The Little Linebacker (with a FREEBIE)

The Little Linebacker by Stephen Tulloch and Maria Dismondy tells the story of a young boy named Stephen who is determined to play football. Along the way Stephen faces challenges, but receives great advice to push through to reach his goal.

This is a great book to read with your students when teaching about the importance of a growth mindset. Today I want to share a little bit of a book companion I have created for this text. It includes comprehension activities, vocabulary cards, graphic organizers, a football player writing craft, and more!

Inside this book companion you will find comprehension questions to guide student discussion during and after reading the story. There are text-based questions along with open-ended questions that will get your students thinking on a deeper level.

Being able to retell or summarize a story is a very important skill for second and third graders. By focusing on story elements first, it helps students put the pieces of the story together before tackling the whole text. Students can practice identifying story elements with this spinner activity.

The theme of this story is determination. Throughout the story, Stephen faces many obstacles that stand in the way of accomplishing his goals. When faced with these challenges, Stephen receives advice from family and friends. These are perfect for classroom discussions! After talking about each piece of advice, students can write what they think the words mean. You can find this freebie here.

The text also includes a little information on the real Stephen Tulloch inside the back cover. Students can compare and contrast their own life to what Stephen has shared in this text.

If you’ve seen any of my picture book companions before, you know I love combining reading, writing, and art! I took the football theme and created some football player crafts. The players can hold a football that opens to reveal a writing booklet.

The football players can hold a piece of writing paper, too!

Students can write in response to one of the comprehension questions, writing prompts, or a task that you choose. Because the templates can be printed on colored paper, students can create a look for their favorite NFL team or even have their football player represent their school.

You can learn more about this book companion for The Little Linebacker here.