- Hello, readers, and welcome to Read, Write, ROAR.

Today, we will focus on the big question, how can I be a world changer?

We will learn to read words with many different types of syllables in them.

And we will read about an inventor.

For today's episode, you'll need something to write on, even a scratch piece of paper or an envelope, and something to write with, like a crayon or a pencil.

Come and 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.

When I'm reading, and I come to a long word that I've never seen before, I remind myself that I don't have to read the entire word all at once.

Instead, I can break that word up into syllables, or word parts, to help me read the word more accurately.

By learning about the different kinds of syllables, we can learn how to break long words up into syllables.

Remember, every syllable has one and only one vowel in it.

Our vowels that make the vowel sounds in those syllables are A, E, I, O, U, and oftentimes the letter Y.

Sometimes a syllable will have more than one vowel, but they'll always work together just to make one vowel sound.

Our goal today is to learn how to read words with more than one type of syllable in them.

Are you ready to get started?

Me too.

Here is our first word.

This is a word that I don't know how to read.

Let's get ready to loop and swoop this word, so that we can figure out together what it says.

Remember, our first job is to place a dot under any vowels that we see in this word.

I'm going to place a dot under E, A, and E. Those are my vowels in this word.

My next job is to look and see if there are any vowel teams that I should underline in this word.

I'm going to scan across my word, and look for any vowel teams that I might see.

I don't see any vowel teams in this word, so I don't have to underline anything.

Now we need to decide, are we going to split this word between a consonant and a vowel, two consonants, or two vowels?

I already know I'm going to split this word three different places, because this word has three word parts.

Let's get ready to loop and swoop, so we can read this word together.

Ex, am, plah.

Exmaplah.

That doesn't sound like a word that I know, but I remember that this LE at the end of a word actually says L, not lah.

So let me try reading this again.

Example, example.

I've heard of that word before.

That word is example.

Readers, are you ready to try one with me now?

Can you get your scratch piece of paper or envelope, and your writing tool ready?

Here is our next word.

Readers, you're doing so well.

I think you can probably try this last word on your own.

If you're like me, you're thinking this is a word that you don't know how to read either.

Let's go ahead and write this word down on your paper.

Can you write down the letters?

D, E, L, I, G, H, T, F, U, L. Do you have that word written on your paper?

All right.

Remember, the first thing we need to do is place a dot under any vowels we see in this word.

Go ahead and place a dot under any vowels you see in this word on your paper.

Did you find the vowels E, I, and U, like I did?

Awesome job.

If you didn't, that's okay.

Take a second, and fix up your work.

Now we need to scan across our word, and we need to see if there are any vowel teams that we find in this word to underline.

On your paper, will you scan across your word, and see if there's any vowel teams that you find to underline?

I'll do the same up here.

I don't see any vowel teams that I need to underline in this word.

So now we need to decide where we're going to break this word, between two vowels, a vowel and a consonant, or between two consonants.

I know that we're going to have to break this word into three word parts.

Are you ready to loop and swoop with me, so we can read this word together?

Get your pencils ready, here we go.

De, light, full, delightful.

That word is delightful.

The ice cream sundae I had for dessert was delightful.

Readers, you did such an awesome job working with me to help break these words into syllables, and read the words together.

By breaking these words into syllables and word parts, we can read long words and bigger words more accurately.

Don't forget to try it in your own reading at home.

Now that we're getting really good at reading words with more than one type of syllable in them, let's try writing some of these words.

For this activity, you'll need whatever you have to write on, and something to write with.

Are you ready?

Let's go.

When we spell words, we listen for the number of word parts in that word.

And we also visualize, or see the letters that represent those sounds in the word parts.

Are you ready to try our first word together?

Our first word is professor.

Will you say that word with me?

Professor.

I'm gonna write down three lines, pro, fess, R, because I hear three word parts in this word.

Now I'm going to think about the sounds I hear in each of those word parts.

I hear P, R, O. F, E, S, R. Pro, fess, R. or now I'm going to think about the letters that represent these sounds, and write them down.

P, R, O, F, E, S, R. Since this is a word part, it needs a vowel in it.

I'm gonna put an O with that R. Now when I put all of these word parts together, I've spelled the word professor.

The professor gave a lecture to his college class on different types of mammals.

Great job, readers.

Are you ready to try another one?

Our next word is instrument.

Can you say that word with me?

Instrument.

I'm going to write down instrument, three lines, because again, I hear three word parts in this word.

Now I'm gonna think about the sounds I hear in each of those word parts.

I, N, S, T, R, U, M, E, N, T. Instrument.

Now it's time to think about what letters represent those sounds.

Here we go.

I, N, S, T, R, U, M, E, N, T. When I put all of these word parts together, I've built the word instrument.

My daughter plays the instrument, the drums.

Great job, readers.

We've got one more word to try.

Are you ready?

Here we go.

Our last word that we are going to build today is hibernate.

Can you say that word with me?

