Little DODO — Phase 3: Advanced Picture Readers

Phase 3

1. Phase at a Glance

Lessons	36
Storybooks used	Frog and Toad Are Friends; Mouse Soup; Nate the Great; Amelia Bedelia Means Business
Skills practiced	Fluency Grammar
VT dispositions	Wondering & Questioning × 10 Observing & Describing × 10 Reasoning with Evidence × 7 Making Connections × 7 Perspective Taking × 1 Synthesizing & Connecting × 1
Phase position	Phase 3 of 3
What's new	Continuation of Phase 2; extends the cadence.

2. Phase Arc

Four picture books across 36 lessons: Frog and Toad Are Friends (10 lessons), Mouse Soup (10 lessons), Nate the Great (6 lessons), and Amelia Bedelia Means Business (10 lessons), each anchoring multiple weeks in a chapter-as-week cadence.
Skill spine is fluency-dominant with grammar as secondary spine: 78% fluency lessons build oral reading rhythm through fables, folk tales, riddles, and narrative poetry; 22% grammar lessons introduce sentence types, capitalization, contractions, verb tense, and pronouns.
Four dispositions practice most: Wondering & Questioning (10 lessons) and Observing & Describing (10 lessons) anchor the A/B format split; Reasoning with Evidence (7 lessons) and Making Connections (7 lessons) round out the distribution.
Prep risk: three heavy-tier reading loads—Mouse Soup's 23-page 'Thorn Bush' chapter (lessons 19-20), Nate the Great's 17-page split (lessons 23-24), and Amelia Bedelia's multi-chapter spans (lessons 29-34)—demand extra anchor-planning and pacing rehearsal.
Chapter-as-week cadence is new this phase: each book appears 6-10 times across alternating A/B lessons, exceeding the Phase 1-2 contract of 2 appearances per book, to preserve the A+B routine intact per week with the same page range.
Admin flagged T3 unit scarcity: 6 of 25 system-wide T3 fluency units consumed here; 19 remain for the 5 future Phase 3 books, so spread T3 use across batches.

3. Prep Priority Lessons

Lessons ranked by prep effort: new-book introductions, picture-only-heavy anchor work, rare-disposition stamps, and admin-flagged source-quality concerns rank highest.

Rank	Lesson #	Reason
1	19	First lesson on Mouse Soup's 23-page 'Thorn Bush' chapter, flagged heavy-tier reading load. Format A on a long fable demands rehearsed pacing and anchor-finding across 23 pages.
2	23	First lesson on Nate the Great's 17-page split chapter, flagged heavy-tier reading load. Format A fable with problem-solving theme requires anchor rehearsal across extended text.
3	29	First lesson on Amelia Bedelia Means Business's multi-chapter span (20 pages across chapters 7-9), flagged heavy-tier. Format A first-person complaint list demands anchor-finding across three catalog chapters.
4	11	First Mouse Soup lesson; transitions from Frog and Toad to a new book with fable structure and dialogue-reading demands.
5	21	First Nate the Great lesson; introduces detective-genre repeated dialogue and consequence-sequence narrative structure.
6	27	First Amelia Bedelia Means Business lesson; introduces homophone wordplay and joke structure, a new fluency challenge after mystery genre.
7	20	Format B on Mouse Soup's 23-page 'Thorn Bush' chapter, flagged heavy-tier. Grammar lesson on capitalizing story titles follows the long fable.
8	24	Format B on Nate the Great's 17-page split, flagged heavy-tier. Grammar lesson on past-tense verb formation follows the extended fable.
9	31	Perspective Taking disposition (rare at pre-MCT); the single use in the batch, placed on Amelia Bedelia's literal-vs-figurative idiom comedy chapter.
10	25	Nate the Great's second split chapter (16 pages), flagged stretch-tier reading load. Format A cumulative folk tale with repeated phrases.
11	33	Amelia Bedelia's parade chaos chapter (18 pages across chapters 10-11), flagged heavy-tier. Format A narrative poem with rhyming couplets and suspense structure.
12	36	Synthesizing & Connecting capstone disposition (≤1 per phase); placed on the phase-end Format B lesson, a Dr. Seuss biography with repeated sentence patterns.
13	1	First lesson of the phase; Frog and Toad's spring wake-up narrative anchors the fluency spine with sight words and CVC decoding.
14	18	Format B crossover: Reasoning with Evidence on a tongue-twister lesson (natural B-side prior is Observing/Making Connections/Synthesizing); reasoning about consonant-blend patterns justifies the crossover.
15	32	Format B crossover: Reasoning with Evidence on a grammar lesson distinguishing subject pronoun 'I' versus object pronoun 'me'; reasoning about sentence position justifies the crossover.
16	26	Format B crossover: Wondering & Questioning on a riddle lesson (natural B-side prior is Observing/Making Connections/Synthesizing); mystery-genre riddles override the format prior.

