Book Summary
Why Do I Care? is a collection of poems presented to students by way of six academic subjects taught: reading, music, social studies, math, writing, and science. Detailed illustrations support the text.

Build Background
Read the title of the book. Ask students to share the kinds of things they care about in relation to school. Draw a web with School in the center and each of the six subjects as an offshoot from the center. Discuss what students care about for each subject and why they care about those things.

Discuss poetry's rhymes and rhythms. Explain that rhyming poetry follows a beat based on syllables and includes words that rhyme. Write the word read on board. Invite students to identify words that rhyme with read. Write these words on the board. Remind students that not all sounds of rhyming words are spelled the same. For example, read and seed rhyme but have middle sounds that are spelled differently.

Preview the Poem
Show students the front and back covers of the book. Discuss the illustrations. Turn to the title page. Discuss the illustration and the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name). Ask students to explain what the poems might be about based on the illustrations and what they already know about the poetry and about school. Explain to students that thinking about what they already know about the topic will help them understand and enjoy the poems.

During Reading
Have students listen as you read the poems. Tell them you will pause at the end of each page to give them time to write down one of the pairs of rhyming words for each page. Read the book expressively and emphasize the words that rhyme in each pair of sentences. Then reread the book with students.

Use think-aloud strategies to remind students to use what they already know to help make sense of the poems. React to parts of the poems with facial expressions and gestures.

Allow students to stop and ask questions during reading, especially if they do not understand something. Invite students to share how they connected to prior knowledge while reading or listening to the poems.

After Reading
Reader Response
Ask students what they thought of the poems. Have volunteers describe their favorite part of a poem and something they could relate to when reading the poems. Ask a student to summarize the main idea of the poems and have others give details to support the main idea.

Comprehension
Ask specific questions that allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the poems.

• What does building a treehouse have to do with reading?
• How can music connect people around the world?
• Which poem did you most identify with? Why?