Build Background

• Draw a web on the board with the word satellites in the center circle. Have students tell what they know about satellites. Attach smaller circles filled with the information students already know.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students a copy of the book and have them preview the front and back covers. Have students discuss what they see on the covers and offer ideas as to what kind of book Satellites might be. Have them predict what they might learn about satellites.
• Show students the title page and read the title. Talk about the information on the page (title, author’s name).

Introduce the Strategy: Summarize

• Tell students that one way to understand and remember what they read is to summarize paragraphs, sections, or chapters of a book in their mind or on paper. Explain that a summary is a brief overview of the most important information in the book, or section of the book.
• Direct students to the table of contents. Remind students that the table of contents provides an overview of what the book is about. Each section heading provides an idea of what they will read in the book.
• Think-aloud: To summarize what I've read, I need to decide what's important and what isn't. Then, in my mind, I organize the important information into a few sentences and think about them. If I need to write a summary, I put the information in my own words. Since I haven't read the book yet, it's difficult to decide what's important and what isn't. I think all of the chapters will probably contain important information about satellites, but I'll have to read the book to find out.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos and captions. Point out the boxes with extra information on pages 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19. Show students the box on page 24 titled "Explore More." Explain that this section provides additional resources for learning more about satellites. Point out the glossary on page 23 and the index on page 24. Explain their purposes. (A glossary is an alphabetical list of words used in the book, along with their meanings. An index is an alphabetical list of people, places, or topics in the book along with the page numbers on which they are mentioned.)
• 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

• 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 a word. They can look for base words within words, prefixes, and suffixes. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Point out a word in bold, such as the word orbits on page 4. Model how students can use context clues to figure out the meaning of the word. Read the complete sentence. Tell students they can substitute revolves around for the word orbits. Remind students they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• Have students turn to the glossary on page 23. Have them read the glossary words and their definitions aloud. Next, have students turn to the pages indicated and read the sentence in which the glossary word appears. Use context clues in the surrounding sentences to work out unfamiliar vocabulary words, as necessary.
• For additional tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students pause at the end of each section and quickly summarize what they have read about satellites. Students can summarize mentally or use a pencil and scrap paper.

Student Reading

    Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 5. Tell them to underline the most important information as they read. Have students go back and reread the chapter if they finish before everyone else.

• Ask students to tell what the first chapter, "Satellites 101," is about. (It defines and tells the differences between natural and artificial satellites.) Ask students what important information they underlined while reading. Make a list on the board.
• Model summarizing the main idea and supporting details in the first chapter.
• Think-aloud: As I read, I underlined the words, phrases, and sentences I thought were most important. (Add any information not generated by students to the list on the board. Review the list and explain which details are important and which are not, crossing out the unimportant details as you go.) After sorting through the information and deciding what information is important and what isn’t, I put the information into my own words to make a summary. (Sample summary to write on the board: Natural satellites include Earth’s moon and all of the planets that revolve around the sun. Thousands of artificial satellites orbit Earth so that we can use cell phones, watch TV, and better predict the weather.)
• Have students read the remainder of the book, looking for the most important information about satellites in each section.

    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 the Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Reinforce that summarizing the important information in each section as they read keeps them involved in the reading and helps them understand and remember what they have read.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence events

• Discussion: Have students tell what the author's purpose was for writing the book (to share information about satellites). Ask what they learned about satellites that they didn't already know. Write on the board: In 1687, Isaac Newton realized that gravity holds the moon in orbit and had an idea for artificial satellites. Tell students that this was the beginning of inventing artificial satellites to travel into space.
• Introduce and model the skill: Review or explain that many writers present the events in a story in the order in which they happened, but other writers do not. It is then up to the reader to look for signal words such as today, then, first, and after, or time references, such as dates, to help organize the events in the order in which they occurred. Tell students to turn to page 18. Say: This section tells the beginning of artificial satellite history, but we learned about many other satellites earlier in the book. Obviously the historical sequence is not written in time order in this book.
• Check for understanding: Have students continue looking at page 18. Ask students what happened next in the history of artificial satellites. (The USSR launched Sputnik I.) Tell students that this happened on October 4, 1957.
• Independent practice: Give students the sequence worksheet. Have students use the book to help them record the missing events in chronological order. Explain that organizing the information will help them remember what they read. Have students complete the worksheet. Discuss their responses.

