ENL Close Read-Aloud: Gertie's Changing Toy Preferences
A stand-alone ENL lesson and Google Slides deck for a 60-minute session on Have Fun, Molly Lou Melon, where students use text details to describe how Gertie's toy preferences change and practice asking questions about classmates' toy creations. It builds comprehension, academic vocabulary, and structured speaking and listening, and includes a Picture Story worksheet, sentence stems, and leveled scaffolds for Entering through Bridging learners.
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Use this as a stand-alone ENL session of about 60 minutes, moving through the song opener, the close read-aloud, the Picture Story culminating task, and the structured question-asking routine in order.
- Discussion question: "What is different about the toys Gertie liked at the beginning and at the end of the story?" Follow up with "Why do you think her preferences changed?"
- For Entering and Emerging learners, pre-teach preferences, creations, homemade, and store-bought with visuals, and allow matching or sorting of cut-out toy pictures instead of drawing.
- For Expanding and Bridging learners, ask them to explain the change in full sentences using comparatives ("At first Gertie preferred..., but later she preferred...") and to ask follow-up questions of their partners.
- Plan roughly 5 minutes for the song, 20 for the read-aloud and Picture Story task, 15 for paired or small-group discussion, and 10 for reflection and the principal's letter review.
ENL Close Read-Aloud: Gertie's Changing Toy Preferences
A stand-alone ENL lesson and Google Slides deck for a 60-minute session on Have Fun, Molly Lou Melon, where students use text details to describe how Gertie's toy preferences change and practice asking questions about classmates' toy creations. It builds comprehension, academic vocabulary, and structured speaking and listening, and includes a Picture Story worksheet, sentence stems, and leveled scaffolds for Entering through Bridging learners.
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Use this as a stand-alone ENL session of about 60 minutes, moving through the song opener, the close read-aloud, the Picture Story culminating task, and the structured question-asking routine in order.
- Discussion question: "What is different about the toys Gertie liked at the beginning and at the end of the story?" Follow up with "Why do you think her preferences changed?"
- For Entering and Emerging learners, pre-teach preferences, creations, homemade, and store-bought with visuals, and allow matching or sorting of cut-out toy pictures instead of drawing.
- For Expanding and Bridging learners, ask them to explain the change in full sentences using comparatives ("At first Gertie preferred..., but later she preferred...") and to ask follow-up questions of their partners.
- Plan roughly 5 minutes for the song, 20 for the read-aloud and Picture Story task, 15 for paired or small-group discussion, and 10 for reflection and the principal's letter review.