Build Background

• Involve students in a discussion about photography. Ask for personal experiences with taking pictures. Ask students whether they know how a camera works.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Make, revise, and confirm predictions

• Give students their copies 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. Have students make a prediction about the kind of book this is before they open the book.
• Have students turn to the table of contents. Remind students that the table of contents gives them an overview of what the book is about. Each chapter head provides an idea of what they will read.
• Ask students if the table of contents confirms their initial prediction about the book.
• Model using the table of contents to make predictions about the book.
• Think aloud: The cover and title led me to make the prediction that this book is a factual book and that I would learn how to take pictures. I think that the table of contents confirms my prediction about this being a factual book. I also think the chapter "Ready, Aim, Shoot" will help me learn about taking pictures.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos, captions, and sidebar text. Have them add to, revise, or confirm their predictions.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Give students the Content Words worksheet. Read through all the words with students. Explain that these are words they will encounter in the book and that they all have something to do with the topic of photography.
• Have students work with a partner to write what they think each word has to do with photography. Explain that they will come back to the worksheet after reading to revise their vocabulary predictions.
• Remind students that these words can be found in the glossary. Encourage them to try to work out the meaning using the context before checking the glossary.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to revise or confirm their predictions. 

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read through page 9. Tell students to go back to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• When they have finished reading, ask students if they were able to make any new predictions as they were reading. Ask whether any old predictions were confirmed or revised after reading these pages.
• Tell students to read the rest of the book, keeping in mind the predictions they have made.

    Tell 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 by looking at the structure of the words and context clues.
• Discuss how making, revising, and confirming predictions as they read keeps them actively involved with the text.

Comprehension: Compare and contrast text types

• Model: Remind students that they can use the strategy of comparing and contrasting information to help them understand what they are reading. Explain that they can also compare and contrast different types of texts by looking at the way they are organized, the word choice, and the purpose of the text. Tell students that this book contains different types of text.
• Check for understanding: Ask students to look at the table of contents to see if it provides a clue as to the different types of text. Ask them what they think the purpose of the chapter "History of Photography" might be. Then ask them what they think the purpose of "Try This! Make a Pinhole Camera" might be. Have them turn to pages 5 and 6 and point out how the text on the two pages looks different.
• Discussion: Ask students what kind of text the first chapter is (an information report). Ask what its main purpose is (to present facts about the development of the modern camera). Have students share interesting facts they learned from reading this section. Ask students how the text is organized (chronologically, or by time). Then have them compare this part of the book with the section called "Modern Photography." Ask what the main purpose of this section is (to explain how photographs are made today). Ask them how this text is organized (it is in sequence according to the procedure).
• Independent practice: Have students compare and contrast the different sections of the text on the Compare and Contrast worksheet. When they are finished, discuss their responses. Students should understand that the first chapter is written to present facts about cameras, is organized into paragraphs, and uses "timeless present tense" to recount events in the past. The procedural section tells how to do something, and is organized in sequence and uses the command form of present tense. The sidebar text is organized in a list, and the section "Ready, Aim, Shoot" is organized by topic.
• Extend the discussion:

    Instruct students to use the last page of their book to write two or three things they learned about taking photographs.

Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage: Recognize subject and verb in complex sentences

• Explain that every sentence needs to have a subject and a verb, or in other words, someone or something that does something. Select a simple sentence from the text, such as the first sentence in the second paragraph on page 5. Have students identify the subject and verb of the sentence (camera, was invented). Explain that this is a simple sentence because it has one clause that contains a subject and a verb.
• Explain that sometimes a sentence can have two parts, called phrases or clauses, and that each phrase or clause has its own subject and verb. The phrases and clauses are joined by connecting words such as when, although, after, or because.
• Point out the complex sentence on page 5 in the first paragraph that begins When you click a camera, a shutter opens… Have students identify the subjects and verbs (you click; shutter opens) in each phrase or clause and the word that links the phrases and clauses (when).
• Have students practice creating complex sentences using the Complex Sentences worksheet.

Vocabulary: Analyze word origins

• Have students revisit the book to find the origin of the word camera (see p. 5).
• Explain that many words in our language have their origins in the Greek and Latin languages.
• Write the word graph on the board. Tell students that it comes from the Greek root graphos, meaning "written" or "drawn." Have students brainstorm words they know that use the Greek root, such as graphite, graphic, photograph, or telegraph. Discuss the meanings of the words and have students check the meanings in the dictionary. Discuss how recognizing the root graph can help them understand unfamiliar words.
• Have students complete the Word Origins worksheet. Have them share their list of words.

Independent Reading

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

Home Connection

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

Writing

• Have students use the procedural text in the book as a model to write instructions on how to do something. They can instruct someone on how to play a game, cook a recipe, or how to behave in a particular situation.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• identify different text types within the book and explain how they differ in purpose, organization, and language.
• work with phrases and clauses by linking two ideas using appropriate connecting words.
• list words derived from Greek and Latin roots and explain their meanings.

Comprehension Checks

• Retelling Rubric