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Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for A Chair for My Mother

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Use A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams to strengthen your students' comprehension skills, build their vocabulary, and help them understand how words work.

A Chair for My Mother is a tender story about patience, perseverance, and family. This award-winning book is an excellent choice for minilessons focused on identifying the author's purpose, making inferences, retelling & summarizing, understanding text structure, and visualizing. In addition to comprehension strategy lesson plans and activities, this set of teaching resources includes a lesson plan focused on prepositions along with vocabulary development resources and two assessments.

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Explore lesson plans and activities to help you teach with A Chair for My Mother in the drop down below.

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Identifying the Author's Purpose with A Chair for My Mother

A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams is brimming with messages, including those about persistence, goal setting, family values, and strong work ethic. Help students identify the author's purpose with this lesson plan and set of teaching resources. The text-specific questions will help readers think deeply about the characters, the events, and the messages in the story in order to understand why the author wrote the book.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RL.2.2,RL.2.7,RL.2.10,RF.2.3,RF.2.4,SL.2.1b,SL.2.2,SL.2.3,W.2.8,L.2.6

TEKS Alignment

2.7D,2.13G,2.13E,2.13C,2.10C,2.10B,2.10A,2.9C,2.8C,2.7E,2.1A,2.7C,2.7B,2.7A,2.6I,2.6E,2.6A,2.1D,2.1C

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Making Inferences with A Chair for My Mother

Pair this making inferences lesson plan and set of teaching resources with this emotional tale of a family who loses their belongings in a fire. The author's tender storytelling will inspire students to draw upon their feelings in order to infer what the characters in A Chair for My Mother might be feeling or thinking in response to tragedy.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RL.2.6,RL.2.7,RL.2.10,RF.2.3,RF.2.4,SL.2.1b,SL.2.2,SL.2.3,W.2.8,L.2.6

TEKS Alignment

2.7C,2.13G,2.13E,2.13C,2.8C,2.8B,2.7F,2.7E,2.7D,2.1A,2.7B,2.6I,2.6F,2.6E,2.6A,2.1D,2.1C

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Retelling & Summarizing with A Chair for My Mother

Vera B. Williams, the author of A Chair for My Mother, uses a flashback as a literary device to describe events that happened in the past. As a result, this lesson plan, when paired with the book, is a smart choice for more sophisticated readers who may benefit from the challenge of identifying and retelling key events in a nonlinear sequence.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RL.2.2,RL.2.3,RL.2.5,RL.2.7,RL.2.10,RF.2.3,RF.2.4,SL.2.1b,SL.2.2,SL.2.3,W.2.8,L.2.6

TEKS Alignment

2.7D,2.13G,2.13E,2.13C,2.9C,2.8D,2.8C,2.8A,2.7F,2.7E,2.1A,2.7C,2.7B,2.7A,2.6I,2.6G,2.6A,2.1D,2.1C

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Understanding Text Structure with A Chair for My Mother

This minilesson and set of teaching resources will support students as they work to explore a variety of text structures in A Chair for My Mother. The page-specific prompts included in the minilesson guide readers to notice how the author uses sequencing, description, cause and effect, and problem and solution to tell the story.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RL.2.4,RL.2.5,RL.2.7,RL.2.10,RF.2.3,RF.2.4,SL.2.1b,SL.2.2,SL.2.3,W.2.8,L.2.6

TEKS Alignment

2.7E,2.13G,2.13E,2.13C,2.10C,2.10B,2.9C,2.8C,2.7F,2.1A,2.7D,2.7C,2.7B,2.6I,2.6A,2.1D,2.1C

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Visualizing with A Chair for My Mother

The strong descriptive language in A Chair for My Mother makes it the perfect choice for a minilesson focused on visualizing. Use the text-dependent questions included in this set of teaching resources to guide students through the text, make meaningful mental images, and deepen their comprehension of this award-winning story.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RL.2.7,RL.2.10,RF.2.3,RF.2.4,SL.2.1b,SL.2.2,SL.2.3,W.2.8,L.2.6

TEKS Alignment

2.7C,2.13G,2.13E,2.13C,2.10C,2.9C,2.8C,2.7F,2.7E,2.7D,2.1A,2.7B,2.7A,2.6I,2.6E,2.6D,2.6A,2.1D,2.1C

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Parts of Speech with A Chair for My Mother

This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams as a springboard for instruction focused on prepositions and prepositional phrases.

