The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes is a realistic and humorous fiction story about a girl recounting how scared she was of the bull that lived on her farm growing up. One day when she needed new shoes, her mom let her buy expensive red shoes. The brother warned her that the bull would get mad if it saw her red shoes. She hid them in the oven. It was a good idea until her mom turned on the oven! The story is narrated from the boy’s perspective with dialogue between characters, illustrative text, thought bubbles, and text highlights.

The Red Shoes is a simple recount story. Critical thinking questions are provided to guide the reader. Illustrations match the text. A visual information guide is provided for teachers to draw students’ attention to the text highlighters, thought bubbles, advertisements, signs, and font styles. There is an infographic at the end of the book outlining the parts of a recount including the who, where, when, sequence of events, and conclusion. An activity on drawing their own visual map of a recount is provided for teachers to extend students’ learning.

Readers develop vocabulary such as nouns (bull), verbs (stomp), and singular/plural (shoe/shoes). Opportunities arise to discuss apostrophes to show possession (bull’s) and apostrophes within contractions (didn’t). Focus on short and long vowel o, suffix ful (wonderful), and base words (hooves).

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