LESSON 6 TEACHER’S GUIDE
Frankie’s Facts
by Dixie Lee Petrokis
Fountas-Pinnell Level K
Humorous Fiction
Selection Summary
Frankie collects facts about many subjects. She has such a vivid
imagination that just wishing she could see a fact makes it become
almost real. Her bedroom becomes messy after she brings several
facts about dinosaurs and race cars to life. She decides that it’s better
to just read about the facts that fascinate her.
Number of Words: 442
Characteristics of the Text
Genre
Text Structure
Content
Themes and Ideas
Language and
Literary Features
Sentence Complexity
Vocabulary
Words
Illustrations
Book and Print Features
• Humorous fiction
• Narrative with three episodes
• Humor mixed with fantasy
• A girl who collects facts has a vivid imagination.
• Facts about dinosaurs, baseball, and racecars
• Facts can be fascinating.
• Curiosity brings knowledge.
• Subjects you love can spring to life in your imagination.
• Third-person narrator
• Dialogue showing character’s thought in quotation marks
• Variety in sentence length
• Some sentences with introductory phrases
• Items in a series without the word and: Frankie liked to collect facts, information, the
truth.
• Several content words and phrases that might not be familiar: T-rex, home-run hitter,
revving, motor
• Several challenging multisyllabic words, such as information, suddenly, disappeared,
popular, continued.
• Humorous art of Frankie’s bedroom populated by larger-than-life subjects
• Illustrations support the text, especially the range of content areas and the humorous
ending
• Nine pages of text, illustrations on every page
• Captions and labels clarify story topics and events
© 2006. Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H.
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Frankie’s Facts
by Dixie Lee Petrokis
Build Background
Remind students that a fact is a piece of information that is true. Build interest by asking
questions like the following: What is an interesting fact that you have learned lately?
Which subjects do you like discovering facts about? Read the title and author’s name and
talk about the cover illustration. Tell students that this story is humorous fiction, so it is
meant to be funny and entertaining.
Introduce the Text
Guide students through the text, noting important ideas and helping with unfamiliar
language and vocabulary so they can read the text successfully. Here are some
suggestions:
Pages 2-3: Explain that this is a story about a girl named Frankie who loves facts.
Suggested language: Look at pages 2 and 3 of the book. This is a picture of
Frankie looking at some pieces of paper. Read the first sentence: Frankie spent
all day, every day reading books with facts. Frankie loves facts so much that
she collects them. She writes them down on pieces of paper and gathers them
together. What kinds of things do you collect? Could collecting facts become a
problem? How?
Pages 4-5: Point out that on this page Frankie is thinking about the fact that the
dinosaur called T. rex was 40 feet tall. She wishes she could see that fact in real
life. It looks like Frankie got her wish! Look at the picture and tell me what
happens next.
Page 6: Explain that different facts come to life in Frankie’s bedroom. Now Frankie
is thinking about another fact. What is this fact about? What fact do you know
about baseball?
Pages 8-9: Read the sentence: Frankie scrambled out of the way. Why did Frankie
move so fast to get out of the way? Have you ever scrambled down a hill?
Now let’s read the story to find out how collecting facts gets Frankie in trouble.
Target Vocabulary
collect – to gather things
together, p. 2
continued – went on doing
something, p. 10
darted – moved suddenly and
quickly
Grade 3
orders – to make arrangements
in certain ways, such as side
by side or one after the other.
scrambled – moved hastily, p. 9
sorted – grouped things together,
p. 3
ragged – uneven, torn, or worn
out
rapidly – quickly
2
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Read
Have students read Frankie’s Facts silently while you listen to individual students read.
Support their problem solving and fluency as needed.
Remind students to use the Question Strategy
questions before they read, while they read, and after they read.
and to ask themselves
Discuss and Revisit the Text
Personal Response
Invite students to share their personal responses to the story.
Suggested language: What do you think was the funniest part of the story?
Ways of Thinking
As you discuss the text, help students understand these points:
Thinking Within the Text
Thinking Beyond the Text
Thinking About the Text
• Frankie loves to collect facts.
• People who are curious can learn
a lot about many things.
• The author uses sound words
such as roar, crack, and vroom
to help the reader share Frankie’s
experiences.
• She wishes the facts would
come to life, and they do.
• She decides it’s best to keep
facts at a distance by just
reading about them.
• Learning about a subject you
love can make the subject come
to life for you.
• The ending has a funny secret
because of something shown in
the art.
• The exaggeration in illustrations
adds to the humor of the story.
© 2006. Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H.
Choices For Further Support
• Fluency Invite students to choose a passage from the text to read aloud. Remind
them to read with expression to show Frankie’s feelings about what’s going on in her
room.
• Comprehension Based on your observations of students’ reading and discussion,
revisit parts of the text to clarify or extend comprehension. Remind students to go
back to the text to support their ideas.
• Phonics/Word Work Provide practice as needed with words and word parts, using
examples from the text. Remind students that compound words are made of two
shorter words. Ask students to take apart compound words in the story and discuss
how the parts are related to meaning: baseball, something, bedroom, racetracks.
Grade 3
3
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Writing about Reading
Critical Thinking
Have students complete the Critical Thinking questions on BLM 6.7.
Responding
Have students complete the activities at the back of the book. Use the instruction below as
needed to reinforce or extend understanding of the comprehension skill.
