Level A

Lesson Plan I Can

About the Book
Text Type: Fiction/Realistic Page Count: 10 Word Count: 24

Book Summary
What can your early readers do? The children in
I Can can hop, jump, ride, and play. Every child
can do something. The repeated text patterns,
high-frequency words, and familiar verbs in this
text give students another accomplishment to
add to their list: reading.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy
• Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Objectives
• Make, revise, and confirm predictions to understand text
• Identify main idea and details
• Identify rhyme
• Identify word families -at, -an, -am
• Identify verbs
• Categorize words

Materials
Green text indicates resources available on the website
• Book—I Can (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Word journal (optional)
• Main idea and details, word families worksheets
• Discussion cards

Indicates an opportunity for students to mark in the book. (All activities may
be demonstrated by projecting book on interactive whiteboard or completed with
paper and pencil if books are reused.)

Vocabulary
*Bold vocabulary words also appear in a pre-made lesson for this title on VocabularyA–Z.com.
• High-frequency words: can, I
• Content words:
Story critical: climb (v.), crawl (v.), hop (v.), jump (v.), play (v.), ride (v.), run (v.), swing (v.)

Before Reading
Build Background
• Ask students to name things that they can do. Prompt them to include a variety of things.
Ask which things are the most fun to do, which are the easiest to do, and which are the hardest.
• Expand the discussion by talking about “I can” as an attitude. Encourage students to share
personal stories about things they did not think they could do, but did. Talk about how their
attitudes affect what they can do.

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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) I Can
Book Walk
Introduce the Book
• Show students the front and back covers and read the title with them. Ask what they might read
about in a book called I Can. (Accept any answers students can justify). Ask them what things the
children in the pictures can do.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author’s name,
illustrator’s name). Ask what the boy in this picture can do.
Introduce the Reading Strategy: Make, revise, and confirm predictions
• Explain that good readers make predictions, or guesses, about what will happen in a story.
Explain that making predictions can help people make decisions, solve problems, and learn new
information. Emphasize that making predictions is more important than whether the prediction
is right, or confirmed.
• Model using the cover and title illustrations to make predictions.
Think-aloud: Looking at these pictures, I can guess that I am going to read about some things that
children can do. I don’t think the book is going to be about just one child because I see three
different children in these pictures.
• Have students predict what the book might be about. Ask what other things the children in the
book might be able to do. Write their ideas on the board.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted
strategy presented in this section.
Introduce the Vocabulary
• Model how to apply reading strategies. For example, have students point to the word run in the
book. Reinforce that they can look at how words begin to say new words: run begins with the
/r/ sound. Ask how they know the word isn’t race, and reinforce that they can also look at how
words end: run ends with the /n/ sound.
• Remind students to look at the beginning and ending letters of words, look at the pictures to see
what makes sense, and read the sentence to check whether the word makes sense.
• Encourage students to add new vocabulary words to their word journals.
Set the Purpose
• Have students read I Can to confirm or revise their predictions based on the pictures and text.

During Reading
Student Reading
• Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Have a volunteer point to the first word
on page 3. Read the word together (I). Point out where to begin reading on each page. Remind
students to read words from left to right. Point to each word as you read it aloud while students
follow along in their own book.
• Ask students to place a finger on the page number in the bottom corner of the page. Have them
read to the end of page 5, using their finger to point to each word as they read. Encourage
students who finish before others to reread the text.
• Model confirming predictions.
Think-aloud: When I looked at the cover pictures and title, I thought this book would be about
different children and things they can do. Now that I’ve read the words and looked at the pictures
so far in the book, I think that my original prediction is correct. All of these things are ways to
move my body , so I think that the rest of the book will show other ways I can move my body.
• Have students make or revise a prediction and read the remainder of the story to find out if the
prediction is correct.

Have students make a small question mark in their book beside any word they do not
understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.
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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) I Can
After Reading
• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how
they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Ask students to share the outcome of their prediction. Discuss how predicting helps readers get
meaning from the book and provides a reason to read to find out if the predictions are correct.
• Think-aloud: I predicted that the rest of the book would be about other ways I can move my body.
I was correct. Making predictions helped me think about what I was reading. Plus, I wanted to
keep reading. I didn’t want to miss any of the things the kids could do.
• Discuss additional strategies, if any, students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Main idea and details

• Discussion: Ask students to share the part of the book they liked best. Then have them tell one
thing in the book that they can do well.
• Introduce and model: Explain to students that books they read have a main idea that tells what
the book is about. The title of the book and the pictures can be clues to identify the main idea.
Discuss the main idea of this book. (Kids can do many different things).
• Tell students that there are always details that tell more about the big idea in a book. The details
in this book are all the things that the kids can do. Model finding a detail on page 3.
Think-aloud: I’m looking for something on the page that tells about the different things that kids
can do. I read the sentence again and I think the detail here is run. One of the things that kids
can do is run.
• Check for understanding: Have students identify the supporting detail on page 4 (jump).
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the main-idea-and-details
worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Extend the discussion: Instruct students to use the last page of their book to draw a picture of
something they can do. Ask students to share their pictures with the group.

