Why? Why not?

(Critical)

Introducing the book

Reviewing reading strategies

Give each student a copy of the book The Tugboat Team. Say: This book tells a story about two tugboats that thought they were too old or too small to help a big ship come in to the dock. But a third tugboat did not agree. He said that if they worked as a team they could help the big ships. Ask the students to talk about the book.

Provide support for any challenging words or concepts.

Encourage the students to identify what they did to help themselves as readers. If appropriate, comment on how well the students monitored themselves.

Encourage students to activate their prior knowledge.

Review the book Big Ships Need Tugboats. Ask: How does working as a team help tugboats do their work? When do you work as part of a team? How does being on a team make things easier to do? What do you have to do to make sure your team works together?

Vocabulary building

During reading

ELL support • Illustrations are clear and support the storyline.

• Title reflects the plot of the story.

• Predictable pattern to story.

Ask each student to read the text independently. Monitor the students as they read and support them where appropriate. If necessary, ask the students to stop reading and remind them to use the reading strategies you are focused on. For example, check that the students are monitoring their own reading. As the students pause or correct an error, ask: What did you notice? How did you know that word was wrong? Support students by saying: You read “__________.” Is that right?

Phonemic awareness and phonics Write “dock” and “back” on the board. Underline the “ck” in each word. Ask: What sound do these letters make in these words? Ask the students to look for and list other words with this letter combination. Provide dictionaries and other familiar books to support this exercise.

Exploring words Cut up the cards from the BLM. Give the students the word cards and ask them to work with a partner to make the words with magnetic letters. One student could make the word with a letter missing (e.g. “d_ck”), and the other student could supply the missing letter.

Writing Modeled writing Ask the students to talk about what the tugboats learned.

Write these ideas on a chart. Invite the students to contribute using their knowledge of high-frequency words and sounds within words. For example: We need to write the word “work”. Who can hear the sounds in “work”? Who can write those letters on the chart?

Independent writing Ask each student to pretend he/she is one of the tugboats and to write about what happened in the story from this point of view.

Sharing and presenting Share and discuss the students’ writing.

Synthesizing: Talk about the pair After the students have read both books, ask: What did you learn from reading these books?

Does it matter how big you are? Are there times when it is useful to be small? How does working as a team help you get things done?

Blackline master

Activity card Ships and tugboats

Tugboat words Cut out the cards below. Stick them on a blank piece of paper and draw a picture to match each word.

You will need: paper, glue, markers

✂

tugboat

big ship

What to do: 1. Make two paper boats – one big and one small.

2. Stick the boats on a large sheet of blue paper.

3. Add labels and captions to show how a tugboat can help a big ship into the dock.

ropes

Example:

dock

safely

soft pads

sea

holds

strong

hitting

stop

bumping

Assessment Can the student refer to the text to find specific information?

Can the student understand factual information he/she reads in the text?

Flying Start to Literacy Lesson Plans Big Ships Need Tugboats / The Tugboat Team © 2009–2015 EC Licensing Pty Ltd.

Flying Start to Literacy Lesson Plans Big Ships Need Tugboats / The Tugboat Team © 2009–2015 EC Licensing Pty Ltd. © 2009–2015 EC Licensing Pty Ltd. This work is protected by copyright law, and under international copyright conventions, applicable in the jurisdictions in which it is published. The trademark “Flying Start to Literacy” and Star device is a registered trademark of EC Licensing Pty Ltd in the US.

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