Our first Houghton Mifflin reading theme is Off to Adventure.  In this theme we will read three stories.  Our first story, Cliff Hanger, uses the genre of realistic fiction to take readers on an adventure with Axel, a young boy, who has to rescue his dog in a storm.  Our second story is a popular folktale called, The Battle of Mulan.  In this story, readers are following Mulan, a young girl who disguises herself to take her father's place in the Emperor's army.  The final story of the theme, The Lost and Found, uses fantasy to take reader's on an adventure that Mona, Wendell, and Floyd take when going to the lost and found.

Targets:

During this theme, all students will…

     use various reading strategies:  summarize; monitor/clarify; predict/infer; phonics/decoding.

     learn various comprehension strategies:  sequence of events; making inferences; cause & effect.

     use dictionary skills such as ABC order, multiple-meaning words, and parts of a dictionary to learn new vocabulary.

     identify various grammar skills:  complete sentences; correcting fragments; kinds of sentences; capitalizing & punctuating sentences; subjects & predicates; combining sentences.

     review spelling skills for short vowels a, e, i, o, u as well as work with the vowel-consonant-e pattern.

3 Stories in our theme: