Scott Foresman Reading Street

Reader Response

Open for Discussion Personal Response

MODEL I knew the horned toad would show up at Reba Jo's door, but some parts of this story surprised me. I would ask Reba Jo why she didn't run away when the toad talked to her.

Comprehension Check Critical Response

Answers should show an understanding of what makes a good story (e.g., dialogue, dialect, drama).
Author's Purpose
Possible response: If you trick someone, you may get tricked in return.
Author's Purpose
Possible response: The most important event is Reba Jo's making a deal with the horned toad.
Story Structure
Possible responses: sagebrush, arroyo, dusty, rattlesnake.
Vocabulary

Look Back and Write For test practice, assign a 10–15 minute time limit. For assessment, see the rubric on TR25.

Summarize

Have students summarize the story using their completed plot structure diagrams.

Retell

Have students retell The Horned Toad Prince.

then… use the Scoring Rubric for Retelling below to help move them toward fluent retelling.

If… students have difficulty retelling the story,

Check Retelling

Summarize In four or five sentences, tell a friend the most important parts of the story.

Check Retelling Go through the illustrations with students first, verifying they know character names and English words for items pictured. For more ideas on assessing students' retellings, see the ELL and Transition Handbook.

Students can search the Internet to find out more about the author. Have them use a student-friendly search engine and the keywords Jackie Mims Hopkins.

Online Student Edition Snapshot Response with answer key (pdf)

Look Back and Write At the end of the story, the caballero says, "A deal's a deal." Explain what the deal is. Then tell whether or not you think it is a good deal and why.

This story is fit for a storyteller. Find a part of the story that could be read the way a storyteller would. Why is that such a good part to read?

An author's purpose can be to teach the reader an important lesson. What lesson do you think the author teaches in this story?

What was the most important event in the story? Why do you think this?

The words prairie and riverbed on the Words to Know list are clues to the story's setting. Find other words in the story that hint at the Southwest setting.

Open for Discussion Did you know what was going to happen in the story or were you surprised? What three questions would you ask Reba Jo if you could?

Reader Response

Read these
books!

Meet the Author and the Illustrator Jackie Mims Hopkins and Michael Austin

Jackie Mims Hopkins wasn't much of a reader as
a young girl. "I didn't enjoy reading any book of length.
I couldn't sit still long
enough to read." Now she is an author and a librarian!

The Three Armadillies
Tuff by Jackie
Mims Hopkins

Ms. Hopkins got the idea for The Horned
Toad Prince when she was researching
horned toads for another book. "I realized
there weren't many stories about them.
I decided it was time to write a story about
the little critters," she says. "I started thinking
about which fairy tale could be used with a
horned toad as the main character. 'The Frog Prince' was a perfect match."
Michael Austin created the art for this story.
"The Horned Toad Prince stood out to me right
away because of its personality and energy,"
he says. As an artist, Mr. Austin has always had a "strange point of view." He enjoys drawing
because it gives him a chance to "draw things
my own way, strange or not."