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Neuman, S.B., & Wright, T.S. (2013).  Supporting content-rich vocabulary through book reading.  All About Words. pp. 62-82. Teachers College Press, NY, NY.

West, J.M., Wright, T.S., & Gotwals, A. (2021).  Supporting scientific discussions: Moving kindergartners’ conversations forward.  The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 703-712. Doi: 10.1002/trtr.1977.

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As I call on student's to share their thoughts, I will record each  response and keep it on a slideshow or poster paper. Before doing the next read-aloud, I will revisit that page to remind the students what we talked about and the answers that they gave. I will also highlight the vocabulary words that the previous book introduced, and I’ll go through the text to revisit the images we saw so that the students remember the different parts. West et al. reveals how “Ms. Bailey found revisiting children’s ideas an incredibly useful way to support their growing understanding of unit phenomena” (2021). Throughout the text set, I will make connections to each book we talked about and the list of explanations that the students gave in our discussions so that they are continuously building upon their prior knowledge and adding their new understandings of the topic that they’re learning to it. By providing coherent instruction, I’ll be able to support my students in developing deeper comprehension of the content we’re exploring and stregthen their oral language development.

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During our whole-group discussions, I will ask follow-up questions that support the students’ responses as a way to get clarification. If a student gave a broad answer such as, “riding your bike helps the planet”, I would probe to get more information out of them like “how does riding your bike instead help the planet?” and “why would taking a bus be better than everyone’s parents driving them to school?”. Not only will this help the student to make their explanations more precise and refine the language they needed to use, but it might encourage other children to think deeper as well. I will also help my students use more specific vocabulary to describe their ideas by including those words in my follow-up questions. For example, if a student made a comment like “putting a water bottle in the green bucket is better than throwing it in the trash”, I would use more detailed language by saying, “so recycling plastic bottles in a separate bin is more beneficial than putting them in the garbage?”. This will support the student in using key words like “plastic” and “recycle” in their next response. Another idea that was presented in “Supporting Scientific Discussions…” that I will use is having children whisper into their hands before sharing to rehearse their answers (West et al., 2021). I think this is a clever way to get students more comfortable with sharing out loud with the rest of the class and it could make them less nervous when it’s their turn to explain since they already practiced what they wanted to say.

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To connect the children’s discussions to the unit content, I will start with some open-ended questions before reading the book to get students thinking, and then have them answer the question again at the end so they can use the knowledge that they learned from the book in their response. For example, before starting the text set with “The Earth Book”, I will ask questions to check their background knowledge like, “Do you know what it means to recycle?” and “Why do you think it’s important to take care of our environment” to spark conversation about the topic. I will first have students turn and talk with a partner to share their thoughts before calling on some students to answer. Like the teacher Ms. Bailey did in the “Supporting Scientific Discussions…” article, I will record the student’s responses in a slideshow or on poster paper along with their names to track participation and also give the children a sense of ownership that their ideas are a valuable part of the class discussion (West et al., 2021). I will start a similar discussion with the questions I chose after reading as well so that the students can incorporate their new understandings from the book. During this time, I will connect this central idea of recycling and caring for the planet to the overall main problem which is “How do we as humans have an impact, both negative and positive, on the environment we live in?”. When the student’s share their opinions in our discussion, I will look up images online that correlate with their answer so that they can start getting a mental image of what we’re talking about in their head. Like if a student mentioned that they recycle water bottles in their home, I would pull up an image of a bin with recycled water bottles that students may have seen before to reinforce the idea and ask if anyone else has seen that in their home or somewhere else. I believe that this will help students not only connect their prior knowledge to what they’re learning, but also improve their comprehension if they can visually see what our discussion is about.

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1. “The Earth Book”

- Why do you think taking the school bus and riding your bike can help make the air clear?

- Why do we recycle glass, aluminum, paper, and plastic?

- How do you think one person doing little things everyday makes a big difference?

2. “Stuff…”

- How can planting a dozen trees help our environment?

- What type of things do you have at your home that you could get rid of and sell for others to reuse?

3. “Being Kind to Our Planet”

- What did you notice about how the kids are recycling? Where else have you seen that object?

- Besides turning off lights that we don’t need, what are other ways that you think we can save energy?

4. “Growing Up Green”

- Why do you think adding fruit and vegetable scraps to a compost pile helps the garden?

- What are everyday things you use that you can recycle?

- What do you think will happen if we don’t help take care of our environment?

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To build understanding of the key terms “recycle” and “reuse”, I will do an activity with the students and have them compare and contrast the two words since they may get confused because they sound alike and start with the same letter. Neuman and Wright state that “Contrasts and comparisons help children to develop more nuanced understandings of these words and the concepts that underlie them” (2013). I will start by making a t-chart and asking the students to tell me what the words mean and the difference between them and I will write them on the poster paper. Throughout the text set unit, I will do more practice with compare and contrast by having the students come up to the Smartboard and drag the picture to the correct section if it’s something they can recycle or reuse, and I’ll go through a slideshow with different objects and have the students decide whether it’s recyclable or reusable and why. I’d also incorporate the key term “plastic” in these activities and discussions since it’s something that we recycle, and it gives us the opportunity to go more in-depth about how plastic is reused to make other things.

