Rational: When students begin to read for comprehension, they must learn to ask the ãrightä questions ö not trivia questions. In this lesson, students will use what they already know and learn to ask the right questions to learn and comprehend more easily. They will also review how to find topic sentences in order to find the most important parts of passages.
Material: pencils, paper, overhead and transparency, dry erase markers, Alabama History Grade 4 Lesson 3 ö Native Americans of the Plains, worksheet with passages with no topic sentences
Procedure: ãBefore we begin our lesson today I would like for each of you to take out a piece of paper and a pencil. Watch as I do this on the overhead. I would like for to put a K W L on your paper just as I have done on mine.ä
2. ãUnder the K, I would like for each of you to write down anything that you already know about the Native Americans of the Plains.ä Give the students time to finish the K section of their charts.
3. ãBoys and girls before we continue I with
chart I would like to teach you an important strategy called finding
main idea or finding the most important part in a passage. For
if I read,
Native Americans on the Great Plains spoke at least 20 different languages.
They developed a special sign language to communicate. When they met people
from another group, they used hand signals for important words (p. 101).
In trying to find the main idea I want to question
I might say what is one topic that covers that entire passage-
So if I were supposed to come up with a topic sentence for this passage
I might say ÎThere are many different methods used by the Native
Americans in order to communicate with one another. Remember when
we ask ourselves question me must make sure that we are asking
only what is
important such as the setting, the time, the people involved, important events, facts, etc. We are not looking for trivia such as the color of clothing! So for example, a right question might be, What types of homes did the Native Americans that lived on the Plains have?
4. ãI would like for each of you to practice coming up with a topic sentence. Please get in groups of two or three and come up with a topic sentence for each of the passages on your worksheet.ä Pass out worksheet for the students to complete.
5.Now I would like for you to practice writing important or right questions. We have talked about what a right question might be. So I would like for you to get your K W L chart back out and under the W I would like for you to write what you would like to know about the Native Americans that lived on the Plains.ä
6.ãI would like for you to now practice your silent reading skills and read these pages in our Alabama History Book. Remember the three steps to silent reading are: first we whisper, then we just move our lips, then we read without moving our lips or whispering.ä
7. ã You all did a wonderful job reading silently. Please take your K W L chart back out and lets complete our chart by filling in the L section with what we learned while reading. Please answer all of the questions that you wrote down. If you need to go back and reread please do!
For assessment I would give the students a passage to read silently and then ask them to write the topic sentence as well as important questions.
Alabama History Book
Native Americans of the Plains
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