All other lessons — L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7, L8, L9, L10, L12, L13, L14, L15, L16, L17, L22, L28, L30, L34, L35 — standard prep.

4. Weekly Prep Checklist

Lesson 1

This lesson builds narrative fluency through a short story about a frog and dog at a pond. Children practice sight words and CVC decoding in predictable text, building confidence with high-frequency words in context.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 10-19 (Format A).
Print word cards: spring, melting, meadows, lonely.

Lesson 2

Oral fluency practice through a simple action-verb poem with repetition and rhythm. Children chorus the repeated lines and notice the -ing ending pattern on action words, building rhythmic read-aloud skill.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 10-19 (Format B).
Print word cards: shining, melting, lying, looking.

Lesson 3

Cumulative folk tale with repetitive dialogue and rhyming character names builds fluency through repeated reading. The cumulative structure lets children predict the next line and read with expression as the story builds.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 20-29 (Format A).
Print word cards: quite, rest, porch, terrible.

Lesson 4

Rhythmic chant teaching action verbs and sequencing through the steps of making a sandwich. Children practice the -ed ending pattern on past-tense action verbs and build fluency through the repeated refrain.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 20-29 (Format B).
Print word cards: walked, stood, poured, banged.

Lesson 5

Oral fluency through a playful rhyming poem about blowing up a balloon until it pops. Children practice expressive reading, noticing rhyme patterns and reading with performance energy.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 30-40 (Format A).
Print word cards: meadow, drat, wailed, slammed.

Lesson 6

Children solve riddles by listening for rhyming clues and decoding descriptive language. The lesson builds fluency with context clues and introduces adjectives as describing words.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 30-40 (Format B).
Print word cards: black, white, small, big, round.

Lesson 7

Simple narrative about Sam getting dirty and taking a bath builds fluency with CVC words and sight words. Children practice repeated sentence patterns and high-frequency words in a predictable story structure.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 41-52 (Format A).
Print word cards: bathing suit, peek, shiver, dripped.

Lesson 8

Grammar lesson on exclamatory sentences that show strong feelings and end with exclamation marks. Children identify exclamation marks, recognize strong-feeling sentences, and practice writing sentences with capital letters and exclamation points.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 41-52 (Format B).
Print word cards: Please, Help, Wait.

Lesson 9

Expressive reading and rhythm practice through a short poem with repeated sound words and actions. Children build fluency through repetition and practice reading with expressive energy matching the action words.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 53-62 (Format A).
Print word cards: porch, mailbox, envelope, pleased.

Lesson 10

Grammar lesson on capitalization rules for sentence beginnings and proper nouns. Children identify capital letters at the start of sentences and in names of people, places, and things, then apply the rules in their own writing.

Re-read Frog and Toad Are Friends pp. 53-62 (Format B).
Print word cards: Toad, Frog, Every, Snail.

Lesson 11

Oral reading fluency through a classic fable about kindness and unexpected help. Children practice dialogue reading with fable structure, building fluency through the repeated story pattern and retelling practice.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 8-13 (Format A).
Print word cards: weasel, caught, soup, stories.

Lesson 12

Call-and-response reading with a rhythmic farm chant featuring question-answer patterns. Children practice fluent question words and build rhythm through the repeated question-answer structure.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 8-13 (Format B).
Print word cards: WAIT, soup, stories, hungry.

Lesson 13

Humorous folk tale with highly repetitive phrasing builds fluency through repeated reading. Children predict the next repeated phrase and read with expression, using the folk-tale structure to support fluent oral reading.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 14-23 (Format A).
Print word cards: nest, whiskers, swamp, ducked.

Lesson 14

Oral fluency through alliterative tongue twisters. Children practice reading aloud with repeated beginning sounds, building articulation skills and fluency through playful repeated reading.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 14-23 (Format B).
Print word cards: bees, buzzing, mud, muddy.

Lesson 15

Fluency practice with a nonfiction text about polar bear adaptations. Children read repeated sentence patterns in informational text, building fluency with nonfiction reading and animal-adaptation vocabulary.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 24-33 (Format A).
Print word cards: wondered, wonderful, valleys, lie.

Lesson 16

Grammar lesson on question sentences. Children identify question marks, recognize question words, and practice writing question sentences with capital letters at the start and question marks at the end.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 24-33 (Format B).
Print word cards: wonder, tell, sad, good.

Lesson 17

Oral fluency through two classic nursery rhymes with strong rhythm and rhyme patterns. Children practice expressive reading, recognize rhyme patterns, and build fluency through memorization and repeated reading.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 34-43 (Format A).
Print word cards: chirping, noise, loud, shouted.

