Level A

Lesson Plan My Hair

About the Book
Text Type: Fiction/Realistic Page Count: 10 Word Count: 33

Book Summary
Just as in real life, each child’s hair is as unique as he or she is:
curly, straight, dark, or light. Students will learn the concept
of diversity, new adjective vocabulary, and reinforced high-
frequency words.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy
• Connect to prior knowledge

Objectives
• Connect to prior knowledge to make meaning from text
• Identify main ideas and supporting details
• Discriminate initial consonant sound /h/
• Identify initial consonant Hh
• Recognize and understand the use of a period at the end of a sentence
• Identify words that are antonyms

Materials
Green text indicates resources available on the website
• Book—My Hair (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Hand-held mirror
• Main idea and details, initial consonant Hh, periods 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: is, like, my, what, your
• Content words:
Story critical: black (adj.), blond (adj.), braided (adj.), curly (adj.), hair (n.), long (adj.),
short (adj.), straight (adj.)

Before Reading
Build Background
• Before giving students the mirror, ask them to think about their hair. Ask what words they
would use to tell what it looks like.
• Have students pass around the mirror. (Students may inaccurately describe or be unable to
describe their hair without looking in a mirror.) Ask students if they would still use the same
words to tell what their hair looks like. Discuss that while some students may have the same
color, type, or length of hair, each person’s hair is unique, or special to them.

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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) My Hair
Book Walk
Introduce the Book
• Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title with them. Ask what they
might read about in a book called My Hair. (Accept any answers students can justify). Ask what
they think the girl on the front and the children on the back are holding. Have them describe the
hair of the girl on the front of the book.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author’s name,
illustrator’s name). Ask what kind of hair this boy has. Have them compare his hair with the hair
of the girl on the front cover.

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Connect to prior knowledge

• Explain that good readers make connections between what they already know and new
information they read. Remind students that thinking about what they already know about the
topic of the book will help them understand what they read.
• Model how making connections to prior knowledge helps readers make meaning from text.
Think-aloud: When I look at the pictures on the covers, it reminds me of different kinds of hair
I’ve seen on people. I’ve seen blonde, dark, red, long, short, and curly hair. I can think about
what I already know about hair as I read. It will help me read new words.
• Have students preview the covers and title page. Invite them to share how they connected to
something they know about hair.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted
strategy presented in this section.
Introduce the Vocabulary
• As you preview the book with students, use the language patterns of the book. For example, ask
them to describe hair of the girl on page 3. Then ask what they think she might be saying about
her hair. Encourage them to say: My hair is curly.
• As students describe the hair of the children in the pictures, ask them to find the word on the
page that describes the hair. Tell students that they will need to look at the pictures and at the
beginning letters of the words to read them.
• Encourage students to add new vocabulary words to their word journals.
Set the Purpose
• Tell students as they read the book to think about the type of hair they have, the types of hair
their classmates have, and the types of hair shown in the book. Tell them that using what they
already know about hair will help them to read the book.

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 (My). 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.
• Ask them to identify types of hair described in the book. Model making connections to
prior knowledge.
Think-aloud: I have a friend who has very straight hair that looks a bit like the hair of the boy on
page 4. This helped me read the word straight because I knew what the sentence was talking about.

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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) My Hair
• Have students read the remainder of the story. Remind them to think about what they already
know about hair as they read.

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.

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

• Think-aloud: On page 7, I thought about ways I’ve seen people wear their long hair. I’ve seen
people pull it up into ponytails. I’ve also seen people with braided hair. Since the word begins
with the /b/ sound, I knew the word was braided.
• Discuss how using what they already know about hair helped them understand what they read.
Invite students to share how they connected to prior knowledge.
• Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Main idea and details

• Discussion: Ask students to tell which hair shown in the book is most like their hair.
• Introduce and model: Explain to students that books they read have a main idea which 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. (People have different kinds of hair). Explain that there are
details in the book that tell about the main idea.
• Think-aloud: I know the book is about different kinds of hair. On page 4, I read about the boy with
straight hair. Straight hair is a kind of hair. This is a detail that supports the main idea.
• Check for understanding: Ask students to tell the person next to them another kind of hair.
Discuss their ideas.
• 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
themselves with the hair they have now, and with the type of hair they would like to have. Have
students share their pictures with the group.

Build Skills
Phonological Awareness: Initial consonant sound /h/
• Say the word hair, emphasizing the initial /h/ sound. Ask students what sound they hear at the
beginning of the word.
• Say the word hat, emphasizing the /h/ sound. Ask students what is the same about the words hat
and hair. If students have difficulty, repeat the words and then tell them that both words start
with the /h/ sound.
• Tell students that you are going to say pairs of words, one at a time. Have them listen to the
words and then say hooray if the words both start with the same sound. If the words do not start
with the same sound, have them remain quiet.
• Say the following word pairs one at a time: rat/run; lake/paint; horse/cow; hungry/happy;
baby/bear; dog/frog; man/moon; pig/duck.

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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) My Hair
Phonics: Initial consonant Hh
• Write the letter Hh on the board and ask students to name the letter. Tell students that the letter
Hh stands for the sound they can hear at the beginning of the word hair.
• Have students turn to the cover and find the word hair. Have them put their finger on the letter
that stands for the /h/ sound.
• Write hat on the board. Model how to sound out the word as you run your finger under each
letter: /h/ /a/ /t/. Have students blend the word with you.
• Repeat with the words hen, hop, and hit.
• Challenge students to look in familiar books to find other words that start with /h/.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the initial consonant Hh
worksheet.

Grammar and Mechanics: Periods

• Write the following sentence on the board: My hair is long. Read the sentence aloud with
students. Explain that every sentence has a signal at the end so readers will know when to stop
reading. Ask a volunteer to come up and point to the “signal” at the end of the sentence.
• Explain that the signal is called a period. Have students say the word aloud. Point out that the
period is like a stop sign because it tells readers to stop reading.
• Ask volunteers to describe their hair just like the characters in the book. Write each description
in a sentence on the board, leaving off the period. Read the sentences aloud to students without
stopping. Then have volunteers come to the board and add a period to each sentence. Reread
the sentences, stopping with the period at the end of each sentence.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the periods worksheet.
Word Work: Antonyms
• Ask students to name a word in the book that describes hair. Then identify for students a word
that tells the opposite. Explain that these two words are called antonyms. Have students identify
other opposite word pairs.
• Say some action words one at a time, and have students act out the opposite of each word (for
example, happy/sad, up/down, over/under, cry/laugh, sit/stand).

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
List the following adjectives on the board: straight, curly, long, short, black, blond, brown, braided.
Use the sentence pattern “___’s hair is ____.” to create a class book. Ask students to work with
partners. Have each person write the sentence and draw a picture of the other person. Model using
another teacher, an aide, or an adult. Help students with the spelling of names.

Math Connection
Ask students to sort their pictures according to the attributes of the hair. Tell them to put all of the
short hair together, long hair together, and so on.

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 Level A
Lesson Plan (continued) My Hair
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 dictate a response.
• Distribute before reading the book and have students use one of the questions as a purpose
for reading.

Assessment
Monitor students to determine if they can:
• relate what they already know about kinds of hair to what they read in the book
• correctly identify details that support the main idea during discussion and on a worksheet
• listen for initial sounds and tell whether or not they are the same during discussion
• associate the letter Hh with the sound /h/ during discussion and on a worksheet
• correctly and consistently use a period at the end of a sentence on a worksheet
• correctly identify words that are opposites and act them out during discussion

Comprehension Check
• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric

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