Build Background

• Give students a copy of the book. Ask if they've ever written a school report on a topic that they weren't excited about. Encourage them to share their experiences. Ask if their opinions changed once they got further involved in the project.
• Discuss Native Americans and the many different tribes that inhabited North America before the European settlers arrived. Encourage students to share what they know about Native Americans, their way of life, and so on. Emphasize that several tribes still exist today, such as the Makah and the Mohawk, although their traditions may have changed since the time of the first European settlers.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Guide students to the front and back covers of the book and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers. Encourage them to offer ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about.
• Preview the title page. Talk about the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).
• Ask students to turn to the table of contents. Remind them that oftentimes the table of contents provides an overview of what a book is about. Ask students what they expect to read about based on what they see in the table of contents. Point out that in this book the chapters aren't titled. Ask students how that affects their predictions about what the book might be about (it doesn't give readers any hints).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Explain to students that good reader often visualize, or create pictures in their mind, while reading. Visualizing is based on what a person already knows about a topic. Explain that one way to visualize is to draw a picture.
• Model how to visualize using a drawing.
  Think-aloud: Whenever I read a book, I always pause after a few pages to create a picture in my mind of the information I've read. This helps me to understand the ideas in the story. For example, if I think of a baseball, I picture a small white ball with red stitching being hit with a wooden bat. I will draw that on a piece of paper so that I remember what I pictured in my mind.
• Give each student a blank sheet of paper. Write the word basketball on the board and have students visualize the object. Have them draw on paper what they pictured in their mind. Encourage students to share what they visualized.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Comprehension Skill: Compare and contrast

• Explain that one way to organize information in a book is to explain how topics are alike and different. Write the words Sports Equipment on the board and show students a baseball and a basketball. Invite them to explain how the objects are alike and different (alike: round, used in sports, balls; different: a basketball is bigger than a baseball, a baseball is white and a basketball is orange, a basketball bounces but a baseball doesn't, a baseball is hit with a bat but a basketball is dribbled).
• Ask students how identifying ways that a basketball and a baseball are alike and different helped them understand the topic of Sports Equipment.
• Think-aloud: To understand and remember new information in a book, I can think about how information is alike and different. I know that this is one strategy that good readers use, so I'm going to compare and contrast new information as I read.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• As students preview the book, ask them to talk about what they see in the illustrations. Reinforce the vocabulary words they will encounter in the text.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Have students find the bold word challenged on page 6. Explain to students that they can look at the letter the word begins with and then 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 containing the unfamiliar word. Explain that clues are not always present in the same sentence, but that other information in the paragraph explains it.
• Review or explain that the glossary contains a list of vocabulary words along with their definitions and the pages on which the words are used. Point out that in this book, all of the words that are defined in the glossary are found in bold print within the text.
• Model how students can use the glossary or a dictionary to find a word's meaning. Have a volunteer read the definition for challenged from the glossary. Have students follow along on page 6 as you read the sentence in which the word challenged is found to confirm the meaning of the word. Repeat the exercise with other words in the text as time allows (page 5: doubts; page 10: surrounded, permanent, and temporary).
• Have students preview the rest of the book.
• For additional tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find out more about Page and her school report. Remind them to stop and visualize, or picture in their mind, the ways in which the two tribes in the book were alike and different.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Introduce and explain the visualize worksheet. Have students read to the end of page 12. Encourage students who finish early to go back and reread. Have them draw what they visualized about the Makah tribe on their worksheet.
• Model visualizing information in the book.
  Think-aloud: I read that during the time before European settlers arrived, the Makah lived in forests surrounded on three sides by water. I found out that they lived in longhouses near the water so they could fish for salmon. They also hunted whales in giant canoes. In my drawing, I drew a large wooden house in the middle of lots of trees. I also drew some people fishing for salmon near the water and people hunting whales in canoes further out in the sea.
• Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 14. Have them visualize the information in the text. Ask students to use their worksheet to add to their drawing of the Makah and draw new information about the Mohawk.
• Invite students to read the remainder of the book. Remind them to add to their drawings as they visualize the information in the book and use their drawings to identify ways that the Makah and Mohawk tribes were alike and different.

