Throughout the story, stop and ask your students to check for understanding by telling you the “who” and “what” of what you just read. Good stopping points to use this strategy are at the end of pages 5, 9, 14, 20, 26, and 30.

This story does not use many clue words to signal cause and effect relationships.

Use questioning such as “Why do you think this happened?” throughout the story to assist students in identifying these relationships. There are many opportunities to use this strategy throughout this story. Here are a few:

• P. 6 – “The story says that Buzz didn’t know why grandma swallowed Fly Guy. What do you think caused her to swallow him?”
• P. 11 – “What caused grandma to swallow the spider?”
• P. 14 – “What caused grandma to swallow the cat?”
• P. 24 – “Look at the picture. What do you think caused Fly Guy to cry out Buzz’s name?

When you see a word you don’t know, try looking for smaller chunks inside it that you do know! These chunks, or word parts, can help you figure out how to say the word and what it means.

For example:

• In fly, you can find the fl chunk, just like in flag or flip. 
• In swallow, the sw chunk is like in swim or sweep. 
• In Buzz, the uzz chunk is like in fuzz or puzzle. 
• In spider, the sp chunk is like in spin or spill. 
• In catch, the ch chunk is like in chop or cheese.

This text is a favorite of students and is usually one that has a waiting list at the school library. Fortunately, there are other Fly Guy books that are similar in structure and encourage continued reading of a favorite series. Once a student has exhausted his time with this story, direct his attention to the many other Fly Guy books.

Although there are not many “interesting” words in this story, it does provide an excellent opportunity to use a thesaurus and look for synonyms to words in the story.

For example, the story uses the word swallowed over and over. What word could be used in place of swallowed? 

What words could be used in place of ran (p. 3), dark (p.7), leave (p.9), and cried (p. 25).