- Hello, scholars.

Welcome to Read, Write, Roar.

Today, we focus on the big question, how do our actions affect the environment?

We'll find a mystery word, read a text about saving our planet, and write our own opinion texts.

You're going to need something to write on, like a piece of scratch paper, or even an envelope.

You're also going to need something to write with, like a pencil, or a crayon.

Come join us for Read, Write, Roar.

- [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by the Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan, and the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation.

Additional support by, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome, readers.

Today, we are going to be solving a mystery word.

Remember, a mystery is something you don't know or understand.

We can use clues to solve mysteries.

Solving mystery words helps us become accurate readers.

An accurate reader reads words correctly by paying attention to all of the letters in a word.

Our goal today is to read words accurately by looking closely at the letters in each word.

We're going to have these letters in our mystery word today.

I'd like you to say the names of these letters with me.

First, the vowels, then consonants.

I, O, O, U, L, L, N, P, T. Now that we've read these letters together, I'd like you to take your paper.

Do you have that ready?

And at the top of your paper, I'd like you to write these letters down, because we're going to be using all of these letters to make our mystery word.

Here they are.

I, O, O, U, L, L, N, P, T. If you have a pair of scissors handy, you could cut these letters out to make your own cards.

Just like I have cards here.

But if not, you could save that part for later.

Cut out those letters later, and teach the mystery word to someone else.

Now that our papers are ready, let's get started with our first word.

The first word we're going to be writing today is the word too.

Say that with me, too.

Now there are several words that are pronounced too.

This too means too much, or also.

I'd like you to listen to the sounds in too.

I hear two sounds, and I'd like you to write the letters that match those sounds.

T, oo.

Remember, even though we hear two sounds, there could be more than two letters.

Let's look at this word too.

You should have spelled it, T, oo, with two O's.

If you had just felt this T, O, without the second O, it also would have said to, but it wouldn't have meant too much, or also.

It would have been a different word.

Now that we have our first word, too, we're going to change one letter, take it away, and we're going to add a new letter to make the word ton.

Say that word with me, ton.

I hear three sounds in ton.

Write down the letters that match the sounds you hear on your paper.

T, U, N. Ton.

Now remember, we were only changing one letter in this word, and the letter we should have changed was the letter O.

This word might have tricked you, because it sounds like this O is making the short U sound.

It actually is.

Sometimes the O can make the short U sound when it's in front of certain consonants, like the consonant N, for example.

This word is ton.

It means a lot, or it's also a unit that we use to measure how much something weighs, like some giraffes weigh more than a ton.

This is a great example here of why accurate readers have to pay close attention to every letter in a word.

Too and ton are spelled almost exactly the same, but there's one letter difference.

If we weren't paying attention to all of the letters in these words, we might read them incorrectly, or switch them for each other.

Now we're going to take this word ton, and we're going to rearrange, or change the order of the letters.

And we're going to add a letter too.

We're going to be making the word onto, like sometimes I put my book onto my nightstand when I'm done reading it, onto.

Let's make the word onto.

On your paper, write down the sounds that you hear using letters that match those sounds.

On, to.

Onto.

If you're not ready, keep writing while I start rearranging here.

On, to.

Does your word match mine?

Great work.

We have changed this word ton to the word onto by rearranging the letters, and adding another O.

Now we're going to change one letter in the word onto to make the word into, like put your paper into your backpack in the morning, into.

I hear four sounds in into, do you hear them too?

Let's write down the letters that match those sounds.

In, to.

In, to.

Into.

Remember, we're only changing one letter, and this is the letter we should have changed.

The first vowel sound to I, into.

Again, these two words are perfect examples of why we have to look carefully at every letter to read accurately.

These words are almost the same, but the first vowel changes, which changes the whole word.

We have to look at all of the letters in a word to read words accurately.

Now we're going to change the word into.

We're going to keep the first syllable the same, but we're going to be changing the second syllable.

This time, we'll be writing the word input.

Say that with me, input.

I hear two syllables.

First, in.

Let's write down the sounds that we hear in the syllable N. I, N. I wrote down two letters for that part.

And now, let's write down the sounds that we hear in the syllable put.

P, U, T. I have three letters for three sounds.

Do you have three letters also?

This is how we spell the word input.

In, now move that to the end.

P, U, T. This is the word input.

Does your word match mine?

I hope so.

The first syllable of these two words are the same, but it's a good thing we pay attention to the second syllable, because they make different words when we change those syllables.

Now that we have the word input, we're going to change it by taking away a syllable.