By anchoring word study to the text, students will benefit from seeing how parts of speech are used inside of the text before engaging in both guided and independent practice with prepositions.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RF.2.3,RF.2.4

TEKS Alignment

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Vocabulary Connections with A Chair for My Mother

This set of vocabulary development resources for A Chair for My Mother highlights the words that are most important for students to know and understand while reading the book. Through engaging in fun word games, matching words to definitions and pictures, and practicing how to categorize words, students will develop the vocabulary necessary to comprehend this story and many others.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

L.2.4a,L.2.5a,L.2.6

TEKS Alignment

2.7E,2.7F,2.3A,2.3B,2.3D

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Comprehension Assessment with A Chair for My Mother

Use this Common Core aligned comprehension assessment to evaluate students' comprehension of A Chair for My Mother.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

TEKS Alignment

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Running Record with A Chair for My Mother

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with A Chair for My Mother. Track meaning, structure, and visual accuracy using the first 100 words of the text to determine whether or not this book is a good fit for the readers in your classroom.

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Cause and Effect Matching with A Chair for My Mother

Read A Chair for My Mother then have some fun matching cause and effect sentences from the book. By using these cause and effect cards, students will demonstrate both their comprehension of the text and their understanding of cause and effect relationships in hands-on and interactive way.

This resource includes matching/sorting cards and a sorting mat for four cause and effect sentences in A Chair for My Mother. Each cause card is marked with a square and each effect card is marked with a circle, making it easy to support students who struggle with matching cause and effect relationships.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

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Cause and Effect Sentence Stems with A Chair for My Mother

Understanding cause and effect is a key comprehension and language skill. The text structure of A Chair for My Mother includes several examples of cause and effect relationships, making it easy to use as a springboard for modeling or independent practice.

This simple resource includes four sentence stems. Each sentence stem presents an effect. Students will use what they know about the book to fill in the cause of the effect.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

TEKS Alignment

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Writing with A Chair for My Mother

In A Chair for My Mother, a young girl and her mother lose everything they have in a fire. They save coins in a jar with the hope that someday, they will be able to buy a new chair for their apartment. This worksheet invites students to use key details from the text to write a "Want Ad" for a new chair for the characters in the story.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

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Identifying the Author's Purpose with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Student Practice Page and Answer Key
Reader's Notebook Prompt
Graphic Organizer

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Making Inferences with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Student Practice Page and Answer Key
Reader's Notebook Prompt
Graphic Organizer

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Retelling & Summarizing with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Student Practice Page and Answer Key
Reader's Notebook Prompt
Graphic Organizer

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Understanding Text Structure with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Student Practice Page and Answer Key
Reader's Notebook Prompt
Graphic Organizer

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Visualizing with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Student Practice Page and Answer Key
Reader's Notebook Prompt
Graphic Organizer

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Writing with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

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About the Book

The cover for the book A Chair for My Mother

Title: A Chair for My Mother

Author: Vera B. Williams

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Themes: Self Management, Family, Decision Making, Perseverance, Award Winners

ISBN: 9780063222496

Publisher's Summary:

Vera Williams tells of a young girl who, along with her waitress mother, saves coins in a big jar in hopes that they can someday buy a new chair for their apartment, the kind of chair her mother deserves after being on her feet all day in the Blue Tile Diner. Into the jar also goes the money Grandma saves whenever she gets a bargain at the market. There hasn't been a comfortable place to sit in the apartment since a fire in their previous apartment burned everything to "charcoal and ashes." Friends and neighbors brought furniture to their new apartment downstairs, but no one brought anything big or soft or comfortable. Finally the jar is full, the coins are rolled, and in the book's crowning moment, mother, daughter, and Grandma search four different furniture stores, and after carefully trying several chairs, like Goldilocks, they find the chair they've been dreaming of at last.

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Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for A Chair for My Mother

Explore lesson plans and activities to help you teach with A Chair for My Mother in the drop down below.

Identifying the Author's Purpose with A Chair for My Mother

Making Inferences with A Chair for My Mother

Retelling & Summarizing with A Chair for My Mother

Understanding Text Structure with A Chair for My Mother

Visualizing with A Chair for My Mother

Parts of Speech with A Chair for My Mother

Vocabulary Connections with A Chair for My Mother

Comprehension Assessment with A Chair for My Mother

Running Record with A Chair for My Mother

Cause and Effect Matching with A Chair for My Mother

Cause and Effect Sentence Stems with A Chair for My Mother

Writing with A Chair for My Mother

Identifying the Author's Purpose with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Making Inferences with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Retelling & Summarizing with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Understanding Text Structure with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Visualizing with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

Writing with A Chair for My Mother (Spanish)

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