• Use strategies while reading such as visualizing characters, setting and situations.
• Use strategies while reading such as responding to the text through talking.

Activity

• Bring in an unfamiliar fiction text which features whales and/or other sea creatures as its main character. Choose a particularly descriptive section to read aloud to the children. Before reading, provide the children with a pencil and a sheet of paper. Encourage them to draw what they "picture in their mind" as you are reading.
  
  
• Have children share their illustrations. Share the illustration from the text.
  
  
• Discuss how the group visualized the characters, setting and situations of the text. Discuss how the illustrator visualized the text.

Assessment Tips from Old Tom the Turtle

• Note students’ responses as they share their interpretations of the text.

• Examine student pictures to gather/note information about their understanding of the shared text.