Joyce decides to sit quietly and allow more time for Emily to think before saying anything. After a few moments Emily says: Frog makes big splashes 'cause he's big and Toad is smaller so he makes small splashes.
Joyce: The book didn't tell you why Frog swims faster and makes bigger splashes than Toad but you were able to figure it out. You used what you know about them to figure out the reason why they do different things in the water. Who's bigger, you or your brother?
Emily: I'm bigger! He's only six!
Joyce: So when you splash him in the pool, does he splash you back?
Emily: He tries to, but my splashes are bigger than his!
Joyce: Hey, you and your brother are kind of like Frog and Toad!
Emily continues to read. She reads about the other animals who arrive at the river and hear about Toad's funny bathing suit. Toad stays in the water as Frog tries to get them to leave but they won't budge because they want to see Toad when he emerges.
Emily: (Reading.) "'Please,' cried Frog, 'please go away!' But no one went away.
Joyce: Wow, how are these animals treating Toad?
Emily: They're being mean.
Joyce: Yes, they're teasing him. Have you ever seen kids tease each other?
Emily: Yes. (Looks thoughtful but doesn't offer more.)
Emily: Well, I tease my little brother a lot. Sometime I call him Shorty because he's so much shorter than me. (Laughs). Sometimes he gets mad, but usually he just laughs.
Joyce: Oh boy, my family does lots of teasing, too! Teasing's not so bad when everybody knows it's just for fun.
Making Connections … What just happened?
Emily needs explicit instruction to think about what she reads. Joyce helped Emily draw connections between the story, her life, and universal themes. With Joyce's support, Emily found a way to interact with the story before she even began reading. Joyce asked questions that:
- Help Emily connect with the book by thinking about how it relates to her own life
- Model text-to-world connections (e.g., the discussion of teasing)
- Require Emily to infer or make interpretations (e.g., how and why Toad and Frog swim differently)
- Ask her to imagine the feelings of a character
- Feel like a conversation, not a test
When Emily had trouble making inferences, Joyce rephrased the question to give her additional ways and time to think.
Emily's comment about teasing concerned Joyce and she worried that kids at school might be teasing or bullying her. By probing more deeply, but not asking a direct question that would make Emily uncomfortable, she learned that Emily's experience was simply with good-natured teasing among family members.
See next session: Interpreting the Author's Intent
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