Text Type: Nonfiction/Informational
Page Count: 16
Word Count: 746

Book Summary
Sign Language and Hand Talk introduces readers to the ways people and other animals communicate with their hands. The text, photos, and illustrations explain how deaf people, babies, and other animals communicate with their hands. Students also learn about the history of sign language and about famous people who have used sign language.

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Ask and answer questions

• Use the strategy of asking and answering questions to understand and remember informational text
• Identify the main idea and details in text
• Understand and use commas in a series
• Identify and understand antonyms in text

• Book -- Sign Language and Hand Talk (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• KWL, main idea and details, antonyms worksheets

Vocabulary

• Content words: communicate, deaf, inspiration, sense, sign language, signing

Build Background

• Encourage students to share ways people communicate with their hands (waving hello, signaling thumbs-up, giving the okay sign, and so on). Discuss instances in which sign language might be a useful and necessary way to communicate. Ask students to tell the difference between sign language and hand talk. (Accept any answers that students can justify.)
• Give each student a KWL worksheet. Have them fill in the first column (K) with information they already know about sign language and hand talk.

Introduce the Book

• Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title with them. Ask what they think they might read about in a book called Sign Language and Hand Talk.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name).

• Have students preview the table of contents. After reading it, have them share what they think the book might tell about sign language and hand talk. Use the table of contents to generate questions that students can add to the center column (W) of their KWL chart.
• Model using the table of contents to ask a question.
  Think-aloud: The second chapter in this book is called "Learning Sign Language." I want to know how people learn sign language. In the W column of my KWL chart, I am going to write: Do people need special training to learn sign language?
• Invite students to look at the other chapter headings in the table of contents and use them to come up with their own questions. Encourage students to share their questions with the group.
• Ask students to share other questions they have about the book based on the covers and table of contents. Encourage them to use the photos, drawings, and glossary to help them think of questions to add to their KWL chart.
• Allow time for students to record all of their questions on their chart.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

• Preview the book, asking students to talk about what they see in the pictures. Reinforce the vocabulary words they will encounter in the test. For example, while looking at the pictures on page 4, you might engage students in a conversation in which they use the vocabulary word communicate.
• Remind students that they can help themselves when they come to a tricky word by looking for words within words. For example, have students find the word communication on page 5. Show them how to use a word they already know to read the unfamiliar word. Say: I know that part of this word is communicate. I can use what I know about the word communicate to help me figure out the rest of the word (communica/tion). Have students put the whole word together and read it in the sentence to be sure it makes sense.
• For additional tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

• Have students read the book to find answers to their questions about sign language and hand talk.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Give students their books. Have them read to the end of page 9. Encourage students who finish before everyone else to reread the text.
• Model answering a question on the KWL chart.
  Think-aloud: While I was reading, I found information to help answer my question about how sign language is taught. I found out that sign language is taught to deaf people when they are very young. They learn signs for whole words and for each letter of the alphabet. I was able to use the information in the book to answer my question and learn more about sign language. I will write the answer to my question in the final (L) column of my KWL chart. Write the answer on the chart.
• Invite volunteers to share any questions they were able to find the answers to while reading. Record their responses on the KWL chart on the board and have them do the same on their chart. Encourage them to add new questions they might have to their chart on the board.
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to look for answers to their KWL chart questions or to think of new questions to add to it as they read.

Have students make a question mark in their books beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. Encourage them to use the strategies they have learned to read and understand the word.

Reflect on the Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Have students share answers to their questions. Remind them that asking and answering questions while reading is good way to remember and stay focused on the reading material.

• Discussion: Discuss how identifying the main idea in a book or a section of the book helps readers understand and remember important information in text.
• Introduce and model the skill: Tell students that each section of the book contains a main idea and details that tell more about the main idea. Ask students to reread pages 10 and 11 aloud. Remind them that the main idea is what the section is mostly about. Have students share what they think this section is about (teaching animals to sign). Remind students that the details in the section tell more about the main idea. Have students share some of the details in the section (animals can understand hand signs, dogs can follow commands by sign, a famous gorilla learned 1,000 signs).
• Check for understanding: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the main idea and details worksheet. Have students reread page 6. Ask them to tell the main idea of the section (learning sign language). Have students record the main idea on their main idea and details chart.
• Ask students to provide details about learning sign language (deaf children learn if when very young, they learn whole words and letters, they make up ABC stories to practice). Have students record the details on their main idea and details chart.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the main idea and details chart by identifying the main ideas for the other sections in the book and the details that support them.

Grammar and Mechanics: Commas in a list

• Explain that when writers list a series of items in a sentence, the words need to be separated by commas. Without the commas, the sentence would be difficult to read and understand. Write the following sentence on the board: Babies animals and people who can hear can also learn to understand hand signals. Ask students to explain why this sentence doesnÕt make sense. (The words Babies animals is confusing.) Direct students to the last sentence on page 15. Ask them to identify the location of the commas in the sentence.
• Reinforce the concept by directing students to page 5 and asking them to find the sentence in which a series of words is separated by commas. Explain that a comma is always placed between the items in the list and before the words and and or.

Word Work: Antonyms

• Write the word large on the board. Ask students to suggest a words that means the opposite (tiny, small). Review or explain that a word that means the opposite of another word is called an antonym.
• Check for understanding: Have students turn to page 4 in the text and reread the page to find an example of antonyms on the page (hello and goodbye). Ask them to find the sentence where the officer holds up a hand to stop a car. Ask them to suggest an antonym for stop (start).
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the antonyms worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section of the book. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

• Give students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Art and Language Connection

• Have students create an ABC story to practice signing letters. Have them reread page 7 in the text and discuss the method described. Review and use the illustrations of sign language on the title page as a guide. Encourage students to illustrate and label their ABC stories. Have students share their stories with the class.

Writing Connection

• Provide print and Internet resources for students to research one of the famous people in the book who used sign language or to find another famous sign language user. Have them write a one-page informational report about the person's life.

• consistently use the text to ask and answer questions on a KWL chart to understand and remember information in the book
• correctly identify the main idea and details in each chapter or section of the book
• correctly identify and use commas in a series
• accurately identify and understand antonyms in text

• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric