This book is dedicated to my brilliant first graders at the Eliot K-8 School in Boston. Each day you continue to grow stronger as scholars and teach me new and intriguing things. I love learning from each and every one of you, and hope you continue to amaze others throughout your life.
Rationale for this book
Each year our students complete a non-fiction unit of study in both Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop. While there are many skills needed to complete this unit successfully, reading is a main component. As a first grade teacher, my collegues and I often struggle to find non-fiction texts with appropriate content and text that reaches all readers. Many times I feel as though it is difficult to gradually release all students to independence when they are experiencing challenges in accessing text and content. This unit of study is engaging and exciting for our first graders, however, too often I have seen children waiting for a peer or adult to read to them or paraphrase content, which as you can imagine, leads to children feeling discouraged. In order for all of our learners to appropriately access content for their research, I have created this book about dogs, a common interest area, as a fun, interactive way of learning. My intention is for students to grow toward independence and feel successful in their learning.
