Build Background

• Have students who have visited an island share where they went, and tell what types of wildlife and plant life they saw there.
• Tell students that the Galapagos Islands are a small group of islands located in the Pacific Ocean. Point out the Galapagos on a map of the world, and the relation of the islands to the equator. Ask students to suggest wildlife and plant life that might live on the island.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Summarization

• Explain to students that mentally summarizing a section or chapter of a book as they read will help them understand and remember what they have 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 section heading provides an idea of what they will read in that chapter. After reviewing the table of contents, model using it to summarize what the book is about. Point out that although it is difficult to tell what the section titled "First Contact" is about, by referring to the title of the book you can get an idea that it tells something about the Galapagos.
• Think aloud: To summarize what I've read, I need to decide what's important and what isn't. Then, in my mind, I organize the important information into a few sentences and think about them for a couple of minutes. If I need to write the summary, I'll put the information into my own words. Since I haven't read the book yet, it's difficult to decide what's important and what isn't. I think all of the chapters must have some important information about the Galapagos, but I'll have to read the book to find out.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos, captions, and sidebar text.
• Point out the index and explain its purpose.

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 correspondences to figure out words. 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. Point out a word in bold, such as the word naturalist on page 8. Model how they can use the base word and suffix to figure out its meaning. Review the meaning of the base word natural (existing in nature) and the suffix -ist (a person who is concerned with). Tell students that putting the meanings of the parts together will give them an idea of the unfamiliar word's meaning - a person concerned with nature. Have students follow along as you read the sentence to confirm the meaning of the word.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence. Tell students that if they are uncertain about a word's meaning, they can check the glossary or a dictionary for its definition.
• For additional teaching tips on word attack-strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students stop at the end of each chapter and mentally summarize the important information in it.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of the first section, "Location." Tell them to underline important words or phrases. If they finish before everyone else, they should go back and reread.
• When they have finished reading, have students tell the important information they underlined in the section. Write the sentences on the board.
• Think aloud: The title of the section told me that the main idea is where the islands are located. This is what I underlined (use an overhead projector or write the following on the board): …are located in the Pacific Ocean…off northwestern coast of South America…lie along the equator…part of Ecuador…13 major islands…many smaller ones…climate…cool for its location near the equator…Humboldt current...flows north from Antarctica...explains why animals found in colder climates…can live in the Galapagos. Now I can mentally summarize the words and phrases I found in the section so I will remember what I read. My summary, including the main idea, is this: The Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean near the northwestern coast of South America. The thirteen major islands and many smaller ones are part of the country of Ecuador.
• Say the summary again, and ask the students to listen for the information you did not include in the summary. Explain that you decided the phrases (climate…cool for its location near the equator…Humboldt current...flows north from Antarctica...explains why animals found in colder climates…can live in the Galapagos) did not need to be included since you were talking about the location of the island, but not its climate or wildlife.
• Reinforce that a summary tells only the most important information. Unimportant information is not used. Discuss how students will decide which details are important and which are not.
• Tell students to read the remainder of the book, looking for the most important information in each section.

    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 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.
• Reinforce how mentally summarizing the important information in each section helps keep them actively engaged as they are reading, and helps them understand and remember what they have read.

Comprehension: Main idea and details

• Introduce and model: Explain that every writer has a topic in mind for a book when he or she writes it. In addition, in a nonfiction book, the writer usually has a main idea for each section or chapter. The main idea is supported with important details. The headings often provide clues as to what the main idea of each section or chapter is.
• Check for understanding: Ask students to tell the main idea of the section titled "Geology." As a group, identify the important details, or words, phrases, and sentences, that support the main idea in the section. Have students use the information to write a short summary of the section on the inside cover of the back page.
• Independent practice: Tell students to complete the Main Idea and Details worksheet. Discuss their summaries.
• Extend the discussion:

    Instruct students to use the inside back cover of their book to summarize the most interesting facts they learned about the Galapagos Islands. Have students share with the group.

Grammar and Mechanics: Action verbs and verb phrases

• Explain or review that a verb is a word that tells an action or a state of being. Write the following sentence on the board and ask students to identify the verb: Galapagos tortoises live in the Galapagos Islands.
• Review or explain that some sentences have a verb phrase, and that a verb phrase is made up of main verb and a helping verb. Remind students that a helping verb works with the main verb to give the reader a better idea of when the action takes place. Tell students that the main verb is usually the last word of a verb phrase and that the other word or words are helping verbs. Write the following sentence on the board and ask students to identify the main verb and helping verb: The Galapagos Islands were named for the Galapagos turtles.
• Have students turn to page 4 in the book. Tell them to circle the action verbs as you read the first paragraph (stretch, feed, swim, rest). Discuss why phrases such as …to soak up and …plants that grow as big as trees are not verb phrases.
• Have students follow along as you read the second paragraph. Tell them to circle the action verbs and underline the verb phrases (have fascinated, spark, remind, remind)
• Have students circle the action verbs and underline the verb phrases in one or more sections of the book. Discuss their responses.

Vocabulary: Two-word nouns

• Have students read the first sentence on page 5. Ask them to circle all the nouns, and point out that all of the nouns in the sentence are proper nouns.
• Write the words Galapagos Islands, Pacific Ocean, and South America on the board. Then, erase or cross out the words Galapagos, Pacific, and South. Have students read the sentence with these words missing.
• Explain that some nouns, often proper nouns, are made of two words. The first word is usually an adjective, and the second word is the noun. Without the adjective, the noun is very general, and we don't know exactly what the sentence is about. For instance, in the first sentence on page 5, we would not know which islands are in which ocean, or whether they were off the coast of North or South America.
• Provide some examples of non proper two-word nouns, such as sea lions, marine iguanas, and frigate bird. Point out that while these nouns are not proper, they are still names of specific things.
• Give students the Two-Word Nouns worksheet and explain how to complete it. Discuss answers when the students are finished.

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 in small groups to write an adventure story that takes place on the Galapagos Islands. Have them brainstorm story ideas, characters, and the plot. As a cooperative learning exercise, have them chose a leader to keep the group on track, a writer, an editor, a spell checker, and a final draft writer. If necessary, have one person perform more than one task, or have more than one person serve in each capacity.
• If possible, allow students to use a word processor to expedite the activity. Collect the stories and bind in a book for the classroom bookshelf. Title the book "Adventures in the Galapagos." Encourage students to read a story from the book during free reading time.

Science Connection

• Have students research an animal or plant that lives on the Galapagos Islands and prepare a report in poster form. Have students share their posters with the group.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• identify main idea and supporting details.
• recognize action verbs and verb phrases.
• understand and use two-word nouns.