For the vocabulary word “energy”, I will explain how energy affects the environment throughout the unit. When discussing this word, I will ask the students to tell me examples that they remember from the read alouds about how we can save energy. As an activity, I will have students chose one way they think is important and then create a poster with illustrations that they would hang up to remind people what they can do to not waste energy.

To reinforce the key word “healthy” I will include the term in my follow-questions by referring to our environment, planet, and earth as healthy. In our discussions, I’ll be asking the students to explain and give me examples of how we can make the world we live in healthier. I will also have the students do an exercise where they will draw a picture to show what a healthy environment looks like to them.

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I selected the term “recycle” and “reuse” because they are the main terms used when talking about ways to protect our environment. Recycle and reuse are mentioned throughout the text set as ways that we can keep our land clean.

I chose to use “plastic” as a vocabulary word because it’s stated a few times when they describe that we can recycle paper, plastic, and glass. Most children will know what paper and glass is and probably have heard of plastic, but plastic water bottles are displayed multiple times in the books whenever recycling is brought up so I think it would be a good idea to discuss what else is plastic that they know of and how a material like plastic can be turned into other things.

I included the word “energy” in the vocabulary because in the books, the term is used to explain how turning off lights we don’t need saves energy which helps keep our air clean. I think this may be confusing for some students because they might only associate the word “energy” as a force that pushes someone to do something or describes how they feel like when someone says, “I don’t have the energy to do that”. So, I think it would be beneficial to use energy in the vocabulary so that we could discuss other versions of energy and how it impacts the environment.

“Healthy” is used as a key word because a major theme portrayed in the text set is how we can care for our planet to make it a healthy place. Students may understand that healthy is when they eat nutritious foods, take their vitamins, and don’t get physically sick, but they might not correlate how a big concept like the earth can be healthy. I thought it would be helpful to incorporate this into the vocabulary so that the students can see how it also means a strong, nourishing, and overall good condition.

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1. Recycle: Use old paper, plastic, glass, and metal to make new products.

2. Reuse: Use something again several times.

3. Plastic: A kind of material that is made by people and can be formed into almost any shape. Most plastics are strong, long-lasting, and lightweight.

4. Energy: Energy is another word for power. Energy makes things move. It makes machines work. Energy also makes living things grow.

5. Healthy: Being completely well, free from sickness or harm.

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1. Recycle

- “The Earth Book” pg. 23
- “Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” pg. 6

- “Being Kind to Our Planet” pg. 23

- “Growing Up Green” pg. 8

2. Reuse

- “Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” pg. 4

- “Being Kind to Our Planet” pg. 23

- “Growing Up Green” pg. 10

3. Plastic
- “Growing Up Green” pg. 8, 11

-  “The Earth Book” pg. 23

4. Energy
- “The Earth Book” pg. 19

- “Being Kind to Our Planet” pg. 12

5. Healthy

- “Being Kind to Our Planet” pg. 7, 8, 28

- “The Earth Book” pg. 29

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This is an informational text about what it means to grow up green which is taking care of our land, air, and water, to protect our world. It explains why it’s important to have clean land, air, and water, and what we can do to help. The text highlights key words like recycle and reuse and poses questions to get students to think such as, “How many plastic water bottles do you use every week?”. It also gives suggestions like adding fruit and vegetable scraps to a compost pile which can be used to feed a garden. Towards the end, the book includes a “Try This” section and lists steps on how to reuse a carboard egg crate to start your own garden.

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“Being Kind to Our Planet” by Mary Lindeen

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“Being Kind to Our Planet” by Mary Lindeen

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This is an informational text that explains how our planet gives us air to breathe, water to drink, and land to live and play on so since it helps us stay strong and healthy, we can choose to be kind to it so that it stays strong and healthy too. The book describes what we can do in our everyday lives to take care of our air, water, and land. It gives many examples such as keeping our air clean by turning off lights to use less energy, saving water by taking shorter baths/showers, and making our land beautiful by planting flowers and cleaning up trash.

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“Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” by Steven Kroll 

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“Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” by Steven Kroll 

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This is a narrative book about a pack rat named “Pinch” who liked to collect a lot of stuff like magazines, old clothes, games, books, and more, and kept every single thing he owned. Since he had so many things that it started spilling out onto the street, his friends in the neighborhood decided to have a tag sale and asked him to donate some of it. Pinch was horrified and did not want to get rid of anything because he liked all his stuff. But once he realizes that he can make money at a tag sale in order to buy more things, he eagerly donates a bunch of his stuff to sell. At the end, his friends decide to use all the money they made to buy a tree and Pinch brings even more stuff to sell the next day so that they have enough money to buy a dozen trees.

