Tabby: A Story in Pictures By Aliki Text Type: Fiction: Narrative Wordless Picture Book Summary: A girl and her father visit an animal shelter and take home a kitten named Tabby. Tabby is shown lapping up a bowl of milk, sleeping in a basket by the girl s bed, peering out the window as the girl and her friends build a snowman, and exploring the garden in springtime while the girl plays alongside a smiling newborn. Later, with summer in full bloom, a tiny kitten creeps under the garden wall to play with Tabby. Finally, this kitten, its young owners, the girl, and Tabby celebrate Tabby s first birthday. Oral Language Teaching Strategy: Connect with the Student s Message Listen and respond to the meaning behind the student s communication. Time: two 25 30 minute lessons, plus options for further lessons Materials: Tabby: A Story in Pictures character and prop cut-outs prepared from BLMs for use with magnetic whiteboard or flannelboard Grouping: whole class or small group Assessment: Grade One Oral Language Assessment Scale FIRST STORYTELLING BEFORE STORYTELLING Teaching Tip: Go over the story several times to familiarize yourself with the sequence of events, the characters, and the visual features in the text. You need to know the story as you will be storytelling and using the visual text to support your oral narrative. Activating and Building Background Knowledge Show students the front cover of the book and read aloud the title and author. Ask students to predict who Tabby is. Ask students to make connections and talk about what they know about kittens. Tabby is a kitten. What do you know about kittens or cats? 1 Literacy Place for the Early Years Grade 1 2011 Scholastic Canada Ltd.
Focus on the book and show the students pages 2 and 3. Ask the students to make predictions about what is going to happen when the little girl and her father go to the animal shelter. The girl will have a cat. Marc Teacher So Marc, you think the girl will find a cat that she wants to take home? Good thinking. Explain to the students that this book tells the story in pictures and has very few words in it. I am going to look at the pictures very carefully and tell you the story in my own words. Setting a Purpose for Listening Ask students to look at the pictures and listen to your story to find out what happens after the girl and her father visit the animal shelter. [Analyzing/inferring] DURING STORYTELLING Open the book and show students the pages as you tell the story. Students will need to be able to follow the visual text as well as listen to your storytelling. Project your voice so that all students can hear. Tell the story in its entirety during the first telling to maintain pacing, voice consistency for characters, atmosphere, and One day a young girl and her father visited an animal shelter to get a kitten. The little girl was so excited to be getting a new pet. She said, Oh, Dad, I really want a furry little kitten. That would be a wonderful pet and I will look after him all the time. student engagement. Weave in the key elements that may challenge comprehension, e.g., the environmental print (Animal Shelter sign, invitation, Happy Birthday banner) and visual details that depict the different seasons. Use the following techniques to ensure comprehension and engagement: Use interesting voices and consider using dialogue and changing your voice to match the characters. Use gestures and appropriate Little girls voice (excitedly), Oh Daddy, this kitten is so soft and cuddly. I really want to take this kitten home! facial expressions that match the characters and events, e.g., delight and affection as Mom sees the new kitten for the first time. Pace your storytelling so that it maintains the students attention. Focus on oral and visual comprehension. Emphasize the key features that are crucial for comprehension and maintain the narrative. Point out important text features as you tell the story, e.g., characters facial expressions that show their emotions, visual details that show the passing of time (baby brother growing older), and the changing seasons. Invite participation by asking the students to do some of the actions and sounds that match the pictures in the text, e.g., hugging the kitten, rustling leaves, crunching snow, making a snowman, kitten sounds such as purring, meowing, lapping up milk, and scratching. 2 Literacy Place for the Early Years Grade 1 2011 Scholastic Canada Ltd.
AFTER STORYTELLING Revisit the purpose for listening by asking, What happened after the girl and her father visited the animal shelter? Ask students to support their answers. Where does it show us this in the book? [Analyzing/inferring] Provide other prompts that focus on that section of the story. You may want to remind the students by showing them the pictures of how the little girl looked after Tabby (drinking the milk, using the litter box, sleeping under her bed). Do you think the little girl looked after the kitten well? [Evaluating/inferring] How do you think the little girl felt about the kitten? How do you think the kitten felt about the little girl? What tells you this? [Evaluating/inferring] Why did the little girl give a card to her friends next door? [Synthesizing] Expand the comprehension discussion. Turn to pages in the text where you want to explore comprehension and give prompts. Pages 14 and 15: Prompts: What season is it now? (Remind students that it was autumn when the little girl first got Tabby by returning to pages 2 and 3 and looking at the pictures of the leaves changing colour and falling from the trees.) [Analyzing] Why do you think Tabby watches the little girl and her friends through the window? [Inferring] How do you think Tabby is feeling? [Inferring] Page 17: Prompts: How does Tabby play by himself? [Analyzing] What else has changed in the little girl s family? [Analyzing] How do you think Tabby is feeling about the baby? [Inferring] Pages 20 and 21: Prompts: What time of year is it now? How do you know? [Analyzing/inferring] Pages 22 and 23: Prompts: What signs of spring do you see in the pictures? [Analyzing] How do Tabby and the little girl feel about each other? [Inferring/ evaluating] Pages 24 and 25: Prompts: Where did the little kitten come from? [Inferring] Do you think Tabby and the little white kitten will be friends? Why do you think this? [Predicting/making connections] Pages 28 and 29: Prompts What time of year is it now? [Analyzing/inferring] What kind of card is the little girl giving to her friends? [Predicting/ inferring] Pages 30 and 31: Prompts: How long has Tabby lived with the little girl? [Analyzing] Do you think Tabby is happy that the little girl took him from the animal shelter? Why do you think this? [Evaluating] 3 Literacy Place for the Early Years Grade 1 2011 Scholastic Canada Ltd.