Hibernate.

I hear three word parts in hibernate also, so I'm going to write three lines.

Hibernate.

Now I need to think about the sounds in each of these word parts.

H, I, B, R, N, A, T. Hibernate.

Now it's time for me to think about the letters that represent these sounds.

H, I, B, R, N, A, T. Something doesn't look right to me.

I do notice in the second word part, I don't have a vowel, so I better add one.

I'm going to add an E in front of that R. I also feel like something looks wrong at the end.

I know that if this A is going to say its name, there should be an E at the end of the word.

Now when I put all of these word parts together, I've built the word hibernate.

The bear was about ready to hibernate for the winter.

Readers, you did an amazing job today working with these different types of words with different types of syllables in them.

I'll see you next time on Read, Write, ROAR.

(soft music) (speaking in foreign language) - Readers, hi, how are you today?

Today, we have an amazing text to read.

It's called "Marley Dias Gets It Done, And So Can You".

We have special permission from Scholastics Publishing to read this to you today.

Our focus is going to be a retell.

Thinking about the most important ideas as we read through a text.

One way that you can do this is first, think about who could you retell this story to, or this text to?

Maybe a cousin, a brother, or sister, or even some other fabulous trusted adult.

Second, we want to make sure that we only select the important details.

Absolutely.

Third, we use something called a five finger retell, and this we all have on our hands.

This will help us remember the important details, so that we don't forget anything.

Her story, who I am, how this all began.

We're going to be reading this thinking about characters, who are the characters in our book?

Second one is setting, where is this story taking place?

Third, problem, is there a problem that needs to be solved?

Four, events.

What are things that happen with our characters, uh huh, to maybe solve that problem?

And then of course, we can't forget the solution when we think about the events leading to the solution of our problem.

Now the big idea, or the heart of the story, is our central message, friends.

So we need to be thinking about what is the theme?

What is the message, or what is the life lesson the author's trying to teach us?

"If only there'd been one book at school, just one about a black girl and a dog, a brainiac black girl astronaut with her trailblazing space poodle exploring the rings of Saturn.

A fierce black girl fashion designer with her frisky Rottweiler on a rhinestone leash, owning the streets of the city.

A fearless black girl forensic archeologist with her inquisitive collie, uncovering a fossil remains of some prehistoric species.

If only, then maybe none of this would have happened.

I wouldn't be such a public advocate for black girl books.

I wouldn't have to write this book.

I'd just be your typical girl in a New Jersey public school, checking off the titles on her assigned reading list, cramming for tests, playing video games with my best friend, and binge-watching slime and cat videos on YouTube.

Maybe.

But then again, I doubt it.

And that's not what happened anyway.

And I'm not that average girl.

I am Marley Emerson Dias.

I'm a teenager, and I'm an activist for literacy, for diversity, for equity, and positive social change."

Diversity, that means to have lots of choices, that's right, or lots of different representations of the people around you.

We can also think of equity as something that's not necessarily equal, but it sure is fair.

All right, friends, okay.

"And you can be too.

You may think that we're too young to have an influence on or make a real difference in this so often messed up world.

But I am proof we're not, because I already did it, and I'm going to keep on doing it, and so can you.

I'll help by telling you how.

It all began, as a matter of fact, over a plate of pancakes.

Mm, pancakes, the power of pancakes.

Pancakes are the definition of awesome.

Don't you agree?

So my mom and I were snug in a booth at a diner one Thursday after school, or maybe it was a Tuesday, and I was eating pancakes.

All good.

It was November, almost the holidays.

We were talking just about stuff.

The year that was coming to an end, the year that was going to begin.

My mom asked me, if you could change one thing in the new year, Marley, what would it be?

Hmm, good question, mom.

My titi, that's a Spanish word for auntie.

My titi Eva had given me the book "Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson as a birthday gift when I was nine years old.

"Brown Girl Dreaming" was different.

At nine, I just didn't get it at all.

The poetry, the lack of usual plot, all that pretty imagery.

What did it mean?

For the first time ever, I set a book aside, put it back on the shelf in my bedroom.

And when my auntie asked me a whole year later how I liked it, I had to admit to her that, shocker in this DiasCrew, I hadn't read it.

It was too hard to understand.

Maybe, she challenged me gently.

You should try again.

I did try again.

And with the benefit of age, patience, and maturity, ha ha, suddenly, Jacqueline Woodson's story-in-verse made complete sense to me.

No, it more than made sense.

It opened a whole new world to me, a world where modern black girls were the main characters, not invisible, not just the sidekick.

A world where black girls were free to be complicated honest humans, to have adventures and emotions unique to them.

A world where black girls' stories truly mattered.

And it was beautiful, because that was not exactly the world I was experiencing in real life.

Back in fifth grade, in my class, in all the fifth grade classes, we were required to read classic books like "Shiloh", which is about a white boy and a dog he rescues.

And "Old Yeller", which is about a white boy, and a dog that rescues him.