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This is a predictable book about how we can take care of the earth by doing little things every day to make a big difference. The book includes easy, smart ideas for working together to take good care of the earth and why we should, such as using both sides of the paper to save trees so that the owls have a place to live and using less water for baths so that the oceans stay blue. So, this helps explain to students not only how they can make the environment better, but why that action would make it better. The book also includes a “10 Ways I can Help the Earth” poster at the end that sums up the book and reminds students what steps they can take to ‘go green’.

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1. I would first start off with reading “The Earth Book” by Todd Parr, because since it’s a predictable book, it’s a fun way to present the topic and key vocabulary because the various colors and characters in the different illustrations on each page will get students interested. The word/sentence pattern also helps to keep students engaged because after each point that the author brings up, he leaves it on a little cliffhanger by adding an ellipsis at the end with “…” so that they have to wait until the next page to find out why the little things the character does makes a big difference for our environment. Neuman and Wright suggest starting with a predictable book in “Supporting Content-Rich Vocabulary Instruction Through Book Reading” because they mention that a memorable rhyming or repetitive book often includes literacy language and academic terms that children will need to learn in the subject areas which can help children begin to remember and use those words in meaningful contexts (2013). In order to help children engage with increasingly complex text, it’s better to start with more familiar genres before introducing the less familiar informational genre.

2. Next, I would read “Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” by Steven Kroll because this narrative book allows the children to have fun with the topic, but learn more information in new contexts. Neuman & Wright state that these type of books “serve as a very important middle ground between storybooks and informational texts” (2013). This book will help provide the opportunity for a lively discussion about why taking care of our environment is important.

3. After, I will read “Being Kind to Our Planet” by Mary Lindeen which is an informational text and would be beneficial to read at this point since the students are already engaged with the topic and familiar with the vocabulary, they’ll be more interested in learning about it in a serious way. “Supporting Content-Rich Vocabulary Instruction Through Book Reading” explains how reading informational books at the end of the text set becomes deeper and more meaningful because children have at least a beginning network of words and concepts that they’re aware of (Neuman & Wright, 2013).

4. Lastly, I will read “Growing Up Green” by Jeanne Sturm which is also an informational book. I believe this is a good book to end with because not only does it wrap up the ideas we’ve been talking about, but it introduces the different features of this genre such as a glossary, index, and picture labels. Since the students already have a strong background of the concept at this point, the book adds a special value since these elements found in informational texts is something they will encounter in the future. Organizing a text set in this matter will allow the students to build important background knowledge and vocabulary, as well as the characteristics of genre that will be essential to comprehending text in later grades (Neuman & Wright, 2013).

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I selected these texts because not only does each one provide valuable information about the issues in our environment and what we can do to help make a change, but they’re all colorful and exciting enough to grab children’s attention. The books show pictures of young children actually doing the tasks that the reading suggests which can make it easier for children to relate to when they see that people their age do it too. The texts also show objects that would be familiar to students such as a recycle bin, big trash bag, water can and small shovel for planting, gas from burning fossil fuels like the smoke that comes out of a car, and reusable water bottles compared to plastic ones. This is important because students may be able to identify these things but if they were never taught how to use them or why they’re beneficial/ harmful, then they wouldn’t initially utilize them or take steps to make a difference on their own.

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1 Predictable Book: “The Earth Book” by Todd Parr

1 Narrative Book: “Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” by Steven Kroll

2 Informational/ Expository Books: “Being Kind to Our Planet” by Mary Lindeen and “Growing Up Green” by Jeanne Sturm

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1. Things that people do to live comfortably can influence the world around them, but they can make choices that reduce the effects of it.

2. Every one of us can help protect the earth.

3. There are numerous ways to make a change and doing little things every day that benefit the environment can make a big difference.

4. Reduce, reuse, and recycle can remind us to take care of our land, air, water, and other living things.

5. Our actions as humans have a big impact on the planet that we live on so if we take care of it, then it will take care of us.

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I chose to use the topic of environmental solutions for this unit because I believe it’s important for children to start learning at a young age how to make the world they live in a better place. Children are our future, so by teaching them about environmental issues they can begin to understand how they can help create change together. Since change doesn’t happen with just one person, we need to involve everyone we can to make this kind of effort to support our environment and that happens by including the younger generations. By fostering a concern for the environment and sustainable habits early, children can start establishing beneficial practices like recycling. Raising this awareness of environmental issues, as well as solutions that can help, with students at a young age can inspire them to want to participate and then those habits are more likely to stick with them as they get older. Also, encouraging an interest in the outdoors will allow children to learn about the environment and discover what they appreciate about it.

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Environmental Solutions- K-ESS3-3: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.

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This text set is designed for students in kindergarten who will be learning about the impact that humans have on our local environment and discovering solutions that we can use to reduce it.