Reading Level:
P

Word Count:
1,278

Pages:
22 

Text Summary
"Daniel Boone" is a name that brings the wild frontier to mind, and with good reason. Daniel Boone lived in the early days of the United States, when the country was still young and growing. The push to move west was led by men like Daniel Boone, who had excellent hunting and tracking skills and knew how to survive in the wilderness. His amazing life story provides a glimpse of the wild frontier days of post-Revolution America. 

Lesson Objectives

Reading Strategies
Students should use a variety of strategies to determine word meaning and comprehend text. The target strategy for this lesson is: asking questions while reading. 

Word and Print Skills

Phonics
Vowel patterns
Word Work
Prefixes
Grammar
Subject and predicate 

Targeted Vocabulary Words
Places: Pennsylvania, Allegheny Mountains, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi River, Kentucky River, Chillicothe, Ohio, Detroit, Boonesborough, Missouri, St. Louis

Other vocabulary: Native Americans, Europeans, British, pioneers, settlers, goods, horizon, mourned, teeming, vowed, purified, ammunition

These are difficult words that students will encounter in the text. You may want to review and discuss these words and have students add them to the classroom word wall or dictionary. 

Comprehension
You will likely address a number of comprehension skills as students work to understand the text. The target comprehension strategy for this lesson is: main idea and details. 

Before Reading

Introduce the Book
Show students the book cover and have them read the title. Have them use the title and illustration to make predictions about the topic.
Ask: What do you see on the cover? What do you think this story is about? What do the illustrations tell you about the kind of text this is? What can you predict about the book from the illustrations or title? 

Build Background
Ask questions to elicit prior knowledge about Daniel Boone and life in the New World in the early 1800s.
Ask: What do you know about Daniel Boone? When did he live? What do you think America was like in the early 1800s? 

Book Walk
Give students their copies of the book and go through as much of the book as you feel is necessary. Point out things you feel will challenge students when they read. Look at the pictures with students and discuss what they see. You may want to write down some of the words they suggest during the discussion. This step helps reduce the anxiety that some students feel when they are faced with a book that has unfamiliar text.
Ask and say: Do you think this book is fiction or nonfiction? How do you know? Let’s read the table of contents together. What information do you think we will find in this book?
As you look through the text, point out text features such as headings, bold-face type, pronunciations, maps, charts, and glossary. Ask students how they will use these text features when they read. 

Reading Strategies
Remind students to use any or all of the following strategies to help them in their reading:

• Ask questions: Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right?
• Connect the text with what they already know
• Reread any sentence or page that was difficult, to make sure they understand the text
• Use what they know about letters and sounds to read new words
• Look for parts of words they know, such as root words, prefixes, and suffixes
• Ask questions about what they read

Tell students that good readers often ask themselves questions about the book as they read. They might ask why a particular event happened and if it will affect what happens later. They might ask what the information tells them about the main character. This reading strategy helps readers become more involved with the text and helps them understand more about the topic. 

During Reading

Student Reading
Tell students you want them to read the book independently. Instruct them to read each chapter and then ask themselves questions about what they have read and jot them down. The questions can be anything that comes to their mind. There are no right or wrong questions. The questions are their own personal responses to the reading. 

After Reading

Reflect on Reading Strategies
Draw the group together again and discuss the strategies they used while they read.
Ask: Were there any words you had trouble with? What strategies did you use to work them out?
Ask students if they want to share a question they jotted down. Discuss how asking questions about a text can help students become more involved with what they read.
Ask: Did asking yourself a question make you think harder about what you were reading?  

Comprehending the Text
Give students the main idea worksheet and model how to find the main idea in a section of text.
Say: A good reader looks for main ideas when he or she reads. The main idea is the most important thing the author wants the reader to understand. Every chapter in a book has a main idea. The heading of a chapter often provides a clue to the main idea.
Say and ask: Let’s look at the first chapter. What clues does this heading give about the main idea? Now let’s look through this part of the text to see what we think the main idea is. What is the main event of this chapter? What does that event tell you about Daniel Boone? What do you think the author wants you to understand about Daniel Boone in this chapter? Write this main idea on the worksheet.
Say: A writer includes details that support or tell about the main idea. In every chapter there is a lot of information. Some may be interesting, but might not be important to the main idea. Other information is very important and helps expand the main idea. Let’s look back through this chapter to see if we can find details that support our main idea. We will write them on the chart.
Have students fill in the rest of the worksheet independently. Provide support as needed. 

Discuss other aspects of the story if time allows. Suggested questions are:

• Which part of the text best describes Daniel Boone?
• Why do you think he loved the outdoors so much?
• What challenges did he face during his life?
• What was the author’s purpose? Why did she write this story?
• For what audience is this text written?
• What do you think about the European-Americans settling on land where the Native Americans lived?

Building Skills

Phonics
Vowel patterns
Write the vocabulary words and any words students marked or struggled with on cards. Have students sort the words by vowel patterns: long vowels, short vowels, digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled. Look for various ways the same sound is spelled in different words. Once words are sorted, students can suggest or search for additional words to add to each group. 

Word Work
Prefixes
List the prefixes dis-, re-, and un- on the board. Discuss the meaning of each prefix: dis- (apart from, not); re- (again); un- (not). Search in the text or brainstorm words with prefixes. Define the root word and explain how the prefix changes it. 

Give out worksheet 2 and have students fill in the blanks with prefix words. 

Grammar
Subject and predicate
Say: The subject and the predicate are the two parts of a sentence. The subject tells who or what, and the predicate describes the action the subject performed. In the sentence “Finally, someone spotted a tiny stream of smoke,” someone is the subject who performs the action, and spotted a tiny stream of smoke is the action that someone performed. Have students find the subjects and predicates of sentences in the text.

Expand the Reading

Writing Connection
Have students write questions they would like to ask Daniel Boone if they could interview him. They can work with a partner, taking turns asking questions as if they were interviewing, and answering as if they were Daniel Boone. 

Social Studies Connection
Study maps and literature from the early 1800s. Compare the size of the current United States or Canada with their size during this time period. 

Math Connection
Using a map and its key, calculate the miles covered by Daniel Boone during his travels. 

Reading Independently
Invite students to reread the book independently or with a partner. Have students share their interviews from the Writing Connection with each other.

Home Connection
Invite students to take the book home to read with their families. Have them share their Writing Connection interviews with a family member. 

Assessment

• Monitor students’ responses in the Comprehending the Text section to assess how well they understand the text.
• Review students’ completed main idea chart to determine how well they can identify the main idea. Note whether they are able to differentiate important from unimportant details.
• Monitor students’ responses during the Reflect on Reading Strategies section to determine the kind of strategies they use when reading. Note whether they jotted down questions as they read and whether they understand how this can help them read a text.