Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Dot will find this post helpful. It includes resource recommendations, free teaching ideas, and information about the book. You’ll have everything you need to deliver engaging interactive read aloud lessons based on this story.
With themes of growth mindset and positive self-talk, this The Dot picture book by Peter H. Reynolds is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too! Learn more about this book below!
Engage Your Students with The Dot Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Dot. You can find it in the section below.
- Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
- Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with The Dot reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE DOT SUMMARY
The Dot by Peter Reynolds tells the story of Vashti, a young girl who thinks she cannot draw. As Vashti sits in art class, her paper is empty and she is clearly frustrated. Her teacher encourages her to make a start by making a mark and signing her name. The following week when Vashti walks into art class she sees that her dot drawing is behind the teacher’s desk in a fancy gold frame. When she looks at her art, Vashti thinks she can make an even better dot than that. She starts making all big dots, little dots, and all different colored dots. When it is time for the school art show, everyone is interested in Vashti’s dot drawings. A young boy admiring her pictures mentions that he wishes he could draw like that. Vashti encourages him to draw a line and sign his name.
This heartwarming story is a great way to introduce growth mindset to students!
THE DOT LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.
When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for The Dot, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.
We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The text-based The Dot reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making inferences
- making predictions
- analyzing character
- analyzing illustrations
- making connections
- cause and effect
- author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- growth mindset
- positive self-talk
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- interjections
- punctuation
- quotation marks
- apostrophes
THE DOT ACTIVITIES
You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
YOU HAVE 2 OPTIONS! WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK COMPANION?
BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for The Dot?
- Lexile® Measure: AD500L
- Guided Reading Level: L
- DRA Level: 20
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 1.9
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Peter H. Reynolds. It was illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds.
What genre is The Dot?
It is a fiction book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.
How many pages are in the book?
The story is 32 pages long.
