Build Background

• Have students think about their favorite foods as you write the word nutrition on the board. Ask for a show of hands of students who have ever heard the word or have an idea of what the word means. Tell students that all of the foods they mentioned are part of nutrition, and that some of the foods are more nutritious, or better for them, than others. Explain that nutrition is the food we eat and how our bodies use it. Tell students that you are going to create a KWL chart on the board, and that you will be giving them one to complete. Review or explain what each letter in the KWL stands for.
• Model writing something you know about nutrition, such as Fruit is good for me. Give students the KWL worksheet and have them fill the first column with what they know about the foods they eat. Discuss their responses.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Ask and answer questions

• Tell students that asking questions about a topic before reading and looking for the answers as they read will help them understand and remember what they read.
• 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. Each chapter title provides an idea of what they will read in the book. After reviewing the table of contents, model using it as a way to think of questions.
• Think aloud: The second chapter in the book is titled "Nutrients." Since the word nutrients sounds a lot like the word nutrition, I think they might have something to do with each other. I wonder what a nutrient is. I'll write that question on my KWL worksheet.
• Have students look at the other chapter titles. Tell them to write any questions they have about nutrition based on the covers and table of contents in the second column on their worksheets. Remind students that no question is ever inappropriate if they truly do not know the answer.
• Show students the title page. Talk about the information that is written on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos, charts, sidebar text, and the glossary.
• As students read, they should use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted reading strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Remind students of the strategies they can use to understand words they don't know. For example, they can use what they know about letter and sound correspondences to figure out the word. They can look for base words, prefixes, and suffixes. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Write the word prehistoric on the board and direct students to the first paragraph on page 4 to find the word. Model how they can use the prefix pre- and context clues to figure out the word's meaning. Tell students that you know the prefix pre- means before, and that the word history means information about the past. Explain that when the prefix is placed before the word it means before written history. Show students that by reading past the word they are unfamiliar with, they will find phrases that provide clues. In this paragraph, they learn that a snack during that time period might have been nuts and seeds found in the forest, or wild berries or mushrooms, or even an insect. This tells them that the word prehistoric has something to do with the period of time before people bought their snacks at the store or grew food on farms. Point out that they can also use the picture clues to confirm the meaning of the unfamiliar word. Ask students to tell what they see in the picture that gives them an idea of what the word means.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• Encourage students to use the glossary to find the meanings of unfamiliar words when they cannot figure out their meaning using word or context clues.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find answers to their questions about nutrition.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 9. Tell them to underline any important information in each chapter. Tell them they should go back and reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• When they have finished reading, ask students to tell what they underlined. Reinforce unfamiliar vocabulary by using words such as protein and carbohydrates in the discussion. Circle any questions on the KWL on the board that were answered by reading the chapter, and add any new questions you or students have. Model using the information to answer a question written on the KWL chart.
• Think aloud: The first question on my KWL chart was "What is a nutrient?" On page 4, I found out that nutrition is the study of food. Then on page 5, I read that a nutrient is any substance my body needs to live, be healthy, and grow. That includes what I eat and what I drink. I was curious about where the words nutrient and nutrition came from so I looked them up in the dictionary. I found that they both come from the Latin word that means "to feed."
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to look for answers to the questions they have written on the KWL chart, or to think of other questions to add to it.

    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 Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using word-attack strategies and context clues.
• Have students share any other questions they thought of while reading. Reinforce how asking questions and looking for the answers as they read keeps them actively involved in the reading process, and helps them understand and remember what they have read.
• Comprehension: Have students review both their own KWL chart and the one written on the board. Have them circle all of the questions that were answered by reading the book. They should use the information in the book to write what they learned in the third column. Tell students that if they have questions they did not find answers to that they can look in other resources, such as science books or on the Internet.
• Independent practice: Tell students to complete KWL worksheet.
• Extend the discussion:

    Instruct students to use the inside cover of their book to write their own definition of good nutrition.

Grammar and Mechanics: Using articles a, an, and the

• Show students the cover of the book and ask them to read the title. Point to the article and explain that this small word is used to tell something about the apple. Write the words a, an, and the on the board. Explain that the words a and an are used to tell about naming words in general, such as an apple, a teacher, an ocean, or a dog. Tell students that the word the is used to tell about one specific example of a thing, as in the apple, the teacher, and the dog.
• Have students look at the front cover of the book again. Ask them to say the naming word that follows the word an (apple). Explain that most of the time when a naming word starts with a vowel, the word an is used with it.
• Have students turn to page 10. Have them find the word a in the first sentence (a calorie, a bit). Ask students to identify the letter the naming word begins with as a consonant or a vowel.
• Have students go through the book underlining the words that have either an a, an, or the in front of them.
• Extend the activity:

    Have students use the inside back cover to write sentences using the words a, an, and the in front of naming words.

Vocabulary: Content vocabulary

• Tell students that many of the words they read in the book are used to tell about nutrition or things associated with nutrition. Provide opportunities for students to talk about difficult words such as calorie, protein, and carbohydrate. Provide opportunities for students to say the new vocabulary words, talk about their meanings, and use the words in sentences.
• Click here for a Content 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

• Provide lined paper and construction paper for students to make a food journal. Have students keep food journals for one week, writing down everything they eat and drink, including water, candy, and gum. At the end of the week, have students review the foods they've eaten and decide whether they are eating a balanced diet, a diet with too much sugar, or a diet with too much fat. Have them write a paragraph telling what they have learned about how they eat, and ways in which they might continue to eat healthfully or ways they might change their eating habits.

Science Connection

• Provide resources for students to research the food groups and benefits of healthful foods in each group. Have them present their findings to the group in poster form.

Math Connection

• Use the nutrition facts on commonly available foods to count the calories that students eat in a day. What is the average number of calories your students consume?

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the strategy of asking and answering questions to understand nonfiction text.
• identify and use a, an, and the.
• recognize and use content vocabulary.