Lesson 18

Fluency practice with tricky consonant blends (shr-, thr-, str-, spl-) through playful tongue twisters. Children practice articulation and fluency by reading the blends aloud repeatedly, building confidence with complex sound patterns.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 34-43 (Format B).
Print word cards: shouted, three, stop, cried.

Lesson 19

Oral fluency through a classic fable that teaches problem-solving and action. Children practice dialogue reading with fable structure, building fluency across the 23-page story and exploring the moral lesson through repeated reading.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 44-66 (Format A).
Print word cards: thorn, stung, pricked, surprise.

Lesson 20

Grammar lesson on capitalizing important words in titles. Children learn to capitalize the first word and all important words in titles, excluding small words like 'the' and 'at', and practice applying the rule to story titles.

Re-read Mouse Soup pp. 44-66 (Format B).
Print word cards: Thorn, Bush, Mouse.

Lesson 21

Fluency through a humorous story about a girl who makes excuses for missing homework. Children practice repeated dialogue and consequence-sequence structure, building fluency with the repeated excuse pattern.

Re-read Nate the Great pp. 11-26 (Format A).
Print word cards: detective, case, trail, searched.

Lesson 22

Oral fluency through riddles with question-answer structure. Children read riddles aloud to build rhythm and expression, practicing the punchline-reading skill and noticing the long-a sound pattern in answers.

Re-read Nate the Great pp. 11-26 (Format B).
Print word cards: Nate, case, pancakes, ate.

Lesson 23

Oral reading fluency through Aesop's fable exploring problem-solving and perseverance. Children practice the fable genre across 17 pages, building fluency with dialogue reading and repeated story structure.

Re-read Nate the Great pp. 27-43 (Format A).
Print word cards: detective, sniffed, bury, claws.

Lesson 24

Grammar lesson on forming simple past tense by adding -ed to regular verbs. Children practice rewriting present-tense sentences in past tense, noticing the -ed ending pattern and applying the rule to regular verbs.

Re-read Nate the Great pp. 27-43 (Format B).
Print word cards: sniffed, watched, asked, jumped, tripped.

Lesson 25

Cumulative folk tale about characters working together to pull up a giant carrot. Children build fluency through repeated phrases and cumulative story structure, practicing sequencing and oral reading fluency across 16 pages.

Re-read Nate the Great pp. 44-59 (Format A).
Print word cards: covered, monster, mixed, solved.

Lesson 26

Fluency through reading and solving three classic riddles that use descriptive clues. Children practice repeated reading of riddles, building fluency with descriptive language and comprehension of clue words.

Re-read Nate the Great pp. 44-59 (Format B).
Print word cards: covered, monster, orange, mixed.

Lesson 27

Fluent, expressive reading through three 'Ida' knock-knock jokes with different punchlines. Children practice joke structure, homophone wordplay, and prosody in the question-answer format, building fluency with playful repeated reading.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 5-16 (Format A).
Print word cards: adored, dependable, emerald, sparkled.

Lesson 28

Grammar lesson on contractions as shortened forms of two words joined with an apostrophe. Children learn contractions with 'not' (can't, don't, won't) and practice identifying the apostrophe and the two words each contraction combines.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 5-16 (Format B).
Print word cards: don't, didn't, wasn't, can't, shouldn't.

Lesson 29

Fluency practice through a first-person complaint list that contrasts privileges of older and younger siblings. Children read the list structure across 20 pages, building fluency with perspective-taking and first-person narrator voice.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 17-36 (Format A).
Print word cards: hired, fired, complaint.

Lesson 30

Grammar lesson on pronouns that replace nouns in sentences (he, she, it, we, they, them, us, him, her). Children practice identifying the noun a pronoun replaces and rewriting sentences with pronouns in place of repeated nouns.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 17-36 (Format B).
Print word cards: she, he, they, him.

Lesson 31

Oral reading fluency through a classic fable with repeated dialogue exploring safety versus luxury. Children practice the fable structure and dialogue reading, building fluency and exploring the moral lesson through compare-contrast thinking.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 37-58 (Format A).
Print word cards: bewildered, advertise, ideal, fiasco.

Lesson 32

Grammar lesson distinguishing when to use 'I' (subject doing action) versus 'me' (object receiving action). Children practice sentence position and pronoun case, identifying whether the pronoun is doing the action or receiving it.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 37-58 (Format B).
Print word cards: I, me.

Lesson 33

Fluency through a narrative poem with rhyming couplets and a suspenseful story. Children read the poem across 18 pages, building fluency with rhyme scheme and practicing expressive reading that matches the suspense structure.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 59-76 (Format A).
Print word cards: embarrassed, declared, assembling, triggered.

