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will explain that the steps of a “how-to” book, or procedural text, are always in order from first to last. I will add “Steps are in order from first to last” to my Characteristics of Procedural Texts Chart that I started in Lesson 1 (example provided). I will explain that it is difficult to complete a task if you perform the steps out of order. For example, if I put my socks on after I put my shoes on, I will not be dressed and ready to go to school. I will read The Popcorn Book by Tomie dePaola. As I read the text, I will tape sentence strips for each step in order from first to last on the board. I will record each step on one sentence strip. I will discuss how the recipe would not work if the steps were out of order. I will take the sentence strips down and mix them up.

Ask: "How did I put the steps of a “how-to” book in order?" Students should respond that, since “how-to” books present steps in order, you stopped at each step as you read and wrote it down in a separate place. Once you recorded all of the steps, you looked back over it to make sure that it was in order and made sense with the text.

will read the mixed up steps from The Popcorn Book written on sentence strips and work together to put them back in sequence. We will refer to the text of the story to help us put them back in order from first to last, since we know that procedural texts tell the reader the steps in order. We will discuss as we work how and why some steps must come before others, and we will explain how the procedural text helped us to figure out the order of steps to complete a task.

will cut out 4 steps from the familiar book Let’s Make Pizza (from Lesson 1) and put them in order from first to last. You will explain why it is important for a “how-to” text to give steps to the reader in order, and how you know Let’s Make a Pizza is a how-to text. Note: You can differentiate this lesson by having some students put the text in sequence and some students put the pictures in sequence.