Rationale: The ultimate goal of learning how to decode words and store them in our sight vocabulary is getting the message the story has to offer. The goal is to comprehend texts, learn from them, and even enjoy them. Being fluent in our reading is a good start to comprehending messages that the text has to offer, but there are other strategies that can help reading comprehension as well. Among many, one of the strategies to achieving reading comprehension is asking good questions! Having reading comprehension is more likely when one is able to connect the text to his or her own experiences in life. Asking good questions intentionally seeks to link ideas to other ideas in a text or to personal knowledge known to the reader. This lesson seeks to teach students how to ask meaningful questions by modeling, explaining the different types of questions that can be asked, and having the students try themselves.

 

Materials:

• Amelia Earhart Flies Around the World by Kath Davies (pg. 4-5, 16-21, 27)

• Journal or pieces of paper

• Pencil

• Blank piece of printer paper for each student

• Crayons, paint, colored pencils, paintbrushes

• Board and dry erase markers

 

Day 1

 

Alright class! So we’ve been learning a bit about planes, we started off talking about what we know, and inside as well as outside of our classroom we’ve learned a thing or two as well. Today we’re going to talk about Amelia Earhart! Has anyone ever heard of that name? (If some kids answer yes, than ask them what they know. However, if no one answers then continue.) Amelia Earhart was a pilot in the early 1900’s, almost one hundred years ago! She was a very courageous and adventurous woman. After she had taken her first flight ever, she knew that it’s what she wanted to do. She had to get her hands on a plane. She was something like a celebrity when it came to her flying skills, not only in the United States, but ALL over the world!

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Today as a class we are going to learn a little bit about her in Kath Davies book, Amelia Earhart Flies Around the World. (Hand out printed copies of pages 16-21 for the whole class). There are three different sections in the book we are going to read, and I’m going to read the first one titled A “shining adventure” then we will answer a couple of questions to better understand what we are reading!

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Say: Before we start though, we need to go over a vocabulary word! The word is fuselage! [write it on the board.] In our text the sentence that uses our vocabulary is this: In the body of the plane, the fuselage, were another two tanks, each holding about 245 gallons (927 liters) of fuel. From this sentence can anyone take a guess what the word fuselage means? What’s cool about this is that in the sentence it gives you the definition of the word! Right before the word fuselage is used the author gives us a description of what it is. [Show them on the graphic of where the body of a plan would be.] Has anyone ever been on a plane? Where do passengers sit? That’s right! They sit in the body of the plane, and another name for the body of the plane is called fuselage. The fuselage also carries the pilot of the plan, and all of our suitcases and luggage we’re taking with us on the trip! So can I sit in the fuselage? [Waits for answer.] What else can I do in the fuselage? [We can talk about different answers if the kids have any.]

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Say: So now that we know our vocab word, we can start reading! [Read pages 16 and 17.]

 

Well Amelia is attempting to be the first woman ever to cross the Atlantic Sea! Now that’s I call an adventure! Now that we’ve read I would like you to quietly answer the two questions on the board, and when you’re done we will get to share our answers.

 

Pages 16-17

Questions on the board:

Why would flying a plane across the Atlantic Ocean be dangerous?

What was included on this plane? Do you think that these things will make the plane safer?

[Have a class discussion about questions and what’s going on in the text, then continue to have the read the next two pages and answer the next two questions in their journals.]

 

Pages 18-19

Questions on the board:

Why couldn’t Amelia fly the plane like she had planned to on this trip?

Why would it be dangerous to fly a plan during bad weather? When it’s storming or foggy?

Why would flying higher and throwing away fuel help the plane work right?

[Again talk before you turn. Talk about the questions and the answers that the kids came up with.]

 

Pages 20-21

Questions on the board:

After coming back to the United States, Amelia was welcomed by many and started doing what kind of work?

Do you think it was right for Amelia to receive so much attention if she wasn’t the only woman who could fly a plane, and if there were woman with better skills at flying than she did?

[talk before you turn.]

 

To help us remember the story a little bit better and make the story of Amelia Earhart more memorable to us, these are the kinds of questions we need to ask ourselves when we read. These types of questions help us think a little more deeply into what we are reading so that we understand.

 

Day 2

 

Alright class, so yesterday we talked about Amelia Earhart’s AMAZING adventure that she went on and how afterwards she was so popular it was like she was a celebrity! Can anyone tell me what they remember from the story yesterday?

 

You guys understood that story so well, and that’s because we asked ourselves good questions yesterday when we were reading. Today we are going to learn how we can ask those good questions while we are reading on our own! There are three  things that we need to ask ourselves when coming up with good questions to ask ourselves about text:

• Are we covering important information?

We need only focus on important information that is relevant to the main subject, which in this case is Amelia Earhart and her journey’s in flying. Usually important information sticks out to us when we are reading!

• Did we bring information together?

Are you pulling information from different places in the text or can you find it in one sentence? If we can find our answer in one sentence, we may need to find a different question

• Could we answer the question by ourselves?

Ask yourself if you would be able to answer his question on your own without help. You need to be able to answer the question when you’re alone thinking about a text.

 

Practice and Assessment:

For you to get some practice in, I’m going to split you up into groups and give you pieces of Amelia Earhart’s biography to read. After your whole group has read, then together with your group members you will come up with two good reading comprehension questions and use the three questions we just talked about to help guide you in whether or not it’s a ‘good’ question! [split them into groups of 4.]

 

Say: Together we really read Setback and start on page 27 and then we will read page 4 and 5! After we have read it together I want your group to look back over it, reread it if you have to and come up with a question to ask. Write it down on a piece of a paper, fold it up into a paper plane and when everyone is done, one person from each group is going to throw it across the room. Then a different person from each group will pick up the paper plane closest to their group. As a class we will decide if the question in the paper plane is a “good” question by checking off all three of our questions. If we can answer yes to all three of these questions, then we’ve made a good question to ask ourselves about the text we are reading! (Pass out the following checklist to each student and as a class we will go over what we think the answer is and have a discussion in class.)

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Fun Activity:

 

Draw your favorite part of the story, or a part of the story that you remember most! [This is the time where they can use their crayons, colored pencils, etc. to express the story through their eyes.]

 

 

 

 

 

References:

 

Sarah Elizabeth Lundey: Paper Plane Idea.

 

Abby Cook. Hunting to Read. http://aac0020.wixsite.com/abbylessondesigns/reading-to-learn

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To return to the Applications Page: http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/applications/