This time, we're going to be making the word put.

Put, how many sounds do you hear in put?

P, U, T. Put.

Let's write down the letters that match those sounds.

P, U, T. This is how we spell the word put.

P, U, T. Is that how you spelled it?

This is the word put.

We took away one syllable from input, and we're left with put.

Now we're going to change one letter in put to make the word pot.

Let's listen to the sounds we hear in pot.

P, O, T. Can you write down the letters that match those three sounds?

P, O, T. Pot.

This is how we make the word pot.

The only thing that we need to change is the vowel to make the O sound instead, pot.

Is that what you wrote?

I hope so.

Here is the word pot.

Now we're going to change the word pot, and we're going to change it from a one syllable word to a two syllable word.

Say this word with me, potion.

Potion.

On your paper, I would like you to write down the letters that match the sounds you hear in potion.

P, O, po.

Now tion.

Sh, I, N. Tion, potion.

You can keep writing if you need some more time, but I'm going to start building the word here.

Our first syllable in potion is po.

In the word pot, the O made the short vowel sound, O, pot.

That's because this is a closed syllable.

A vowel followed by a consonant.

So we hear the short vowel sound.

In potion, the O is at the end of the syllable.

This is an open syllable.

So this O, like most open syllables, has a vowel sound that makes the long sound, po.

Now we need our second syllable.

You might be wondering how you spell sh without S and H. In this word we spell with the T, I blend, and we end it with N. Those might be some sounds you weren't expecting.

This word part here is usually pronounced tion.

So when we put these two two syllables together, we have potion.

Potion is our word.

Let's hang that up under pot.

There we go.

Let's write one more word together, and then we're going to solve our mystery word.

We're going to make a four letter word.

This word is poll, poll.

I'd like you to write down on your paper the letters that match the sounds you hear in poll.

P, O, L. Poll.

I hear three sounds, but there are four letters.

Sometimes there are more letters than sounds.

Let's change this word potion to make the word poll.

There we go.

It starts the same way potion does, but it ends with the double L, poll.

Is this how you wrote the word poll?

This word poll means to ask a question, and get information.

You might've wanted to write P, O, L, E, which is also the word pole, but we don't have the E available in our mystery word.

So this word poll is spelled P, O, L, L. It means to ask a question to get information, like what are your classmates' favorite school lunches?

Now that we have worked on building all of these words, let's make our mystery word.

I'm going to start building it here, and as I build it, see if you can write this word on your paper as you guess how it ends.

Here we go.

It starts the same way that poll does, just like that.

Then poll, U, and we have that sh, in ending.

Let's scoot it to the middle.

Do you have all of these letters written on your paper?

P, O, L, L, U, T, I, O, N. Let's loop and scoop this word together to read it, and let's see if we know what it means.

Poll, U, tion, pollution.

This word is pollution.

When you look outside, or look at our environment, and you see trash or materials that are in our environment that aren't supposed to be there, and they're hurting our environment, we call that pollution.

We're going to read about how we can help our planet.

Great work today solving this mystery word.

Remember, accurate readers pay close attention to all of the letters in a word, so that they can read more accurately.

(soft music) - Hello and welcome.

My name is Ms. Amy, and I'm so excited to share some mindful practices with you today.

Mindful practices are tools we can use when we need to pause and take a breath, own what we are feeling, and practice, a quick stretch, or something that relaxes us.

We call this a pop check.

Sometimes I feel sad and worried.

When I feel sad and worried, my stomach aches, or my head hurts.

Do you sometimes feel sad and worried?

When you do feel sad and worried, does your stomach ache too like mine?

Well, when we feel sad or worried, we can stretch, and twist our worries out, like you're twisting water out of a towel.

Bye, bye, water.

Bye, bye, worries.

Today, we are going to twist our worries out with the washing machine twist, and you are the washing machine.

So bundle up all your worries inside, close the door.

Boop.

And now let's twist.

Take your hands to your shoulders, and breathe, and twist.

(Amy breathing) A little faster.

(Amy breathing) Beep, I think it's done.

Let's take them out, and now let's dry everything out in our big dryer.

Can you make a big dryer with your hands?

And take deep breaths in, and out.

That's it, deep breath in, and out.

Can you go faster?

Deep breath in, and out.

Beep, and stop.

Take your clothes out, and your worries out, and just put anything left of your worries on a shelf.

Twist your body to one side, and put 'em on a shelf, and maybe twist your body to the other side, and put them on the shelf.

And take a deep breath in, and out, and relax your body.

Thank you for sharing this mindful practice with me today.

