Scott Foresman Reading Street

GUIDED PRACTICE Have students discuss how they would use the strategy to answer the following question.

How does a small plant like a morning glory get the sunlight it needs?

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE After students answer the following test question, discuss the process they used to find information.

How can host trees protect themselves from vines like the morning glory or bromeliad?

Use the Strategy

Look at the page. Pay attention to the kind of information that is present on the page, such as heads, subheads, captions, and photographs.
First, look at the title or head. This will tell you the general topic of that section.
Next, look at the photos. Not only are they usually interesting to look at, but they also tell you what the section will be about.
Finally, read the captions. Read the caption title, if there is one. This will tell you what that caption will be about. The photograph often is a visual image of the explanation in the caption.

NAVIGATE A PAGE OF A SELECTION Explain that students may be asked to read photo essays and answer questions about them on standardized tests. A photo essay often follows a specific format. Knowing how to move around the page can help you get the most information out of it and better understand what you are reading. Provide the following strategy.

Strategies
for Nonfiction

Possible responses: They are an easy place to land; they shine with what looks to be food; a bug crawls in, and the trap shuts; the bristles point outward to keep the insect from getting out; the plant uses chemicals to digest its meal.

Access Content Point out that the words hitchhiker and freeloader are used to describe the bromeliad. Explain that a hitchhiker is someone who asks for free rides and a freeloader is someone who accepts things without paying for them. Help students understand that these words are used to explain that a bromeliad grows on other plants rather than in the ground.

CONNECT TEXT TO TEXT

Reading Across Texts

Discuss the difficulties faced by both the chicks and the plants, how they overcome those difficulties (or have adapted to deal with them), and which living thing may have a harder time surviving.

Writing Across Texts Help students set up a chart.
Some charts they can use
include webs A and B
(Graphic Organizers 14 and 5),
a Venn diagram
(Graphic Organizer 17), and a
four-column chart
(Graphic Organizer 27).

Most plants get their nutrients from the soil. Some plants have
evolved a different way to get their “vitamins.”

Plants can’t run away from hungry insects and animals.
They have developed other ways to protect themselves.

The leaf tips of a Venus’s-flytrap look
very tempting to an insect. They are an
easy place to land. They shine with what
looks to be food. Mistake! Less than a
second after a bug crawls in, the trap
springs shut. The bristles on the leaves
point outward to keep the insect from
escaping as the trap closes. The plant
then uses chemicals to digest its meal. In
this picture, one leaf tip has just captured
a fly, while a bigger leaf tip below is in the
middle of digesting another.

Freeloaders like bromeliads and
vines don’t directly harm their
host tree, but they can do
damage. They soak up water
and sun that the tree could have
used. If too many of them pile
onto a tree, they can break off its
branches. This terminalia tree
has a great defense. Every so
often, it sheds its bark—and with
it, most of its unwanted company.

This floss-silk tree has what scientists call
bark prickles all over its trunk. No matter
what you call them, you wouldn’t want to
run into these things. And that’s the point—
a lot of painful ones.

The inventor of sticky flypaper
might have gotten the idea from a
sundew plant. A sundew’s leaves
are covered with hairs. And these
hairs are covered with “sundew
glue.” The insect that lands on a
sundew is there for good. It sticks to
the hairs, which fold over and trap it.

Writing Across Texts Create a chart to explain
why you think as you do.

Which growing thing do you think has a
harder time surviving—penguin chicks or the
plants in this selection?

Reading Across Texts

Main Idea

What details tell about a meat-eating Venus’s-flytrap?



	Close
	Test Practice Tell students that navigate means "to move around," and explain that they will be learning to move around the page in order to get the most information from it and understand it better. Model navigating the page as above. Model navigating the page. Place a photocopy of a page from the selection on the board. Model moving around the page using the instruction to the left. Using sticky notes, put a large number one next to the subhead of the section. Discuss what that section will be about. Put a large number two next to the first photograph and discuss it. Put a large number three next to the caption. Circle the title and discuss the topic of the caption, then read the caption aloud and ask students a question to assess their comprehension of the caption. Have students work in pairs for another page of the selection.