SECOND STORYTELLING BEFORE STORYTELLING Preparation: Cut out the set of characters and props from the Tabby BLMs. Colour the characters (you may also wish to laminate them) and affix magnetic tape or pieces of flannel to the back for use on a magnetic whiteboard or flannelboard. Review the characters. Start with an empty whiteboard/flannelboard and ask the students to recall the characters in the story. As they identify a character place it on the board and add the props if the students mention them as they recall the character e.g., the father can be given the cat carrier if a student mentions how they brought the cat home from the animal shelter. Set up the retelling by explaining to students that you will tell the story again, but this time you ll invite them to join in and help you. When we tell the story today, the words may be a bit different from yesterday s words. When the author doesn t give us many words we make up a story that fits the pictures so we may use a few different words every time we tell it. Setting a Purpose for Listening Ask the students to think about their favourite part of the story. [Synthesizing/ Evaluating] DURING STORYTELLING Provide a model for the students. Start retelling the story so that you establish an interesting tone and pace, and model possible dialogue. Invite participation by students. Pause in your retelling and ask students to look at a picture carefully, and retell it to a partner, e.g., page 13 where Tabby is sleeping under the little girl s bed. The students need Is there anything in the picture that shows you how the little girl and Tabby feel about each other? Let s look at their faces. Tell me how they look. to take turns so that one student retells the first event, and their partner retells an event at the next pause. Ask one or two students to share their retellings with the class. Discuss and clarify any confusion in comprehension. Continue to alternate retelling and pausing to let the students share their ideas with a partner. Share a couple of retellings with the class each time. Discuss and clarify comprehension as necessary. Encourage students to make connections and extend their thinking by asking them to give reasons based on the visual details in the pictures and their own personal connections. 4 Literacy Place for the Early Years Grade 1 2011 Scholastic Canada Ltd.
AFTER STORYTELLING Review the purpose for listening and ask students to discuss their favourite part of the story with a partner and then share ideas as a class. [Synthesizing/ evaluating] Think about your reasons. Why was it your favourite part of the story? FURTHER RETELLINGS Reconstruct the story with the class using the whiteboard/flannelboard characters and props: move the characters and props to build the sequential narrative, asking students to help you in the process. ask students to take turns in retelling and facilitate the oral narrative by providing a framework and modelling if a student is hesitant or goes off track. Be sure to keep the story moving! After the little girl brought Tabby home in the autumn, what season came next? What did the little girl do outside? What was Tabby doing inside? What season came next? What did the little girl and Tabby do together? Retell the Story from a New Perspective Speech Bubble You may decide to give the students experience with another viewpoint in a story and retell the story from each character s perspective. The story will change from a thirdperson narrator to a first-person I viewpoint. Model the beginning of I felt so sad in the animal shelter. I was all alone. When the little girl asked to hold me, I felt so special. She cuddled me in her warm arms and I felt excited to be going home with her. I wonder what it will be like to live with her. the story with Tabby as the narrator and show how the story might change slightly when you tell it from one character s viewpoint. Then invite student participation in the retelling. You may structure the new way of retelling by inviting students to retell a page or two and alternate by modelling the first-person viewpoint yourself and returning to student retelling. You may want to consider retelling the story from the mother s or father s point of view as well. Why do you think the girl s parents decided to get Tabby? What do you think they were thinking and feeling about their daughter as she learned to look after her new pet? Focus on Story Structure Discuss the elements of the story s structure: You may wish to use the book to explore setting and look at the pictures in terms of the details the author/illustrator uses to build the setting, e.g., the changing seasons. You could use the whiteboard/flannelboard to build up a picture of the story s beginning in the autumn and show how the events move through the seasons and how the story ends as autumn returns and an entire year has gone by. 5 Literacy Place for the Early Years Grade 1 2011 Scholastic Canada Ltd.
FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES Place the whiteboard/flannelboard characters and props along with a copy of the book in a centre and encourage story retellings. Ask students to dramatize their favourite part of the story using puppets or by role-playing. Students can select a character necklace (shoestring with card showing both the name of the character and/or a picture of the character) to take on different roles in the retelling. Suggest students paint a picture of a story event. Encourage them to write their message below the picture and talk about their picture with a partner, small group, or the class. Create a class book titled Tabby s First Year. Each student can create a page showing something that Tabby likes to do in a particular season of the year, e.g., In the Winter, Tabby likes to, In the Spring, Tabby likes to, In the Summer, Tabby likes to. and In the Autumn, Tabby likes to. 6 Literacy Place for the Early Years Grade 1 2011 Scholastic Canada Ltd.