Playing Team Sports
Level 24
Non-fiction
Word count: 995
Text type: Report
Extending vocabulary: allowed, competition, depend, either, enjoyable, expected, halves,
including, indoor, practise
Linking text:
The Team (fiction)
Curriculum link:
community, physically active
Text summary:
Learn about two of the most popular team sports in the world—basketball and football.
Find out how these sports began, the basic things you need to know about the sports
and the rules. Learn why playing a team sport is a great thing to do.
Tuning in
• Brainstorm different team sports. Ask, What does it
mean to play in a team? Have children consider different
sports equipment and how the games are played.
Predicting
• Introduce the text. Give each child a copy of the book
and discuss the title and the cover pictures. Ask children
to predict what the text will be about. Ask, Do you think
it will be a fiction or non-fiction text? What things do you
think you will learn when reading this text?
• Have children make connections (text-to-self, text-totext, text-to-world) using the title and cover pictures as
prompts. Ask, How does this text link with your personal
experiences?
• Discuss vocabulary that might occur in the text. Ask
questions that promote language used in the text and
encourage children to predict and form understandings.
pages 4–5: Ask, Why would playing a team sport be
healthy for your body and your mind? What would the
teams be doing if they are playing a competition? What
do you learn when you play a team sport?
pages 6–7: Ask, How do you think basketball began?
pages 8–9: Ask, What shape court is basketball played
on? Where are the baskets on the court? How many
teams do you think play basketball at a time?
pages 10–11: Ask, Why might there be different rules
for different aged players? How do you think you win a
game of basketball? How do you think you get a free
shot from the free-throw line?
pages 12–13: Ask, How do you think the players move
the ball from one end of the court to the other? How
would you stop the other team from shooting a goal?
pages 14–15: Ask, What part of your body do you use
to move the ball when you play football?
pages 16–17: Ask, What shape field is football played
on? How is the field divided up? What different lines are
there on the field? How many teams play at a time?
What would the referee do?
pages 18–19: Ask, Why might there be different rules for
different aged players? How would your team win a game
of football? What do you think the goalkeeper’s job is?
How would you move the ball down the field? How would
you get the ball from the other team?
pages 20–21: Ask, Why would you need to learn the
rules and skills of the game you choose to play? Why
would you need to practise and work with your team?
pages 22–23: Ask, How could people in wheelchairs
play team sports? What are the most important things
about team sports?
page 24: Ask, What could you use the glossary for?
What could you use the index for?
Reading the text
• Predicting: Ask children to look at the text (chapter,
page or paragraph) and predict what they think the text
might be about.
• Have children read the text independently (chapter, page
or paragraph). Discuss that sometimes it is necessary to
re-read several times to gain meaning.
• Encourage children to use strategies while reading to
gain information (e.g. re-reading, reading on, sounding
out, using contextual cues and knowledge of content).
• Encourage children to use sources of information to
fully comprehend the text—embedded clauses, negation,
linking across phrases/paragraphs, linking and comparing
data and information.
• Clarifying: Ask children to identify words, phrases or
sentences that they do not understand and need to
have clarified. Clarify these through discussion, teacher/
student expertise and using tools such as a dictionary.
Encourage children to use the glossary on page 24.
• Visualising: Discuss visualising with children and ask them
to ‘paint a picture’ as they read to gain understanding of
the text. Ask, What image can you see in your mind?
• Questioning: After reading the text (chapter, page or
paragraph), have children ask and answer questions
related to the text they have read.
• Summarising: Ask children to retell and summarise what
they have read. Ask, What were the main ideas in the text?
• Ask inferential questions such as: Why would playing a
team sport be enjoyable? What might happen if there wasn’t
a referee in team sports? How would practising together
help your team?
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After reading
Focus on developing reading strategies that support children
in gaining meaning. Return to passages of text that children
found difficult. Discuss and model specific reading strategies,
such as visualising, making connections, clarifying, questioning,
summarising and inferring. Talk about how developing and
using strategies help readers to form understandings. Choose
from the following activities.
Comprehension
• Answer questions: On strips of paper, write questions
about basketball and football that encourage children to
recall information from the text. Have each child choose
a strip of paper with a question on it and encourage
them to answer it for both football and basketball.
Discuss how the answers were similar or different.
Have children complete PW 43 (page 73), answering
questions and comparing the two sports.
