I begin teaching each grade level each year the importance of text interaction. I reintroduce interacting with text using my Beanie Baby Comprehension Strategy: Interacting Chicken. This chicken comes from our anchor text for text interaction, Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein. This amazingly popular children's book does a fantastic job of teaching young readers the concept of text interaction. Although many teachers/parents use this book to teach good manners (not interrupting), I found a deeper lesson within this story.
Little Chicken continues to interrupt each bedtime story Papa Chicken reads with creative additions/endings. Although Papa is not pleased...I AM!! Think about it. In order for Little Chicken to interrupt in this way, he has to do quite a bit of higher-level thinking. He has to recall the story, construct meaning of the events, plan for the perfect time to add to the story, and create a new ending to solve the ever-present problems faced in fairy tales. What an amazing thinker Little Chicken is!
When I first read this story to my students, I provide them with a little chicken on a craft stick manipulative aka. chicken stick, not to be confused with chicken strip. Believe me my tongue has slipped a few times in presenting these sticks, but it gave us all a good laugh. (We certainly don't want to advertise our chickens as dinner though.) :) To find this lesson and much more click on the image of the chicken sticks below.
Each time Little Chicken interrupts, we raise our chicken STICKS and stop and talk about what he did. What did he say? How did he decide to say this? When did he say it? Why was this time a good time to interrupt? What did Little Chicken have to know in order to interrupt in this way? All of these discussions and more lead us to the idea that Little Chicken is a real thinker! He predicts, creates, remembers, and plans his interruptions.
The bottom line in the lesson is that when one is reading/listening, they should never be inactive and uninvolved. Readers/listeners should always be involved. Using a manipulative, graphic organizer, or other tool can help us to share our ideas in a more polite and organized manner, so that all ideas can be shared effectively.
I then post and discuss our new Beanie Baby Comprehension Strategy: Interacting Chicken poster and our favorite new comprehension animal friend. The kids love him!
I hope you enjoy all the fantastic and lively conversations that come with this lesson! It's one of my favorites to teach.
Grab this Comprehension Unit on Text Interaction on my TpT site. (Click below)
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