Build Background

• Discuss fish. Ask students to tell what kinds of fish they have seen and where. Ask if they have ever caught a fish. Ask students what they think fish eat. Ask students what else eats fish, other than people.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Summarization

• Give students a copy of the book and have them preview the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers and offer ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about.
• Direct students to the table of contents. Remind students that the table of contents provides an overview of what the book is about. Ask students what they expect to find out about salmon in each chapter.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos and captions. Point out the box titled "Do You Know?" on page 13 and tell students that this provides additional information about salmon.
• Show students the glossary and the index and explain the purpose of each.
• Tell students that you want them to summarize the most important information as they read. Explain that stopping to think about the important information in the book and mentally putting it into their own words will help them understand and remember what they read. Model summarizing.
• Think aloud: One way to better understand what I read is to summarize key points as I read. I can underline the words and phrases that I think are the most important in each section. This helps me make a mental summary of the information.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Remind students of the strategies they can use to work out words they don't know. For example, they can use what they know about letter and sound correspondence to figure out the word. They can look for base words and prefixes and suffixes, or other word endings. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word attack strategies. For example, have students find the bold word interconnected on page 6. Ask students to identify the base word (connect) and to explain what it means (to join together). Tell students that adding the prefix inter- changes the word's meaning. Explain that the prefix inter- means between, so the unfamiliar word means a connection between things. Have students follow along as you reword the sentence. Have students confirm the meaning by looking in the glossary.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• For additional teaching tips on word attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students mentally summarize the important information in each chapter.

Student Reading

• Guide the Reading: Have students read to the end of page 6. Tell them to look for the most important ideas in the first chapter. Have them underline important words or phrases in the book. If they finish before everyone else, they should go back and reread.
• When they have finished reading, have students tell a partner the most important information in the chapter. Then have students list the important details while you write them on the board. Model how to use the details to make an oral summary of the pages.
• Think aloud: I can use these main points to make a summary of the information in the first chapter: Salmon are part of the food web. Salmon eat plankton and insects, and salmon are eaten by bears, birds, and people. Salmon migrate from where they are born to the ocean and then back again to lay their eggs. I'll pause and think about this for a couple of minutes before I read the next chapter.
• Tell students to read the remainder of the story, looking for important information and mentally summarizing what they read in each chapter.

    Tell the students to make a small question mark in their books beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Reinforce how mentally summarizing the important information they found in each chapter keeps them actively engaged in what they are reading, and helps them understand and remember what they have read.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence

• Introduce and Model: Review or explain that knowing the order in which the events happen in a story is important to understanding what happens. Ask students to think of a recent story they've read in which the events happened in order. If necessary, prompt with a familiar story such as Cinderella or The Princess and the Pea.
• Explain that the sequence of information in this book is important to understanding the life cycle of the salmon. Explain that the reader can look for signal words such as today, then, first, and after, or time clues, such as dates, that can help them understand the order of the events.
• Check for understanding: Tell students the first event that happens in the life of salmon and write it on the board. Have students tell the next event that occurs and add it to the board.
• Discussion: Ask what the author's purpose was for writing the book. Have students tell two things that can prevent salmon from reproducing (dirty, warm water). Have students tell how water becomes polluted. Ask them what they think would happen to the other organisms in the food web if salmon were no longer around.
• Independent Practice: Give students the sequence worksheet. Explain that a flowchart is a way to show events in the order in which they happened. Show students where to put the first event on the chart. Have students complete the worksheet. Discuss their responses.

Grammar and Mechanics: Irregular Plural Nouns

• Review or explain that a singular noun names one person, place, or thing. Ask students to provide the plural forms for each of the following nouns: bear, bird, eagle.
• Write the nouns salmon on the board. Tell students that the plural of this noun is irregular, it is not formed the way most plural nouns are by adding –-s, -es, or changing the y to an i and adding –-es. Explain that the plural of this word is the same as the singular form.

one salmon = salmon         more than one salmon = salmon

• Write the following nouns on the board: moose, police, deer, sheep. Have students tell the plural form of each. Reinforce that these are also irregular plural nouns that do not change form. Tell students that saying the noun aloud will help them determine if its plural form is regular or irregular. Have them add –-s to each word above to hear how it sounds. Remind students that if they are unsure about how to form the plural of a noun, they can look in the dictionary.
• Direct students to the first sentence on page 5. Read the sentence with students. Ask if salmon and fish are singular or plural in the sentence (plural). Ask how they can tell (the verb is plural). Read the fourth sentence with students. Ask if salmon in this sentence is singular or plural (singular). Ask how they can tell (the article the means one; the verb is singular).
• Have students go through a page or chapter in the book to find the word salmon. Tell them to underline the word and write S if the word is singular and P if it is plural. Monitor students' understanding. Check their responses.

Vocabulary: Content Vocabulary

• Explain that nonfiction texts use vocabulary that is important to the content. Have students work in pairs to find vocabulary that deals with the topic of salmon and the food web. Have students share the words they find. Provide opportunities for students to talk about difficult words such as spawn and estuary. Provide opportunities for students to say the new vocabulary words, talk about their meanings, and use the words in sentences.
• Click here for a vocabulary worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Allow the students to read their books independently or with a partner. Partners can take turns reading parts of the book.

Home Connection

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

Writing Connection

• Have students work with a partner to write a story about a salmon that gets lost. Have them include information such as where the salmon takes the wrong turn, what happens while it is lost, if anyone or any animal helps it, and how or if it finds its way home. Tell students to illustrate their stories and have them share with the group. Bind in a class book titled "Fish Stories" and place on the classroom bookshelf.

Science and Art Connection

• Divide students into six groups: eggs, alevins, fry, smolts, adults, and spawners. Provide large pieces of butcher-block paper and have each group illustrate the salmon at the stage they have been assigned. Have them label the stage and write a short summary. Have students determine the correct order in which the posters should be displayed.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the strategy of summarization to understand informational text
• identify sequence in nonfiction text
• identify irregular plural nouns
• understand and use content vocabulary