Lesson Plan: Ecosystem Phrases

Subject:  ELA- Reading

Grade: 3

Lesson Objective: To identify and determine what different phrases and words mean

Common Core Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.4- Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.

Materials:

• Printable Student Handout - Ecosystem Paragraph

Starter:

Say:

• When you are reading, have you ever read a word and you do not know what it means?  What did you do?  (Allow the students to answer.)

Main:

Say:

• When reading, sometimes that we read or phrases, groups of words, that we don’t know.
• It is important to figure out what the words mean.  What are some ways that we can do that?  (Allow the students to answer.)
• We can ask for help.  That’s a great way to learn what a word means. 
• It is also important to be able to figure out a word or phrase by yourself.  This way, if you are reading and you are alone, you can figure out the word and keep reading.
• We can figure out what a word or phrase means by reading the whole sentence and figuring out what the sentence is telling us.  For example, let us pretend that I read the sentence: “He was walking down the street and stumbled over a stick on the sidewalk.”
• If I didn’t know what the word “stumbled” meant, I would go back and look at the rest of the sentence.  I know that he was walking and there was a stick on the sidewalk.  What are some of the things that could happen?  (Allow the students to answer.)
• I could figure out what stumbled meant that something happened with the stick.  If you are walking and there is a stick in your way, you might trip over it.  That is what the word stumbled means- tripped.
• You can also look for clues in what you are reading.  Sometimes, the word is explained in the paragraph that you are reading.
• You are going to be reading a paragraph about ecosystems.  Read the whole paragraph.  Then, go back and look at the words or phrases that are underlined.  Figure out what those words or phrases mean and write the answer on the line next to them.   
• Does anyone have any questions?

Feedback:

Say:

• Who would like to share their answers?  (Allow the students to share and go over the meaning of the words and phrases.)

Written by Kimberly Greacen, Education World® Contributing Writer

Kimberly is an educator with extensive experience in curriculum writing and developing instructional materials to align with Common Core State Standards and Bloom's Taxonomy.

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