LESSON 7 TEACHER’S GUIDE Dog Talk by Samantha Ronson Fountas-Pinnell Level J Informational Text Selection Summary Dogs tell us things with their bodies, not words. For example, a dog wags its tail to show it is friendly, and drops its tail to show it is afraid. Watch dogs’ ears, tails, hair, and stance. Listen to dogs’ sounds. Then you will understand how dogs talk. Number of Words: 324 Characteristics of the Text Genre Text Structure Content Themes and Ideas Language and Literary Features Sentence Complexity Vocabulary Words Illustrations Book and Print Features Informational Text Two to three paragraphs per page Each page highlights a different dog behavior or posture and tells what it means How dogs communicate with body language How ears, tails, hair, stance, and sounds convey meaning Dogs have moods and feelings that they communicate with their bodies. If you watch and listen to dogs, you can understand what they are saying. Third-person narrator; text directed to reader: Now you can understand how dogs talk! Questions directed to readers work to focus readers’ attention Photos well integrated with text A mix of simple and compound and complex sentences: If you watch and listen, you can know what dogs are saying. That is just the way that young dogs play. Repeated question: How can you tell? Present-tense verbs: watch, listen, wag, hurt, growl, worry, protect, understand; progressive tense verbs: smiling, hiding, showing, fighting, saying One- and two-syllable words; one three-syllable word: understand Homophone: its tail; it’s friendly Color photos support the text. Photo above text on each of nine pages Indented paragraphs © 2006. Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H. Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, in