    Have students 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, if any, they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Ask students to explain or show their drawing of what they visualized as they read the rest of the book. Encourage them to explain how visualizing helped them understand the information in the book.
• Think-aloud: I read that the Makah tribe kept track of their history by carving into poles. I added a pole with pictures on it to my picture of the Makah tribe. I read that the Mohawk tribe lived in longhouses along streams where they fished. The tribe was very large and had a system of government. On my worksheet, I drew a lot of people by a longhouse and fishing along the stream. I also drew someone holding a list of laws to show that they had a government. As I looked at the two pictures, I began to see how the two tribes were alike and different.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Ask students to explain or show how comparing and contrasting information helped them to understand how the Makah and Mohawk tribes are alike and different.
• Model how to compare and contrast information using a Venn diagram. Draw a Venn diagram on the board. Label the left circle Makah and the right circle Mohawk. Explain that information relating to the Makah tribe is written on the left side of the left circle. (They hunted whales in the Pacific Ocean.) Information that relates to the Mohawk tribe is written on the right side of the right circle. (They had a very complex system of government.) Explain that information relating to both the Makah and the Mohawk tribes is written in the middle where the circles overlap. (They lived in longhouses.)
• Introduce and explain the compare and contrast worksheet. Have a volunteer share one way the two tribes were the same. Add the information to the middle section of the diagram on the board, pointing out that they are comparing the Mohawk with the Makah. Have students write the information on their worksheet. Have a volunteer share one way the two tribes were different. Add the information to the left and right sides of the diagram on the board, pointing out that they are contrasting the Mohawk with the Makah.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the compare and contrast worksheet by writing down at least one more similarity and one more difference. As time allows, meet with students individually to discuss their answers.
• Extend the discussion: Ask students what more they would like to learn about the Makah and Mohawk tribes. Write their questions on the board. Assign partners to research one question on the board and report their findings to the rest of the class.

Grammar and Mechanics: Punctuation -- Colons

• Review or explain that a colon is a punctuation mark (:) used before a long quotation, explanation, example, or series. It also is used after the greeting in a formal letter.
• Direct students to page 9 in the book. Read the first paragraph aloud as students follow along. Ask a volunteer to identify where the colon is placed within the text (after the word library). Ask students how the colon is used in this instance (before a long quotation).
• Have students turn to page 17. Ask a volunteer to identify where the colon is placed within the text (after the word America). Ask students how the colon is used in this instance (before a series of examples of different Native American tribes).

    Check for understanding: Have students find and circle the colon used on page 19, and have them explain how the colon is used (before a long quotation). On the inside front cover of their book, have students draw a colon (:) followed by its definition (a punctuation mark used before a long quotation, explanation, example, or series. It also can be used after the salutation of a formal letter).

Word Work: Open compound words

• Review or explain that when two or more words are combined to form a new word, the new word is called a compound word.
• Write the words longhouses and Native American on the board. Have students explain the similarities and differences between the words. (They are both compound words because each example has more than one word that together stands for one meaning. However, Native American has a space between the words.) Explain that words that are written separately to express one idea are called open compound words.
• Read the first paragraph on page 10 aloud while students follow along. Ask them to locate the open compound word (North America). Discuss the meaning of each word to identify the meaning of the compound word. [You may also want have students identify North America on a map.]

    Check for understanding: Have students look for open compound words on page 17 (for example, Native American; North America; Great Plains). Have them circle the words in their book. Ask students to think of other open compound words they know and list them on the inside front cover of their book. Encourage them to share their words with the class.

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the open compound words worksheet. Discuss the answers aloud once everyone has finished working independently.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section of the book.

Home Connection

• Give students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have students work with someone at home to compare and contrast two objects found in their house.

Writing and Art Connection
Have students use the school or city library to research a modern Native American tribe other than the Mohawk or the Makah. Have them write a report including where the tribe lives, how they hunt or farm, what their clothing is like, and so on.

Social Studies Connection
Discuss with students how the Native American way of life changed as European settlers arrived in North America. Ask them how they think life for the tribes changed as more settlers arrived and moved west. Further discussion may also be done on how members of the Makah and Mohawk nations live today.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• consistently use the strategy of visualizing to comprehend the text while reading
• compare and contrast nonfiction details within a fictional text and record the information on a graphic organizer
• recognize and understand the use of colons as punctuation during discussion
• identify and form open compound words during discussion and on a worksheet 

Comprehension Checks

• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric