Bibliographic Information:
Waber, Bernard (2010). Lyle walks the dogs: A counting book. New York: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.
Plot Description: Readers can follow along as Lyle the crocodile’s dog-walking business grows. He does such a wonderful job walking the dogs that his services become very popular and he gets more and more dogs to walk. Lyle starts his business with only one dog to walk on the first day, then on the second day her gets a second dog to walk along with the first, and so on, until he gets to the tenth day and walks ten dogs. Readers count the dogs each day Lyle works, eventually counting up to ten. At the end of the book readers count all the dogs to make sure none of them got away from Lyle and he still has ten dogs.
Quantitative Reading Level : Lexile Measure: N/A , ATOS Book Level: 1.8, Interest Level: Lower Grades (K-3)
Qualitative Reading Analysis: This book seems appropriate to read to students who are learning to count. Each page has an additional dog that Lyle is walking that day and readers count one number higher. On the first day the first dog is introduced, then the second dog on the second day and readers count the dogs, 1-2, etc, for ten days and ten dogs. At the end the reader counts the dogs from one to ten to make sure none of the dogs are missing. The sentence structure is simple, but some of the vocabulary may be a little difficult for students in beginning grades. Some examples are snappish, frisky, pokey, coaxed, yearning, etc. Experiences portrayed are everyday and common to readers, as walking dogs or seeing others walking them will be normal for readers. However, a crocodile who has a job walking dogs is highly unusual. Personification is used to give the crocodile human traits and characteristics.
Content Area: Math (Basic-Counting), Reading
Content Area Standard: English Language Arts Standards for Reading: Literature
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.7 With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).
CA CCSS Mathematics Standards: Counting and Cardinality K.CC
Count to tell the number of objects.
- Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality.
- When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object.
- Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted. The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order in which they were counted.
- Understand that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one larger.
- Count to answer “how many?” questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1–20, count out that many objects.
Curriculum Suggestions: Students practice counting along with the story as Lyle takes on new dogs each day in his ever growing dog walking business. Ask students how many dogs Lyle is walking throughout the story as the number changes. Use game on back cover to do matching and counting activities.
Supporting Digital Content:
Series information: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
Character names/descriptions: Lyle the helpful Crocodile and the many dogs he walks
Personal Thoughts: The last Lyle, Lyle Crocodile book brings Lyle to younger readers. The repetition of numbers will be useful in counting practice and the illustrations will hold children’s interest.
High interest annotation: Help Lyle keep track of the dogs by counting as he starts a dog walking business.
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