Build Background

• Have students think about the hardships early settlers and explorers faced. Draw a fact web on the board with the word "hardships" in the center circle. Add circles as students offer their ideas.
• Create another word web that shows what students already know about Lewis and Clark. Have students offer anything they know about the Corps of Discovery.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Make text-to-text connections

• 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. Ask them if they recognize the names on the front cover. Model how to make connections to other texts.
• Think aloud: I've seen the names Lewis and Clark, and I remember reading in another book that they were famous explorers who traveled west looking for a river that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Knowing something about them and what they were doing will help me as I read this book.
• Direct students to the table of contents. Remind them 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 that chapter. After reviewing the table of contents, ask students if any of the chapter titles helped them remember things about Lewis and Clark from the previous book they read.
• Reinforce that making connections with other books about the same topic will help them understand and remember what they read.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, including the title page, illustrations, glossary, and index.

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 words. They can look for base words, prefixes, and suffixes. They can use the context to work out the meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Point out a word in bold such as the word impassable on page 8. Model how students can use the base word and prefix to figure out the meaning of the word. Ask students to tell what the word pass means. If necessary, explain that the word has several meanings, one of which is "to go by or through." Then ask students to tell the meaning of the prefix im-. If necessary, ask students to think of other words with the im- prefix, such as impolite, impossible, and immature, to arrive at the meaning of the prefix. Ask students what the word impassable means when they put the meaning of the prefix together with the meaning of the base word. Have students follow along and confirm the meaning of the word as you read the sentence.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to see what they can remember from other books about Lewis and Clark. How does this book add to or change what they understand from other books?

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read the introduction and then stop. Students can reread the pages if they finish before everyone else. Have students connect the introduction with other books about Lewis and Clark.
• Think aloud: These first few paragraphs contain a lot of facts, but not a lot of details. I've seen writing like this before in summaries. I remember reading about all of these facts, in much greater detail, in another book about Lewis and Clark. This chapter seems to be a summary of that book. Having a summary in this book lets me know that the 2 books are connected, and that they are 2 parts of the same story.
• Tell students to read the remainder of the book, looking for connections to other texts.

    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 using word-attack strategies and context clues.
• Reinforce how making text-to-text connections helps students understand and remember what they have read.

Comprehension: Drawing conclusions

• Introduce and model: Remind students that when they draw a conclusion, they figure out something that is not written in the text. Students have to use clues in the reading to figure out what happened or why or how it happened.
• Have students turn to page 9 in the book and read the last paragraph with you. Model drawing a conclusion from the information in the text.
• Think aloud: The text doesn't state exactly why the chief gave Lewis and Clark all of the horses they needed. I think that horses are valuable, and the Chief knew that the horses were going over dangerous mountains and might not come back. I will need to look at clues in the text to see why he sold the horses. It says that the chief was Sacagawea's brother. He probably wanted to help his sister. He may also have thought that since his sister was with the explorers, they must have been good men.
• Check for understanding: Direct students to the second paragraph on page 10. Write the following sentences on the board. Ask students to use the clues in the paragraph to pick the sentence that explains most logically why the Nez Perce helped Lewis and Clark:

The Native Americans wanted to become part of the Corps of Discovery.
The Native Americans were kind and generous people.
The Native Americans did not want Lewis and Clark in their village.
The Native Americans wanted Lewis and Clark to join their tribe.

• Ask students to identify the clues they used to draw the conclusion (the members of the Corps of Discovery were nearly dead; the Native Americans gave them food; they helped the explorers build canoes).
• Independent practice: Give students the Drawing Conclusions worksheet. Tell them to draw conclusions about events that happened in the story. Discuss their answers.

Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage: Compound sentences

• Write the following sentence on the board: Captains Lewis and Clark headed up the Missouri River. Explain that this is a simple sentence. It has one subject and one predicate. Review or explain that the subject of a sentence tells who or what the sentence is about, and that the predicate tells what the subject is or does. Ask students to identify the subject and predicate in the first sentence.
• Write the following sentence on the board: One man was bitten by a rattlesnake, and everyone was tortured by mosquitoes. Explain that this is a compound sentence. It is made up of two simple sentences. The simple sentences are connected by the word and. A comma is placed before the connecting word. Ask students to identify the simple sentences.
• Write the following connecting words on the board: and, but, or. Tell students that any of these connecting words can be used to join 2 simple sentences. Have students identify the connecting word in the above sentence. Tell students that an easy way to check if the sentence is compound is to remove the connecting word and read each part. If each part can stand by itself, then the 2 sentences together form a compound sentence.
• Have the students complete the Compound Sentences worksheet. Discuss their responses.

Vocabulary: Confusing words (homonyms)

• Read the second sentence on page 4. Point out the word way and ask students to tell what it means. Write the word and its meaning on the board. Ask students to think of another word that is pronounced the same but has a different meaning (weigh: to measure). Write the word and its meaning on the board. Explain that homonyms are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings. The way to find out which word to use is to check its spelling and how it is used in the sentence.
• Check for understanding by directing students to the third sentence on page 4. Ask them to find a word that means the opposite of old. Write the word new on the board. Have students think of a word that means "understood or had something in your head." Write the word knew on the board. Reinforce that although the words are pronounced the same way, they are spelled differently and have different meanings. Ask students to tell how they would know which word to use.
• Write the words their, there, and they're on the board. Tell students that these 3 words are often confused. Ask students to tell what each means (their: belonging to them; there: in that place; they're: contraction for "they are").
• Read the following sentences and ask students to tell which spelling of the word belongs in each:

Sacagawea, her husband, and (their) infant son joined the expedition.
The horses are waiting over (there).
As soon as the weather breaks, (they're) going to head out.

• Give students the Confusing Words worksheet and explain the example. Tell students to complete the worksheet. Discuss their answers.

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

• Provide resources for students to research Sacagawea and the contributions she made to Lewis and Clark's expedition. Have them choose a factual event and write a fiction story about it. Have them share their stories with the group.

Social Studies Connection

• Have students research the final segment of Lewis and Clark's expedition. Have them transfer the route the expedition took onto a modern-day map to see where the explorers traveled. If possible, invite a cartographer to speak to the class about map making and the skills involved.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• make text-to-text connections as a strategy for understanding and remembering text.
• draw logical conclusions about story events based on clues in the text.
• identify and write compound sentences.
• recognize and use often-confused words (homonyms).