Students will love the engaging story of Hot Dog, riddled with opportunities to discover why author and illustrator, Doug Salati, made specific textual and illustrative choices. Whether it be color scheme, word choice, font size or style, Salati gives readers endless details to think deeply about and determine their purpose and importance.

Students will enjoy making many connections with Hot Dog, finding links to their own lives and the world around them. The changes in setting and emotion throughout the story lends itself to a wide range of audiences, giving all readers a chance to find a piece of themselves in a little dog's big adventure.

The author and illustrator of Hot Dog, Doug Salati, pairs detailed illustrations with limited and purposeful text, giving readers a chance to infer on every page. Salati's beautiful illustrations tell much of the story, supporting students to infer about Hot Dog's emotions, events throughout his day, and the evolving setting on each colorful page.

As the story of Hot Dog progresses, students will see changes in Hot Dog's mood and emotions, as well as frequent changes in setting. These evolutions lend themselves to practicing synthesizing and prompt a deeper understanding of the text. Hot Dog begins his day in a hot, crowded city, and eventually finds himself in an entirely different environment where we see a large shift in his mood. When Hot Dog returns to the city at night, students are given another opportunity to notice changes both in the city and in Hot Dog's demeanor once the hot summer sun has set.

Whether it is identifying Hot Dog's big problem in the hot city, sequencing his escape to a cooler space, or comparing and contrasting his emotions about city life, Hot Dog by Doug Salati caters to developing this foundational comprehension skill. Students will use text and highly detailed illustrations to find answers to the questions that help structure this adventurous tale.

This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use Hot Dog by Doug Salati as a springboard for instruction focused on onomatopoeias.

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

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with Hot Dog. 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.

Read Hot Dog 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 a hands-on and interactive way.

This resource includes matching/sorting cards and a sorting mat for four cause and effect sentences in Hot Dog. 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.

Understanding cause and effect is a key comprehension and language skill. The text structure of Hot Dog 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.

The BookPagez extension activities are a great way to push student engagement beyond the pages of the text. Try using this activity with early finishers, with students who show a deeper connection with the text, or as a center activity.