Target Comprehension Skill
Sequence of Events
Remind students that in a story, things happen in
a certain order. Keeping track of when things happen will help them understand a story.
Model the skill, using a “Think Aloud” like the one below:
Think Aloud
What order do things happen in this story? First, Frankie decides that she
wants to really see that T. rex was forty feet high. What event happens
next? The dinosaur comes to life in her bedroom! Next Hank Aaron
appears. Finally a race car zooms into the room.
Practice the Skill
Have students write two sentences that describe the last fact that came to life inside
Frankie’s bedroom.
Writing Prompt: Thinking Beyond the Text
Have students write a response to the prompt on page 6. Remind them that when they
think beyond the text, they use what they know and their own experience to think about
what happens in the story.
Assessment Prompts
• Tell one word that best describes Frankie. Use evidence from the story to support your
thinking.
• Find the fact on page 5 that Frankie thinks of to keep T. rex from eating her.
• At the end of the story, how do you think Frankie would feel if she turned around and
saw the penguins outside her window?
Grade 3
4
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English Language Development
Reading Support Help students compose a group summary of Frankie’s Facts.
Idiom Point out the word sailed in line 2 of page 7. Explain that sail is usually used
to describe a boat moving over water. As on this page, it can also mean to move along
smoothly.
Oral Language Development
Check student comprehension, using a dialogue that best matches your students’
English proficiency level. Speaker 1 is the teacher, Speaker 2 is the student.
Beginning/Early Intermediate
Intermediate
Early Advanced/ Advanced
Speaker 1: What is the name of the girl
in the story?
Speaker 1: What wish does Frankie
make about facts?
Speaker 2: Her name is Frankie.
Speaker 2: She wishes that she could
see some of the facts happen.
Speaker 1: Why does Frankie
decide that it might be better to
just read about facts?
Speaker 1: Where does the story take
place?
Speaker 2: in Frankie’s room
Speaker 2: She realizes that if
facts keep coming alive in her
room, it will become a big mess.
Speaker 1: Why does Frankie collect
facts?
Speaker 2: She wants to know
everything.
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Lesson 6
Name
Date
BLACKLINE MASTER 6.7
Critical Thinking
Frankie’s Facts
Critical Thinking
Read and answer the questions. Possible responses shown.
1. Think within the text What does Frankie enjoy learning
about?
facts, information, the truth
2. Think within the text Why does Frankie decide that
facts are better read than seen alive?
When facts come alive, they can make a mess.
3. Think beyond the text How does Frankie use the truth
to make the facts disappear from her room?
She says that each fact cannot really come alive in that way.
4. Think about the text How would you describe Frankie
to someone who has not read this book? Would you
want Frankie as a friend? Explain your answer.
She loves to read; she is smart; she is organized; she can think fast.
I would want to have her as a friend, because she could teach me many things.
Making Connections What are three more facts you know that
could come alive in Frankie’s Room?
Write your answer in your Reader’s Notebook.
Read directions to students.
Critical Thinking
9
Grade 3, Unit 2: Express Yourself
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Grade 3
5
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Name
Date
Frankie’s Facts
Thinking Beyond the Text
Think about the questions below. Then write your answer in a paragraph.
At the beginning of the story, Frankie wishes that the facts she loves would
come to life. What favorite fact would you most like to see come to life?
What would you do about the fact after it appeared? Why?
Grade 3
6
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Lesson 6
Name
Date
BLACKLINE MASTER 6.7
Critical Thinking
Frankie’s Facts
Critical Thinking
Read and answer the questions.
1. Think within the text What does Frankie enjoy learning
about?
2. Think within the text Why does Frankie decide that
facts are better read than seen alive?
3. Think beyond the text How does Frankie use the truth
to make the facts disappear from her room?
4. Think about the text How would you describe Frankie
to someone who has not read this book? Would you want
Frankie as a friend? Explain your answer.
Making Connections What are three more facts you know that
could come alive in Frankie’s Room?
Write your answer in your Reader’s Notebook.
Grade 3
7
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Student
Lesson 6
Date
BLACKLINE MASTER 6.11
Frankie’s Facts • LEVEL K
page
2
Frankie’s Facts
Running Record Form
Selection Text
Errors
Self-Corrections
Accuracy Rate
Self-Correction
Rate
Frankie spent all day, every day reading books with facts. She
loved facts. Frankie liked to collect facts, information, the truth.
She wanted to know about anything and everything that had
ever happened.
3
Frankie wrote every fact on its own piece of paper. Then she
sorted the facts into different piles.
One day while she was sorting through her facts, Frankie
4
thought, “It would be great if I could see some of these facts
happen for real. Like the fact that T. rex was almost 40 feet
tall.”
Suddenly, T. rex was right there in her bedroom!
Frankie grabbed a ruler.
Comments:
(# words read
correctly/101 ×
100)
(# errors + #
Self-Corrections/
Self-Corrections)
%
1:
Read word correctly
Code
✓
cat
Repeated word,
sentence, or phrase
®
Omission
—
cat
cat
Grade 3
Behavior
Error
0
0
Substitution
Code
cut
cat
1
Self-corrects
cut sc
cat
0
Insertion
the
1
cat
Error
1414091
Behavior
ˆ
Word told
1
8
T
cat
1
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