Lesson 34

Oral fluency through three humorous poems with strong rhyme schemes. Children read and recite the poems to build rhythm and pace, noticing the rhyming pairs and practicing expressive reading with humorous energy.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 59-76 (Format B).
Print word cards: barking, sniffing, wagging, bobbing.

Lesson 35

Fluent, rhythmic reading through a playful poem about bubble gum mishaps. Children practice the repeated refrain and rhyme recognition, building oral fluency and expressive reading with the rhythmic pattern.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 77-83 (Format A).
Print word cards: chaos, excitement, admire, damages.

Lesson 36

Fluency practice through a short biography of Dr. Seuss. Children read repeated sentence patterns in nonfiction text, building fluency with biography genre and practicing rhyme recognition in the author-study context.

Re-read Amelia Bedelia Means Business pp. 77-83 (Format B).
Print word cards: cheered, blew, quiet, smiled.

5. Method Manual

Little DODO Method Manual

This is the navigator's reference for facilitating a Little DODO lesson. It is included verbatim in every phase prep guide so navigators have one canonical handbook regardless of which phase they're preparing.

The 25-minute lesson

Every Little DODO lesson is exactly 25 minutes across four pillars. The shape is the same every week:

Pillar	Time	Purpose
Vocabulary Exploration	5 min	3-5 anchored target words (Format A) or a phonics target with example words (Format B). Set the vocabulary load before reading.
Reading in Class	10 min	Picture-walk + read-aloud + chorused refrain. The pedagogical heart.
Questions Time	7 min	1-2 anchored comprehension questions + one extension activity (talk-and-draw for A; word-to-sentence for B).
Conclusion	3 min	Named close ritual aligned to the lesson's VT disposition. Recap prompt + take-home prompt.

The four-pillar rhythm is load-bearing. Children build trust with the structure across weeks. Do not introduce new pillar types or reorder pillars mid-phase.

Format A vs Format B

Each storybook is anchored twice in the same week — once as Format A (story-meaning), once as Format B (phonics-pattern). The book stays the same; the pedagogical angle shifts.

Format A — story meaning focuses on what the story says. Vocabulary is framed around comprehension; questions probe what happened, who acted, and why. Extension is talk-and-draw.

Format B — phonics pattern focuses on how the story sounds. Vocabulary is anchored to a phonics target (a phoneme like short-a, a sight-word category like color words, or a pattern like -ing endings). Questions probe sound recognition or word-building. Extension is word-to-sentence.

The two formats always cover the same book that week, in A-then-B order. Story-comprehension precedes word-work.

Anchoring discipline

Every refrain, target word, and comprehension question on the lesson card carries an anchor — a verbatim quote from a specific page of the storybook. Quotes are not paraphrases. If the page being cited is illustration-only or hard to read on screen, the lesson card points to a neighboring text page instead. The anchor is what the screen-share highlights during the lesson, so it's what the children actually see — handle it as the source line, not a rough reference.

The phonics or grammar skill paired with each lesson is summarized in plain language inside the lesson card itself; you do not need to open the underlying skill source to teach the lesson. Treat the lesson card as the complete brief.

Visible Thinking dispositions

Little DODO uses seven Visible Thinking dispositions. At this stage of reading development the natural fits are Wondering & Questioning, Observing & Describing, Reasoning with Evidence, and Making Connections. The other three (Synthesizing & Connecting, Perspective Taking, Finding Complexity) appear less often; Finding Complexity should be used sparingly because the layered-meaning work it implies hasn't fully landed yet for most readers.

Each lesson stamps a single disposition. The conclusion pillar's named close ritual carries the disposition stamp; the take-home prompt is what parents see of the disposition work.

Picture-only pages

Many picture books have spreads with no extractable text — full-bleed illustrations, decorative title pages. The lesson card never points to these pages for a quoted line or refrain. When a spread is image-only, the anchor lives on a neighboring text page; plan your screen-share around that during prep.

Re-read between A and B

Encourage parents to re-read the storybook once between Format A and Format B at home. The repeat reading is where fluency and confidence build. Home practice is otherwise light: vocabulary exercise (2 sentences × 2 words) + 2 Visible Thinking questions answered out loud or as a short audio reply via ClassIN.

Common navigator mistakes

Letting one loud answerer chorus over the quiet kids. Count to three before accepting an answer.
Skipping the picture-walk before reading. Decoding-only blocks access for non-readers.
Anchoring questions on picture-only pages. Pick a different page.
Talking down to the kids. Early readers know when an adult is performing patience.
Treating Format A and Format B as different stories. The book is the through-line; the two formats are two ways of looking at the same week.