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[T4R] A Family is a Family is a Family: L5 Summarising

The Book

A Family Is a Family Is a Family

Written by Sara O’Leary, illustrated by Qin Leng, published by Groundwood Books

This heartwarming book celebrates diverse family structures and the love that binds them together. Through a classroom discussion, children share stories about their families, highlighting the uniqueness of each one while reinforcing the idea that all families are special.

This book provides opportunities for young students to explore concepts of family by recognising and describing family members (AC9HSFK01 – Foundation Year, Humanities and Social Sciences). It also encourages children to develop a sense of self within their family (AC9HPFP01 – Foundation Year, Health and Physical Education) while practising personal and social skills to interact respectfully with others, particularly in understanding inclusion and acceptance (AC9HPFP02 – Foundation Year, Health and Physical Education).

With its gentle storytelling and wonderful illustrations, A Family is a Family is a Family fosters empathy, respect, and an appreciation for the many forms that family can take.

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Resource creator

Steven Huynh

Subject

English Language and Literacy, Humanities and Social Sciences,

Level

Foundation,

Description

This is lesson 5 of the Talk For Reading (T4R) unit of A Family is a Family is a Family. This lesson encourages oral language skills, personal connections, and fluency reading, helping students understand and express the key themes of family diversity and love.

Learning Intentions

• We are learning to summarise the key messages of the text.

Successful Criteria

• I can summarise some key details of the book (AC9EFLY05).
• I can deliver short spoken texts to share information about my family to peers (AC9HSFS04, AC9EFLY07).

Curriculum Alignment

AC9EFLY05 9.0 (English Language and Literacy Foundation): Use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising and questioning to understand and discuss texts listened to, viewed or read independently

• sequencing ideas in spoken texts, retelling well-known stories, retelling stories with picture cues, retelling information using prompts
• listening for specific purposes; for example, details of a character or to answer a given question
• relating one or two key facts from informative texts
• retelling events from First Nations Australians’ stories and cultural accounts in sequence
• predicting what might happen in a text based on the title and cover

AC9EFLY07 9.0 (English Language and Literacy Foundation): Create and deliver short spoken texts to report ideas and events to peers, using features of voice such as appropriate volume

• sharing a personal experience, interest or discovery with peers in a semi-formal situation
• sharing personal responses to ideas and events experienced through texts
• using visual prompts to practise staying on topic or to sequence ideas

AC9HSFS04 9.0 (Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation): Draw conclusions in response to questions

• identifying the main people in their family and explaining how they are related
• identifying the most important celebrations and commemorations in their lives and those of their family
• exploring the location and features of places they belong to and what makes those places special
• suggesting ways that they are going to care for their classroom, bedroom or playground

Materials

The Book: A Family is a Family is a Family.
Children’s drawings from Lesson 3 and 4.

Instructions

Warm-Up: What makes a family? – Discuss how families show love and care.

Reading: Third Read – Fluency Reading

Read the book aloud, encouraging children to read along in small chunks where possible.

Discussion Questions:

Why does the author show so many different families in this book?
Why do you think the author wrote this book?

Activity: My Family

Children use drawings from lessons 3 and 4.
Each child gives a short presentation to their friends using sentence starters:
- There’s ____ in my family.
- We love doing ____ because ____.
- My Mum/Dad does ____ to show care and love to me.

Reflection:

What makes a family? (Revisit the warm-up discussion to reinforce learning.)

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