• Bundling: Talk about how the text is written in chapters.
Discuss how the headings help readers to know what
they will be reading about. Have children identify the
title ‘How Basketball Began’. Ask, What did we read about
in this part of the text? Talk about how all the sentences
under this heading relate to this topic. Write each of
these headings at the top of sheets of paper: ‘How
Basketball Began’, ‘Basketball Basics’ and ‘The Rules of
Basketball’. Have children record facts under each title.
Have children complete PW 44 (page 74), matching
information and headings.
Phonological awareness
• Identify ‘throw’ and talk about the long vowel digraph
‘ow’. Discuss the sound these letters make in this word.
Have children find ‘coach’ and identify the ‘oa’ digraph.
Talk about how the same sound is made with different
letters. Encourage children to brainstorm and record
words that contain ‘ow’ and ‘oa’.
Extending vocabulary (individual words)
• Identify and discuss interesting or challenging vocabulary
in the text. Encourage children to work out meanings by
using the sentence content and to use a dictionary to
find the meaning of unknown words. Ask questions that
encourage children to explain word meanings.
• Identify ‘allowed’ and discuss how it refers to something
that you have permission for. Have children identify
things they are allowed to do at school.
• Discuss how ‘competition’ refers to a contest with a
winner. Ask, What competitions have you entered?
• Discuss the meaning of ‘depend’. Encourage children to
use it in different sentences.
• Talk about how ‘either’ tells us there is an option or
choice between two things. Say, You can either walk or
hop around the table.
• Discuss how ‘enjoyable’ refers to something pleasant.
• Find ‘expected’ and discuss how it refers to things that
you should do or need to know. Have children talk
about things that they are expected to do at school.
72
• Identify ‘halves’ and talk about how it refers to the two
pieces when something is separated into two equal
parts. Have children cut a piece of paper into halves.
• Identify ‘including’ and discuss how if you are including
something, it means you are counting it.
• Discuss how ‘indoor’ means ‘inside’. Compare to
‘outdoor’.
• Talk about how ‘practise’ means to do something over
and over to get better at it. Ask, What things have you
had to practise?
Combining vocabulary for better understanding
• Identify and discuss interesting phrases in the text. Talk
about how sometimes readers need to understand the
meaning of individual words and then connect them
with other words/phrases.
• Talk about the phrase ‘follow the rules’. Have children
explain how this means to do what is expected. Ask,
What rules do you follow at school?
• Discuss the phrase ‘the inside of your foot’. Encourage
children to put their feet together and talk about where
the outside and inside of their feet would be.
• Discuss the phrase ‘it’s really up to you’ and discuss
how this means that it depends on the effort of the
individual.
Text conventions
• Text emphasis/italic font: Talk about how some words in
the text are shown in italics. Discuss how readers can
find the meaning of these words in the glossary on page
24. Have children complete PW 45 (page 75), matching
words and definitions.
• Headings: Have children identify the headings in the text.
Discuss how the headings help readers to understand
what will be on each page.
Writing
• Talk about the similarities and differences between
basketball and football. Ask, How are these team sports
the same/different? Discuss how the games began, what
they are played on and the rules. Have children write
a text that compares and contrasts aspects of these
games. Encourage children to separate their ideas into
paragraphs and include supporting details.
f ELL engagement
• Have children play a game of basketball or football.
Encourage them to read and refer to the text
to understand how to play. Focus on developing
children’s language, communications and
sportsmanship.
f Assessment
• PWs 43, 44 and 45 completed
• Note the child’s responses, attempts and reading
behaviours before, during and after reading
• Collect work samples, e.g. PW 43 could be kept in
the child’s portfolio
• Complete Running Record (page 115)
Name:
PW
Date:
43
Answering questions
• Answer the questions about basketball and football.
• Compare and contrast the two team sports by answering
the questions at the bottom.
Basketball
Football
What is it
played on?
How many
players are on
each team?
Who makes
sure the players
follow the rules?
How do you
score points?
How can you
move the ball?
How are the two team sports similar?
______________________________________________________________
How are the two team sports different?
______________________________________________________________
Main teaching focus
Comprehension: Answering
literal questions; comparing and
contrasting information in a text.
Other teaching focus
Comprehension: Recalling
events from a text.
Teacher’s note
Children answer the questions about basketball and football and record the
answers in the table. Then they compare and contrast the information and
answer the questions explaining how the sports are similar and different.
