Build Background

• Discuss wind sports. Ask students if they have ever dreamed of or seen anyone jumping out of an airplane or off a cliff in a glider. Ask them why they think someone would want to jump from a plane or off a cliff.
• Ask students what kind of character or personality traits a person who participates in “thrilling” sports like these might have.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students a copy of the book and have them read the title. Ask students to predict what they think the book is about based on the cover information.
• Direct students to the table of contents. Point out that the chapters titled “Hang Gliding” and “Skydiving” each have 2 sections.
• Ask students what ideas they have about the book after looking at the table of contents. Ask them to compare their predictions about the book based on the cover to their predictions after reading the table of contents.

Introduce the Strategy: Make, revise, confirm predictions

• Model making, revising, and confirming predictions.
• Think-aloud: Initially, when reading the title (“Catching Air”) and looking at the pictures, I thought the book might be about a particular person or event. After reading the table of contents, I think that the book is probably about different sports, rather than people or events.
• Have students preview the photographs in the book and revise or confirm their predictions based on what they see. Point out the sidebars. Tell students that sidebars provide extra information about the topic and that some sidebars tell how to do something. Ask students if they can find a sidebar in the book that tells them how to do something.
• As students preview the rest of the book, point out the book’s glossary and index and ask students to explain the purpose of each. Ask students to share how their impressions of the book have changed with further review. Have they revised or confirmed their original predictions?
• As students read, they should use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• As students preview the book, point out any vocabulary that you feel may be difficult for them.
• Remind them of strategies they can use to work out words they don’t know, such as looking at word parts and thinking about the meaning of the sentence.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. For example, have students turn to page 4 and put their finger on the bold word on the page (atmosphere). Say: I recognize the first part of this word, which is at. I can sound out the next 3 letters using what I know about letters and sounds: /m/ /o/ /s/. I see the last part of the word has a vowel-consonant final e pattern so I think the vowel is long. I put this all together and read the word: atmosphere. Then I read the whole sentence to make sure the word makes sense. The word is in bold so that means I can check the meaning in the glossary if I need to.
• Preview any other vocabulary words that you think your students might have difficulty with.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students think about the predictions they’ve made about the contents of the book as they read.

Student Reading

• Guide the Reading: Have students read to the end of page 12. Tell them to underline information that tells how hang gliding is done. 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 words by using them in the discussion.
• Model making, revising and confirming predictions.
• Think aloud: When I first started reading this book, I expected to learn more about wind sports, but I wasn’t expecting to learn so much about the science of wind sports. I didn’t realize how many scientific principles were involved, such as lift, aerodynamics, and air pressure.)
• Have students share the ways in which their predictions were changed or confirmed while reading.
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to think about how the story is the same and/or different from their original predictions.

    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 if their predictions for the remainder of the story were accurate. Ask them to share any content surprises they may have come across in the book while reading.
• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies, such as dividing the word into syllables.
• Discuss how making, revising, and confirming predictions about a book can help readers understand and remember what they have read.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Compare and Contrast

• Discussion: When students have completed the worksheet, discuss their findings. Have students use the information in the chart to make oral sentences that compare and contrast 2 or more of the sports. Have students tell which sport they would enjoy most and why.
• Introduce and model: Explain that this book talked about different kinds of wind sports. Tell students that one way to understand the information about the different sports is to make comparisons and contrasts about them.
• Give students a copy of the comprehension worksheet and copy the worksheet on the board or make a copy of it for the overhead projector.
• Tell students that you will begin by comparing hang gliding and skydiving. Point out the first criteria is “method of launch.” Have them turn to page 7. Read the third sentence out loud and model finding the information about how a hang glider is launched (runs down a slope and leaps into the air). Write "runs and leaps off cliff” in the column titled “Hang Gliding" in your chart on the board and have students copy this information on their worksheet.
• Have students turn to page 13 as you model how a parachutist is launched (jumps from a plane).
• Check for understanding: Have students turn to page 19 to find information about how they would be launched if they were parasailing (boat pulls them into the air). Have students record the information on their worksheets. Then write the correct answer on the board and have students check their answer.
• Independent practice: If you feel students are able to find information to place on the chart, have them continue the worksheet independently. If not, model finding more information until you feel students are able to do it on their own. As students work, write the answers on the board so they can check their work.
• Extend the discussion:

    Instruct students to use the inside front cover of their book to write a short paragraph explaining why they would or would not like to skydive or hang glide. Have students share their paragraph with the group.

Grammar and Mechanics: Sentence Fragments

• Explain or review that a complete sentence needs to contain a subject and a verb. Explain that a sentence fragment is missing either the subject or the verb.
• Have students find the first sentence on page 22 (Want to try three wind sports at once?). Explain that this is a sentence fragment because it lacks one of the basic elements of a sentence. Ask students to tell what the sentence is lacking (a subject). Have the students suggest ways of adding a subject to the sentence (I want to try three wind sports at once, Do you want to try three wind sports at once? The girl wants to try three wind sports at once.) Write student suggestions on the board and circle the subjects in each example.
• Have students turn to page 10. Point out that much of the information is written as sentence fragments. Have students find the first fragment in the “Clothing” section. Have them tell how they would make the fragment into a complete sentence.
• Have students work in pairs to identify the fragments and sentences on the rest of the page. Have the pairs share their findings.
• Have students go through the remaining sentences on page 10 to identify the sentence fragments.

    Have students use the inside back cover of their book to rewrite the sentence fragments on page 10 as complete sentences. Have them mark the subject with an “S” and the verb with a “V”. Discuss their findings and write their suggestions on the board. Circle the subject and verb in each sentence.

Word Work: suffix -tion, -sion, -ation

• Have students find the word direction on page 9. Ask them to tell you what the root part of the word is. Write both direct and direction on the board.
• Remind students that the suffix -tion carries the meaning of act or process.
• Explain that often the spelling of the base, or root, word needs to change in order to add the suffix. Have students find the word decision on page 10. Write the word and its root on the board. Point out that the word decide, ends with a final e. Explain that the letters de have been replaced by the suffix -sion.
• Have students find the word information on page 12. Ask them to tell you the root of the word. Write both inform and -ation on the board. Point out that the ending -ation was added in this case.
• Give students the worksheet and have them create new words using the correct spelling of the suffix. Then have them select 4 of the words and use them in a sentence.

Independent Reading

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

Home Connection

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

Writing Connection

• Have students imagine they are going skydiving or hang gliding. Have them write a first-person point of view story about how they are feeling about an upcoming jump. Tell them to include details such as where, when, and why they are making the jump. Tell them to title their stories and edit them before sharing with the group.

Math Connection

• Have students look on page 10 to find the approximate cost of hang gliding, and on page 15 to find the approximate cost of skydiving. Have them brainstorm activities they could do to raise money to do the sport of their choice. Have them figure out how many times they would have to perform the chore, such as babysitting or car washing, to make the money to do it.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• make logical predictions based on available text information; revise and/or confirm predictions as they preview and/or read the book
• identify appropriate facts about wind sports and record them on the graphic organizer; use the information on the graphic organizer to make accurate oral statements comparing and contrasting the sports
• consistently identify sentence fragments and rewrite them as complete sentences.
• recognize the suffix -ion (and its variant spellings) and the roots of words from the worksheet; add the suffix to root words, spelling them correctly.