Another word family in the first note to Farmer Brown is /-ight/. Write the word night on the whiteboard, chalkboard, or magnetic board. Show students how you can remove the n and change it to an r to make the word right. Instead of saying the letters as you change them, you will want to emphasize the sounds the letters make. This will help students know what to do when they come to a word they do not know in a text. Other words in the /-ight/ family are light, might, sight, tight, bright, and flight. Farmer Brown begins to hear typing sounds coming from his barn. He discovers that his cows have found an old typewriter in the barn and are using it to type letters requesting things from Farmer Brown, such as electric blankets to keep them warm at night. Farmer Brown refuses, and the cows withhold their milk until they get what they ask for. Soon, the cows type a similar letter about the hens asking for blankets which Farmer Brown refuses to provide. The hens join the cows and refuse to lay eggs. After graduating from Pratt Institute where she studied illustration, Betsy Lewin designed greeting cards. Then she began to write and illustrate stories for children’s magazines. When an editor at Dodd, Mead & Company asked her to expand one of those stories into a picture book, Betsy says, “I jumped at the chance. I’ve been doing picture books ever since and loving every moment.” Note: Avoid making words that may cause confusion for students, especially at the beginning of instruction. For example, avoid the word know because the sound for the /-ow/ rime is not the same as in cow. Before reading the story, look at the front cover. What might the cows be typing a letter about? Could you write what it might say?

Introduce the words families in the second note, which are /-en/ and /-ow/. Tell students that you will use the words they already know, hens and cows, to make new words. Also, point out that you will be taking the s off the end of each word. Type your own letter to Farmer Brown, from the cows’ point of view, explaining how they are feeling. Gather highlighting tape, a magnetic board and letters, and a whiteboard with dry-erase markers. Make sure that students will be able to easily see these materials from where they are sitting in the classroom. It's important for students to be able to see as you write the word family words and change the first letter to create new words. This puts Farmer Brown in a tizzy because every fool knows you can't run a farm with no milk and no aiggs! So he dusts off his own typewriter and bangs out a letter reminding the cows and hens that they are animals and he demands that they produce for him.

Thump, Quack, Moo

Have students read aloud together the first note from the cows while you point to each word on the chart paper. During this shared reading, it is important for your voice to model fluency and expression.

Farmer Brown will not give in to their demands, so they go on strike and withhold their milk. It's not long before the hens feel the chill in the barn and join the strike. Finish this session by having students reread all five notes with fluency and expression, as you have modeled and they have practiced in previous sessions. After the reading, draw students' attention to the chart or poster paper with the first note typed by the cows to Farmer Brown asking for electric blankets in the barn.Follow the procedure from Session 2 as you write and read the words, and then change the first letter or letters to make new words. Remind students that they can use this same method when they come to a word they do not know when reading or writing. Of course, not all new words can be solved using rimes or word families, but the principle applies to many words. For the /-en/ word family, words include den, men, pen, ten, when, and then. For the /-ow/ word family, words include how, now, brow, chow, and plow.