Build Skills
Phonological Awareness: Rhyme
• Say the following rhyme slowly while students listen:
The bat wore a hat
while taking a nap
after scaring the cat
who played with the rat
that put some jam
on a piece of ham.
• Say the words hat and cat. Ask students what they notice about the two words (they end with
the same sounds). Explain that words that end with the same sounds rhyme.
• Say the words jam and ham and ask students if the two words end with the same sounds. Explain
that jam and ham rhyme. Say the words hat and jam. Have students say the ending sounds in each
word aloud. Explain that these words don’t rhyme because their ending sounds are different.
• Repeat the rhyme until students are able to say it with you. Ask them to tell you the words that
rhyme in the poem.
• For additional practice, say the following pairs of words and have students tell you whether
the pair rhymes or not: dog/log; sun/sit; mail/pail; big/put; hand/band; stuff/tough; grin/grind;
cake/bake.

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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) I Can
Phonics: Word families -at, -an, -am
• Write the words rat, hat, and cat on the board. Run your finger under the letters of each word
as you blend the sounds with students. Remind students that they just heard these words in the
rhyme. Ask students what is the same about the words (they rhyme, or end with the same sound).
• Circle the -at letter combination in each of the words and tell students the words belong to the
-at word family. Have students brainstorm other words that end with -at and record them in a list
on the board. Read through the list with students.
• Write the word can on the board. Have students find the word on the cover and read the word.
Circle the -an letter combination in the word. Ask students to brainstorm a list of other words
that end with -an. Explain that all of these words are part of the -an word family. Have students
read the list of words with you.
• Write the words jam and ham on the board. Run your finger under the letters of each word as
you have students read the words with you. Remind them that these words were also in the
rhyme they just heard. Circle the -am letter combination in the word. Have students brainstorm
a list of words that rhyme with jam and ham and write them on the board. Point out that these
words belong to the -am word family.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the word families -at, -an,
-am worksheet. Have them cut out the words and sort the words into word families. Students
could also work with a partner to combine their word cards, and play Concentration. An
alternative activity is to have pairs practice reading the words to each other.
Grammar and Mechanics: Verbs
• Tell students that some words tell actions such as sing, run, sleep. Explain that these action words
are called verbs.
• Ask students to turn to page 3 and find an action word (run). Reinforce that all of the activities in
the book are action words.

Instruct students to work together to underline the verbs in the book.

Word Work: Categorize words
• Review the action words from the book: run, jump, swing, hop, ride, climb, crawl, play. Tell
students that these words can be put into a group called “things kids can do.” Have students
brainstorm other things that kids can do to add to the group (for example, sleep, eat, read, drink,
chew, and so on).
• Have students sort the words from the book into other groups. (For example, things kids usually
do inside and things kids usually do outside). Have students explain their choice of grouping.

Build Fluency
Independent Reading
• Allow students to read their book independently. Additionally, allow partners to take turns
reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection
• Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Extend the Reading

Writing Connection
Write the following sentence on the board: I can____. Ask students to finish the sentence with
something they can do that was not mentioned in the book. Help students spell their word. Ask
students to illustrate their sentences and share with the group.

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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) I Can
Social Studies Connection
Discuss with students activities they could do as a group to help the school. (For example, clean a
part of the schoolyard or recycle paper). Have students organize and complete an activity as a class.

Skill Review
Discussion cards covering comprehension skills and strategies not explicitly taught with the book
are provided as an extension activity. The following is a list of some ways these cards can be used
with students:
• Use as discussion starters for literature circles.
• Have students choose one or more cards and write or dictate a response.
• Distribute before reading the book and have students use one of the questions as a purpose
for reading.
• Cut apart and use the cards as game cards with a board game.

Assessment
Monitor students to determine if they can:
• make, revise, and confirm predictions while reading
• correctly identify the details in the book that support the idea that kids can do many things
during discussion and on a worksheet
• accurately discriminate words that rhyme during discussion
• recognize and read words from word families -at, -an, and -am during discussion; sort words into
word families
• correctly name the verbs in the book
• put the content words from the book into categories; brainstorm words to add to each category

Comprehension Checks
• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric

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