Let's get together again soon.

(soft music) - Oh me, readers, hello.

Today we are going to continue reading Coyote's Soundbite, A Poem For Our Planet, written by John Agard and illustrated by Piet Grobler.

And of course, we have special permission by Lantana Publishing.

Now so far, we've got Coyote at the goddesses conference, checking out, and they are discussing all of the horrible things that the humans are doing to the planet.

And we left off where Coyote is about to give us a soundbite.

Now, remember, we're working on the focus of reacting to text.

What's that initial reaction that you have as you're reading, which will help with our deeper understanding and comprehension.

All right, let's go.

All right, here we are getting a soundbite from Coyote.

Let's see.

I was confused, I didn't know what a soundbite was.

Off we go.

"In case soundbite should cause any bother."

Mhm, bother me I didn't know, right?

Mhm.

"Coyote explained that sound bite was the tool the humans use to get a message over."

Oh, okay.

"How about this, ladies, for a suggestion?

Earth lovers of the world unite, Mother Nature is always right.

All agreed.

The soundbite had a certain ring.

The front seat lady with the turquoise handbag definitely knew what she was talking."

Oh my goodness, I absolutely love this soundbite for sure.

Okay, let's keep going.

"When he got back home, Coyote was well surprised.

He couldn't believe what greeted his eyes.

There stood Coyote's wife, and this is the truth.

All dressed up in Coyote's three piece tweed suit.

Complete with two-toned shoes and polka dot tie, she seemed ever so pleased with her disguise.

Then Mrs. Coyote had to explain to her hubby that she'd just got back from a conference of male earth gods?

Goddesses wives weren't allowed.

But I just thought I'd put in an appearance, Mrs. Coyote said, winking towards Mr. Coyote.

My blue dress suits you by the way, she added.

Is there something you're not telling me, Coyote asked, for he was a busy imagining his wife in male dress at a males only gathering."

My friends, this book has a very cute ending, and I'm not gonna read it to you.

I want you to check this book out at your local library.

Now friends, don't forget that while we read, we can always react to our texts.

Remember, that helps us to have a deeper understanding and comprehension of the text that we're reading.

(upbeat music) Writers, I've been thinking about how we were reacting to our text when we read the Coyote soundbite, and now I'm thinking it's time to respond.

Hm, as I read that book, I had lots of mixed feelings, didn't I?

Yes, and right at the beginning, I kind of felt sad a lot about what was happening to the Earth.

And I think maybe I'll write a reaction for that.

So I started by thinking, this book made me sad sometimes.

And then I had to reflect, well why?

What happened in the book to make me sad?

And I went back to one of the pages that I had that sad feeling, page 20 and 22.

And I started there to do a little thinking.

At the bottom of this page at the end of the writing, it says the fairy people are up and leaving, because of all the horrible things that are happening to the Earth.

So I think that's what I want to respond to right now.

This book made me sad sometimes.

Now I think I'm gonna tell my reader exactly where to go to in the book in order to understand why I'm feeling so sad.

So on page 20, the author said, what did I read?

The fairy people were leaving.

And then I might need to write the because, well, why are the fairy people leaving?

Wouldn't my reader want to know that?

I think so too.

Okay, so I can get started by saying on page 20, the author said the fairy people were leaving, because, and then I can finish that sentence out.

Okay, should I get started?

All right.

On page 20, the author said, hm, the fairy people, the fairy people were leaving.

What were they leaving?

Oh yeah, they were leaving their homes, weren't they?

Okay, on page 20, the author said the fairy people were leaving, their, their, their, or there?

Their, fairy people were leaving their homes, because.

Hm, well why?

Yeah, their homes were disappearing.

They were disappearing.

Oh, friends.

Doesn't that kind of make you sad?

That makes me sad.

Hmm.

What if my home started to disappear?

I'd be very sad.

My friends, remember, today that as we react to text, you can also respond, and pick one spot in the book that you want to write more, or write long about.

For example, this book made me sad sometimes.

On page 20, the author said the fairy people were leaving their homes, because their homes were disappearing.

Well, really it says their hideouts were disappearing, but I can infer that that means their homes.

(upbeat music) Wow, scholars, you've done such an amazing job.

You found a mystery word, you read a poem with me, and we had reactions to texts.

And then we responded by creating sentences to go with it.

Remember, readers, you can always have reactions to texts, and respond to help you understand, and go deeper in your comprehension while you read.

We'll see you next time on Read, Write, Roar.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by the Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan, and the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation.

Additional support by, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music)