The Birthday

The Birthday is a realistic fiction story about a boy’s birthday party. All of his friends come to his party and give him climbing gear. He then goes to the mountain. Readers gain information from the text, illustrations, and speech bubble.

The Birthday uses the same repeating sentence “I am going to the party.” One word changes on the last page. Illustrations match the text. The story includes triggering in questions. There are critical thinking questions to guide the reader. A teacher guide for reading the text and visual information is provided for teachers to draw students’ attention to illustrations, starting points, and speech bubble. There is a high frequency word list within an illustration at the end of the story. An activity on drawing a picture with a caption of themselves dressed up and going to a party is provided for teachers to extend students’ learning.

Readers develop vocabulary with high-frequency words (am). Focus on word differentiation by having them locate focus words in the high-frequency word list illustration. Opportunities arise to focus on initial consonant g (going).

This title is from the Sails Literacy series. Hook readers and ignite their curiosity - over 850 levelled texts with bright, colourful, sophisticated designs.