And "Where the Red Fern Grows", which is about a white boy and two dogs that he trains.

These are all good stories, not to be disrespectful about any white people, dogs, or any of those books or their authors.

One of them had been awarded the Newbery Honor, and another, the Newbery Medal, but so had many black authors.

It's like winning an Oscar for your book.

If you win it, you're basically officially one of the best authors on the planet.

We could have had other options.

What about "Brown Girl Dreaming"?

And "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia.

There were students of all different races and ethnicities in my class, just not in the books that we were assigned to read.

And no black authors had written any books on our reading list, which brings me back to the diner, and that question my mom posed over pancakes about what I could change if I could.

I gulped down a mouthful of fluffy, yummy, flapjacky goodness, then answered her.

I'd make it so that all kids in my class, in my grade, that kids everywhere could read books with black girls as the main characters, I said, books like "Brown Girl Dreaming".

I'm tired of us not being included, of our stories not being told, and I was.

I am so sick and tired of reading books about white boys and their dogs.

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred D. Taylor won the 1977 Newbery Medal.

It had been around a long time like those other books.

Why wasn't it considered a classic?

"Brown Girl Dreaming" has also won a Newbery Honor Medal, the Coretta Scott King Award, the NAACP Image Award, and the National Book Award.

"One Crazy Summer" has also won most of these awards too.

My mom gave me a look across the table, that way she does when she's going to drop some truth.

Well, she replied, that's an interesting dilemma, Marley, what are you going to do about it?

I repeat, good question, mom."

Let's review.

When we want to keep track of the things going on in our books, we need to make connections, and think about our five finger retell.

Characters, Marley and her mom right now.

Setting, we are in a New Jersey diner eating flapjacks.

Three, we have a problem.

Not enough diversity in the books that she's reading, mhm, which creates a problem with equity.

It's not fair to her.

She feels invisible.

Four, events.

She has read an amazing book that has blown her mind, although it was hard to read at first, and she put it down, she tackled it again, ooh, that sounds like perseverance.

I love it.

Uh huh, and solution, we don't have a solution yet, do we friends?

No, she's not sure what she's gonna do about it.

We'll have to read to figure out what that solution is.

(soft music) Writers, we have brainstormed what could be one possible problem in our neighborhood or community.

We decided to go ahead, and think about solving a problem with our local animal shelter.

They said that they needed donations, lots of different kinds of donations.

So I shared with you some of those donations, and we used them to help make a persuasive writing with three examples and evidence why we need our community to help out.

How did we come up with these ideas so far?

That's right.

We used the TREE acronym to help us remember what it is that we need to do.

T stands for, uh huh, topic.

R, reasons.

Evidence to go with those reasons.

And then ending.

We have one more piece of evidence to add.

We've talked about how it's important to take care of them by giving them food, and how the colors and toys are important.

Now so we have one more important detail to add.

The last important detail that we need to add, that it's important that animals have a clean space to live in.

When I called the shelter, they said that they needed cleaning supplies in order to help make sure that those animals stayed safe.

The last reason we should donate to the animal shelter is because, yeah, it's important to, ooh, have a clean space for the animals to live?

Something like that?

Awesome.

Writers, we've used the TREE acronym to remind us that we need a reason along with some evidence.

It's now time to come up with an ending.

One way that you can come up with a good strong ending for a persuasive writing is to retell or restate what we've already said.

It's important to make sure that we leave our readers knowing why it's so important to help a local animal shelter.

Today, we have finished our persuasive writing with our third reason, and our ending using the TREE acronym to help us remember what should be in our writing.

T, topic, R, reason, E, evidence, E, ending.

So my friends, when you're writing, use your TREE acronym to help you with your persuasive writing.

Authors, let's go back and reread to see if we have all of the items that we need for TREE, topic, reason, evidence, ending.

All right, off we go.

The local animal shelter needs donations to help take care of the animals they have for adoption.

It is important that we donate supplies to the local animal shelter.

One reason to donate is that it's important to give food to help take care of the animals.

Evidence, donate food.

Reason, to help take care of them.

Another reason is that without our help, some animals might not get collars or toys.

Can you imagine that?

Reason, yeah, they need collars and toys.

And evidence, can you imagine a life without any toys?

I cannot.

Let's keep going.

The last reason we should give to the animal shelter is because it's important to make sure the animals have a clean place to live.

This will help keep them healthy.

Reason clean place, evidence, keep them healthy.

Awesome.

How did we wrap it all up?

It's important to donate to the animal shelter to help provide food, toys, and keep the shelter clean.

And that's our ending.

(upbeat music) Scholars, you have done an amazing job today working on your long vowels, helping me retell a story, using our five finger retell strategy.

And we finished some writing.

You've done a fantastic job today.

Oh, wha!

Remember, you can always use that five finger strategy, and work on those long vowels while you read.

(speaking in foreign language) We'll see you next time on 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)