During the First Reading you will focus only on the illustrations. There will be two basic questions that you will ask your listener as you turn the pages:
~“What do you see?”
~“What do you think is happening?”
These two questions help the brain form inferences, predictions, and conclusions. First, the brain gathers evidence from the illustration. Then, prior knowledge connects with this evidence to form an inference, prediction, or conclusion.
Repeatedly stressing the difference between what you see in the illustration and what is happening gives readers practice in using evidence for their inferences. This is an essential skill that good readers use to make their inferences, predictions, and conclusions in all types of text.
Remember the attention span of your listener. Keep the story time to about twenty minutes.
If the pages are not numbered, page 1 is the first page of text.
Title Page: Look at the title page. Jon Klassen is both the author and the illustrator.
Pages 1 – 2:
~What do you see?
~What do you think is happening?
~Why might the background black? (A response might be that the fish is in very deep water….no sunlight.)
~How might it feel in this kind of water?
~What sounds might you hear?
~Look at the little fish’s eyes. How do you think he is feeling?
Pages 3 – 4:
~What is the big fish doing? What details make you think that?
Pages 5 – 6:
~What changes are in this illustration? (eyes and bubbles) Do the eyes and bubbles tell us how the fish is feeling?
~Why might the big fish have this look on his face?
~What sounds might you hear in this scene?
Pages 7 – 20:
~Notice the changes on these pages.
~What do you think is happening on each page? What do the eyes reveal?
Continue through this series of pages. Notice the eyes of the characters. The illustrator uses the eyes to tell us a lot.
Pages 21 – 28:
As you get to the pages where the tall sea plants cover the pages, you have reached a great opportunity for visualizing.
~What sounds might you hear?
~If you could see into the thick seaweed, what might you see?
Pages 29 – End:
~On pages 29 and 30, look at the crab. What do you think the crab might be thinking?
~On pages 31 and 32, what do you see?
~How does the big fish seem to be feeling? Why might the big fish be feeling this way?
Next time, we will read the words. Do you have any questions that the text might answer when we read?