Build Background

• Involve students in a discussion about what they know about life for Native Americans on the plains over a hundred years ago. Ask students what they know about the conflict between the European settlers and the Native Americans on the plains.
• Give students the vocabulary prediction worksheet. Explain that they are to write what they think each word means. Tell them that after they have finished the book, they will make a checkmark if their definition was correct, or write the new definition they learned from reading the book.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Ask Questions

• Explain to students that having some prior knowledge of the topic they are going to read about, and making a connection with what they know while they are reading, helps them understand and remember the information in the book.
• 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 chapter title provides an idea of what they will read in the book. Model using the cover information and Table of Contents to generate questions about the book.
• Think aloud: As I look at the table of contents, I think of things I want to find out when I read this book. I want to find out which tribes once lived on the plains and which tribes still live there today. I want to find out more about what happened to the buffalo and how this affected the life of the Native Americans. Good readers use the preview of a book to think of questions about what they want to find out about the book. They try to answer the questions as they read, and they often think of new questions as they get further into the book.
• Ask students to share questions they have as they preview the contents page. Then have them preview the rest of the book, looking at photos, captions, illustrations, and features such as sidebars, maps, and charts. Encourage students to ask questions as they preview the pages.
• Show students the glossary and index and explain the purpose of each.

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 the word. They can look for base words and prefixes and suffixes. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Have students turn to page 5 to find the names of the tribes. Explain that many of these words are from different languages and are difficult to pronounce. Sound them out with students.
• Model how to apply word attack strategies. Direct students to the bold word nomadic on page (6). Model how they can use context clues to figure out the meaning of the unfamiliar word. Explain that the previous sentence says that many Native Americans lived in teepees. The next sentence says that these portable homes were ideal for the nomadic hunters. Explain that these clues can be put together to figure out that nomad may mean a person who moves around; so nomadic hunters may be a group that moves around hunting for food. Tell students that by reading the following paragraph, the meaning can be confirmed. Tell students that sometimes a context clue provides enough information for a sentence or paragraph to make sense, but not enough to fully understand the word. Model looking up the word in the glossary for a more complete definition.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have the students think about what they see or if any of their questions are answered as they read the book.

Student Reading

• Guide the Reading: Have students read to the end of page 11. Tell them to underline the words or phrases in the book that tell an interesting fact about the Great Plains or the Native Americans who lived there. If students finish before everyone else, they should go back and reread.
• Have students share the information they underlined. Show students a present-day map of the United States. Have them use the information provided in the first paragraph of the book to determine the boundaries of the Great Plains. Relate the number of bison (60 million) to a familiar figure such as city size, stadium size, or state size. Point out the chart and discuss how long students think it took the Native Americans to create some of these objects from a bison.
• Ask students whether any of their questions have been answered from their reading so far. Ask them to share other questions that came to mind as they were reading.

    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 what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Discuss how asking questions as they read helps set a purpose for reading and helps them become actively involved in the reading of the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Main Idea and Details

• Introduce and Model: Explain that every writer writes with a main idea in mind. In other words, the writer wants the reader to understand something about the topic. In addition, the writer has a main idea for each section or chapter of the book. The headings often provide clues as to what the main idea of each section or chapter is about.
• Have students turn to the first chapter and read the title. Tell students that the title is a good clue about the main idea of the chapter, which is that the Great Plains region is a large area of land that was once inhabited by the Plains Native Americans and millions of bison. Explain that the details in the chapter tell the boundaries, what the land is like, and who the people were that lived there during the 1800s. Remind students that not all chapter titles provide such a good clue, and it is then up to the reader to figure it out.
• Check for understanding: Ask students what they think is the main idea of the second chapter. As a group, compose a sentence that states it (Plains Native Americans lived in both teepees and lodges.). Have students identify details that provide more information about the main idea.
• Independent practice: Have students work independently to complete the Main Idea and Details worksheet for each chapter listed. Discuss their responses. If students disagree about the main idea of a chapter, have them justify their responses by identifying clues in the text.
• Extend the Discussion:

    Instruct students to use the inside cover of their book to write a paragraph about whether or not they think the Native Americans were treated fairly by the U.S. Army.

Grammar and Mechanics: Prepositional Phrases

• Review that a preposition is a word that shows the relationship of a noun or pronoun to another word in the sentence. Make a list of prepositions with students such as in, down, to, by, of, with, for, at, from. Explain that a prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or pronoun. Tell students that a prepositional phrase gives more information about the word that comes before it.
• Have students find the first sentence in the chapter titled "Conditions on the Plains" as you write it on the board. Tell students that it has five prepositional phrases. Underline the words The Great Plains of the United States… Ask students to identify the preposition. Circle it on the board. Remind students that a prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with a noun. Tell students that the phrase of the United States is the prepositional phrase. Ask them to identify the noun that is at the end. Explain that the prepositional phrase tells them more information about the Great Plains.
• Review the list of prepositions. Have students find the next prepositional phrase in the sentence (from the Rocky Mountains). Circle the preposition (from) and ask students to identify the noun that the phrase ends with (Rocky Mountains). Ask students what the phrase is telling about (where the area reaches).
• Independent Practice: Select two or three prepositions from the list. Have students find and circle the prepositions and underline the prepositional phrases on a page or in a chapter in the book. Discuss their responses.
• Extend the Activity:

    Have students write three sentences, each with a prepositional phrase. Have students exchange their sentences with a partner and identify the preposition and prepositional phrase in each other's sentences.

Vocabulary: Content Vocabulary

• Have students complete the Vocabulary Prediction worksheet. Tell them to make a checkmark in the column if the word meant what they thought it did before reading. If not, they are to write the definition.
• When completed, have students turn the worksheets over and write two sentences using two of the words. Have them erase the words and exchange their paper with a partner. Each student should fill in the missing words in the sentences his or her partner wrote.

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 reread the chapter titled "Leaders." Have them select one of the men to research further. Tell students to pretend that they are the son or daughter of the leader they have chosen and to write their account of the event they read about in the book. Have students title their stories and share with the group.

Social Studies and Art Connection

• Provide art materials for students to draw pictures of Native American children in their homes and themselves in their homes. Use their drawings as a way to discuss stereotypes, i.e., Native Americans in war bonnets.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the strategy of asking question to better understand nonfiction text
• identify main idea and details in nonfiction text
• identify prepositions and prepositional phrases
• make predictions about vocabulary and revise or confirm meanings from reading the text

Comprehension Checks