Text Type: Nonfiction
Page Count: 20
Word Count: 1,397 

Text Summary
National Parks explains the value of national parks and explores several parks around the world. Students will learn about animals that live in a large grassland in Africa, as well as the way in which plants and animals of the forest and ocean interact in a small national park in Costa Rica. Students also will read about some unlikely places for a national park, such as in the middle of a major city and totally underwater! Exceptional photography accompanies the text. 

About the Lesson 

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Make connections to prior knowledge

Objectives

• Compare and contrast factual information
• Capitalize names of people and places
• Recognize and use content vocabulary

Materials

• Book – National Parks (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Prior Knowledge Survey, Compare & Contrast, Grammar, Content Vocabulary worksheets

    Indicates an opportunity to use the book interactively (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are not consumable.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: artifacts, designations, diversity, estuary, fjord, habitat, heritages, migrate, preservation, savannas

Build Background

• Have students tell what they know about national parks. Ask them to tell about national parks they have visited with family or other groups, wildlife they have seen, or historical sites they have explored.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Make connections to prior knowledge

• Give students the Prior Knowledge Survey worksheet. Have them read the sentences and write "Yes" or "No" to complete the column on the left.
• Tell students that when they are able to make a connection with something they already know about the topic of the book before they begin to read, they will be better able to 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 making a connection with prior knowledge.

Think aloud: The first chapter in the book is titled "Your Special Place." That's how I felt the first time I visited the Grand Canyon National Park. Even though there were lots of other visitors, I didn't notice them. It seemed like there was just me and this big, beautiful place that stretched for miles and miles. (Tailor comments to fit personal experience.)

• Have students share prior knowledge of any of the topics listed in the table of contents.
• Show students the title page. Talk about the information that is written on the page (title of book, author's name).
• Have students preview the rest of the book, including the title page, photographs and captions, and boxes titled "Do You Know?" Point out the glossary and index and explain the purpose of each.
• 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 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. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Have students find the bold word diversity on page 5. Tell students that they can look at the letters the word begins with to sound out the first part of the word. Tell students to use what they know about syllables and vowels (one vowel sound per syllable) to sound out the rest of the word. Tell students to first look for a clue to the word's meaning in the sentence. If there isn't one, the next place to look is the paragraph. Explain that in some books they will not find a context clue that explains an unfamiliar word. Model how they can use the glossary, or a dictionary, to find the word's meaning. Have students follow along as you read the sentence that confirms the meaning of the word.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• Preview other vocabulary such as designations, heritages, and savannas before students begin reading.
• For additional teaching tips on word attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students think about what they know about national parks as they read the book.

Student Reading

• Guide the Reading: Have students read to the end of page 11. Tell them to underline any important information about national parks in general, Serengeti National Park, and Santa Rosa National Park. 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 artifacts and savannas in the discussion. Model making connections using prior knowledge.
• Think aloud: I read that some national parks protect artifacts. A few years ago, I visited Canyon de Chelly (de Shay) National Monument. I saw cliff dwellings, or houses made out of adobe mud built into the sides of mountains, and cooking pots that the Anasazi tribe left behind. No one knows why the Anasazi disappeared, but scientists have studied their artifacts to learn about them. (Tailor comments to fit personal experience.)
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to think about what they know about national parks as they read.

    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 decoding strategies and context clues.
• Have students complete the Prior Knowledge Survey and compare what they knew before they read the book with what they know after reading it.
• Discuss how making connections with things in the text that they know something about keeps them actively involved in the reading process and helps them understand and remember what they have read.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Compare and Contrast

• Introduce and Model: Review or explain that one way a reader can understand a book is to think about how the things in the book are alike or how they are different. Explain that comparing facts and details can help them understand and remember the information they read. Show students two objects such as two different books or two different homework papers. Tell students how one set of objects is alike (both are books). Explain how the objects are different (one book is a math book; the other is an adventure story – whatever is appropriate). Have students tell how the other set of objects is alike and how it is different.
• Direct students to page 6 in the book and read the last paragraph with them. Ask students when, where, and by whom the first national park in the United States was created. Have them tell what kinds of things are found in the park.
• Direct students to page 17 and read the information about Sareks National Park with them. Ask students to tell where the park is located and any interesting information about it.
• Ask students to tell in what way Yellowstone National Park and Sareks National Park are alike (both were the first to be established). Have students tell how the parks are different.
• Check for Understanding: Have students read the description of Everglades National Park on page 16 and Tassili N'Ajjer National Park on page 17. Ask them to tell how the parks are alike (the only likeness is that both are national parks). Ask them to tell the differences. Have students point out the phrases that show the differences.
• Discussion: Show students the locations of the national parks listed in the book on a world map. Discuss the need to set aside land versus people needing places to live. If appropriate, discuss ANWR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge) and the decision not to drill for oil there. Talk about how parks are funded and who operates them. Have students look at the designations listed on page 7. Tell students they can find how these are different by looking on the Internet or researching materials in the library.
• Independent Practice: Tell students to complete the Fact Comparison worksheet. Discuss their responses.
• Extend the Discussion:

    Instruct students to use the inside cover of their book to write a short paragraph about the national park they would most like to visit and to explain why. Have students share their list with the group

Grammar and Mechanics: Capitalization of Places and People

• Write the words "national parks" on the board and ask students to find the words in the second sentence on page 5. Review or explain that because the words are used as common nouns in this sentence and do not tell about a specific national park, they are not capitalized.
• Write the words "Yellowstone National Park" on the board and ask students to find the words in the second paragraph on page 6. Review or explain that proper nouns, or nouns that tell the names of people or places, are always capitalized.
• Check for understanding by having students turn to page 8 to find the name of the national park in Africa and the name of the people that live there.
• Independent Practice:

    Have students circle the capitalized names of people and places in the book. Tell them to write a P beside the capitalized name of a person and PL beside the capitalized name of a place. Discuss their responses.

Vocabulary: Content Words

• Tell students that many of the words in the book are used to tell about national parks. Provide opportunities for students to talk about difficult words such as extinct and preservation. Provide opportunities for students to say the new vocabulary words and use the words in sentences.
• Give students the word search 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 pairs of students select a national park they read about in the book and work together to create a travel brochure for it. Provide additional resources for students who would like to include more information than is presented in the book. Tell them to make their travel brochures attractive in order to encourage someone taking a trip to want to visit their park. Display on a bookrack for other students to read.

Science and Art Connection

• Provide print and Internet resources for students to research national parks. Have students make dioramas of a national park. Have them present the information they learned about the park and explain the items in their dioramas orally to the group.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the strategy of making connections to prior knowledge to understand nonfiction text.
• identify and compare facts in nonfiction text.
• capitalize names of people and places.
• recognize and use content vocabulary.