Mission: Penguin? Comic Tips

Fun Suggestions for Building Literacy Skills!

Each week we'll share helpful hints on using the comic across the grade level span.  I'll add each week's tips here so they are easy to find.  If you are new to the comic, be sure to share the backstory of the characters with your students.  You can read that at the top of the comic page or click here to read the backstory and get a pdf version to share with parents!

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If you need to share comic videos directly with students you can use these safe video links to do so:

• Backstory: bit.ly/ComicBackstory
• Week 1: bit.ly/PenguinComic_1
• Week 2: bit.ly/PenguinComic_2
• Week 3: bit.ly/PenguinComic_3

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Week 1
This week's tips work across the grade level span and give you a bit of info about general use of the comics to support literacy.  
Build Prior Knowledge  When used along with the other mission materials, your students will already have some prior knowledge to support comprehension. It is also helpful to ask students what they already know about things like cats and dogs, real and imaginary, or for Week 1, volcanoes and whales to build a web of understanding that can help them understand new ideas.

One document, multiple levels!  Each comic episode supports pre-readers to upper level second grade readers.  The graphic format encourages all readers to stretch their abilities by tackling juicy words and big concepts!  

• Pre-readers can read the pictures to tell the story.
• Typical kindergarten readers can work to sound out the sound effects.  It's way more fun than reading lists of nonsense words!
• First graders are likely to find success reading speech and thought bubbles.
• The text boxes at the bottom of the comic will give most second graders something to chew on!

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Click to download mini flip chart

Week 2
Pre K:  Pre-readers can build skills as they "read the pictures"  of the comic.  Encourage students to use dramatic story language and sound effects.  Print the little book format and support children as needed to find the front cover and turn pages one at a time.
Kindergarten:  Focus on those tricky short vowel sounds using the sound effects this week!  Change the short vowel sounds in these words to create your own sound effects! 
a: lap
i: pip, hiss
o: pop, blop, zop
u: zup
Download, print, and assemble our sound substitution mini flip chart for more fun!

First Grade:  This is the time of year when some children start to zoom ahead in reading while others are taking their time with early reader books as they build a strong foundation at their own pace.  Try using the comic for a readers theater!  Those zoomers can read the text boxes, your foundation builders can do sound effect, kiddos in the middle can read the speech bubbles and EVERYONE can feel successful as they work on fluency and phrasing!
Second Grade:  You may notice we've snuck a few tricky words into the text boxes.  Your students can begin to integrate their use of context cues to puzzle out some of that richer vocabulary!  This is also a great way for those clever advancing readers to begin to work on making inferences!  Why does Data Dog need to be careful?  Why is there a smell of rotten eggs?  ​

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Week 3

Pre K:  Young children can benefit from reading expressions.  Noticing the feelings conveyed in the illustrations will help build the foundation for drawing inferences.  Have your students tell you how the characters feel in each frame and why they think they feel that way.  What evidence can they point to in the pictures to support their opinions?  

Kindergarten:  Playing with words by substituting phonemes at the beginning, middle, and end of words helps both reading AND spelling skills.  Before you introduce the comic, take a moment to play!  Write "zoom" on a whiteboard.  After children read it, erase the /m/ and challenge children to make other sound effects by adding different final sounds!  You can follow the same protocol with "zup," this time changing the middle phoneme or vowel sound.  
Medial phoneme substitutions: /z/ /u/ /p/ to /z/ /o/ /p/
Final phoneme substitutions: /z/ /oo/ /m/ to /z/ /oo/ /p/
First Grade:  Now that your students are more established readers, it might be a good time to focus on reading with inflection.  Challenge students to notice the end punctuation in each speech or thought bubble.  How would the character say those words?  Using voices for each character can further reinforce this skill.
Second Grade:  Some of the text boxes give facts and information while others describe the action in the frame or something out of view.  Have students identify which type of text is in each box.  You can color code them and then have teams assigned for choral reading for a specific text type!