    Extend the activity: Instruct students to use the inside cover of their book to write one way they benefit from the use of satellites in their lives (cell phone, Internet, cable TV, etc.).

Grammar and Mechanics: Articles

• Tell students that this author used many articles in her writing. Review that there are three articles: a, an, and the (write them on the board). Explain that these articles function like adjectives and are usually followed by a noun.
• The is called the definite article because it refers to a certain person or thing. A and an are called indefinite articles because they don’t refer to a specific person or thing.

    Have students turn to and reread the paragraphs on page 18. Have them circle the articles in both paragraphs (the, an, the, the, the, the, a, an, the, the, the). Write the articles on the board as students name them. As a group, go through the list and have students tell whether each article is definite or indefinite and explain why.

• Review or explain that writers use a before words that start with a consonant or a long /u/ sound. Writers use an before words that start with a vowel (a, e, i, o, and short /u/) or with words that sound as if they start with a vowel. Have students turn to page 9 and read the first sentence aloud (the indefinite article, a, is used four times). Read the next sentence aloud, stressing the word an before the word orbiting. Write the following sentence on the board: It would be an honor and a great achievement to invent a useful satellite. Discuss why each indefinite article is used (determined by the initial consonant or vowel sound of each noun).
• Check for understanding: Give students the articles worksheet. Do the first sentence together. Tell students to complete the worksheet. Discuss their responses.

Word Work: Using the dictionary

• Write the content word soft-land on the board. Tell students that sometimes authors combine words in their writing. Ask them to turn to page 5 and to look at the illustration. Say: This illustration compares and contrasts satellites and space probes. By reading the information, we can use context clues to determine the meaning of soft-land. If we want to check to be sure of the meaning, we need to look up each part of this word.
• Pass out student dictionaries. Tell students to find the word soft. Remind or explain that guide words are the words at the top of each page in a dictionary. They show the first and last entry words in alphabetical order on a page. Ask students to tell what the guide words are on the page.
• Remind or explain that dictionary entry words are divided into syllables. Each entry word has a respelling that shows how to pronounce the word. There is also an accent mark (or marks) to show which syllable should be pronounced with the most stress. Have a student write the word showing the syllables (soft), the pronunciation respelling (sawft), and the accent mark (none shown, as it is a one-syllable word).
• Remind or explain that a dictionary also tells the part of speech for each entry word--for example: n. (noun), pro. (pronoun), v. (verb), adj. (adjective), adv. (adverb), or prep. (preposition). Ask students what parts of speech soft can be (noun, adjective, and softly is an adverb).
• Remind or explain that a dictionary lists the definitions of the entry word. Sometimes a definition is followed by a sentence using the entry word. Ask students to read the definitions and sentences for the entry word soft and decide which definition explains how the word soft is used in Satellites (yielding).
• Repeat this procedure with the content word land. Stress that the definition must make sense within the context of this text.
• Check for understanding: Have students complete the using the dictionary worksheet. Discuss their responses.

Independent Reading

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

• Assign groups of students to use Internet and library resources to further research Isaac Newton, Laika, Space Race, Sputnik I, Hubble Space Telescope, NASA, Mir, and ISS. Have students write reports and share the information with the class.

Science and Social Studies Connection

• Have students use Internet and library resources to further research space junk. Have students determine whether or not space junk is an environmental issue. Divide the class into two groups. Have one group argue for putting more satellites into space (pro) and one side argue against putting more satellites into space (con). Have both groups write solutions for solving the space junk problem. Remind students that many countries are putting satellites into orbit. Share student solutions with the class.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• summarize important information in text as they read
• identify the historical sequence of artificial satellites and space events named in the book
• identify and use articles correctly in text and on a worksheet
• use a dictionary to understand content words