73
Engage Literacy is published in 2013 by Raintree • Playing Team Sports, Level 24. This page may be photocopied for educational use within the purchasing institution.
Name:
PW
Date:
Bundling
You will need: a sheet of paper, scissors, glue,
44
How Basketball
Began
Basketball
Basics
How Football
Football Basics
Began
• Across the top of the sheet of paper, write the titles
‘How Basketball Began’, ‘Basketball Basics’,
‘How Football Began’ and ‘Football Basics’.
✁
• Cut out and read the sentences. Paste them under
their matching title on the sheet of paper.
Although football can be played inside, it is usually played outside
on a field in the shape of a rectangle.
At each end there is a basket, which is placed at just over three
metres high.
Players wear shin pads on their legs.
Basketball began in the United States in 1891.
You usually play basketball on an indoor court in the shape of
a rectangle.
At each end of the court there is a semi-circle – this is known as the
three-point line.
The first rule book for football (which is known as soccer in many
countries) was written in 1863 in England.
Usually there is a flag in each corner of the field.
A football coach wanted to keep his football team fit when they
couldn’t train outside. So he nailed a basket to the wall at each end
of the gymnasium and told his players to throw the ball into it. That
was the start of basketball.
Games where a ball is moved by a player’s feet, rather than their
hands, have been played for thousands of years.
Main teaching focus
Comprehension: Identifying
the main idea; bundling and
grouping together sentences.
Other teaching focus
Comprehension:
Understanding features of
paragraphs.
Teacher’s note
Children write the titles ‘How Basketball Began’, ‘Basketball Basics’, ‘How Football
Began’ and ‘Football Basics’ at the top of a sheet of paper. They read and cut out
the sentences, then paste them under the appropriate heading on the paper.
74
Engage Literacy is published in 2013 by Raintree • Playing Team Sports, Level 24. This page may be photocopied for educational use within the purchasing institution.
Name:
PW
Date:
Glossary
coach court divided
You will need: coloured pencils
• Read the word meanings.
exercise field goal gymnasium
rectangle referee rules
• Write the words in the box
next to their meaning in
the table.
Meaning
semi-circle shin pads skill
train travelling wheelchair
Word
Meaning
Grassy playing area
Split into parts
The laws of a game
Half a circle
A chair on wheels
for a disabled
person
Something that
needs practice to
do well
A large hall for
games or exercise
A space for a ball
game
Taking too many
steps in basketball
without dribbling
To do something
over and over so
you get better at it
A shot that goes
through a basket or
into a net
Pads to protect
shins (front of the
lower leg)
A shape with four
straight sides
Moving to keep fit
and healthy
A person who
trains players
Someone who
makes sure players
follow the rules
Main teaching focus
Text conventions: Understanding
and using a glossary.
45
Other teaching focus
Vocabulary: Word meanings and
definitions.
Word
Teacher’s note
Children match and write the words in the box
with their meanings in the table.
75
Engage Literacy is published in 2013 by Raintree • Playing Team Sports, Level 24. This page may be photocopied for educational use within the purchasing institution.
Running Record
Name:
Age:
Date:
Text: Playing Team Sports
Level: 24
Running words: 209
Page
no.
4
Errors
Selfcorrections
Reading
Strategies
Playing any sport is healthy for both your body
and your mind. For many people, playing a team
sport is more enjoyable than other types of
exercise. A team is made up of a group of people.
When you play a game of sport with these people,
against another team, it is called a competition.
5
When you play a team sport, you learn different
Engage Literacy is published in 2013 by Raintree. This page may be photocopied for educational use within the purchasing institution.
skills and the rules of the game. You also meet
new friends and find out how to work with others.
In team sports you don’t have to be good at every
part of the game, but you do have to think about
the other players on your team and listen to your
coach. Two of the biggest team sports in the world,
for both girls and boys, are basketball and football.
6
Basketball began in the United States in 1891. A
football coach wanted to keep his football team fit
when they couldn’t train outside. So he nailed a
basket to the wall at each end of the gymnasium
and told his players to throw the ball into it. That
was the start of basketball. Now, millions of people
play this game!
8
You usually play basketball on an indoor court in
the shape of a rectangle.
Totals
Engage Literacy Teacher’s Resource Levels 21–25 Gold, White and Lime; Playing Team Sports, Non-fiction, Level 24
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