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DAY 3
Guiding Comprehension
If you are teaching the selection in two days, discuss the story so far, including any facts and opinions students have found, and review the vocabulary.
8 Target Skill Vocabulary • Context Clues
Read p. 98. Find the sentence with the word currents. Read the sentence. Use context clues to help you figure out what the word currents means in this sentence.
Water moving in a certain direction.
Monitor Progress
then… use the vocabulary strategy instruction on
p. 99.
If… children
have difficulty using context clues to figure
out the meaning
of currents,
Target Skill Context Clues
9 Draw Conclusions • Inferential
Trudy ate chicken, chocolate, and sugar cubes, and drank beef broth while swimming. Why do you think she ate those particular things?
They are all foods that would give her energy; the broth would have kept her warm.
Whole Group Discuss the Question of the Day.
Read  America's Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle.
See pp. 86f–86g for the small group lesson plan.
Reading
Group Time
Differentiated Instruction
Use pp. 111e–111h and
111k–111m.
Whole Group Discuss the Reader Response questions
on p. 106. Then use p. 111a.
Language Arts
DAY 3
Grouping Options
Target Skill VOCABULARY STRATEGY
Context Clues
TEACH
  • Remind students that sometimes we read words we know, but they don't seem to make sense. Explain that some words have more than one meaning.
  • Tell students to look at the context to figure out what the word means.
  • Students can try the new meaning in the sentence. If it makes sense, then they have figured out what the word means.
Think Aloud MODEL Here's the word currents. I thought current meant "up-to-date," like a current address. But that doesn't make sense. It must have a different meaning. If I look at the words around it, I see that Trudy is in the water, and it says currents are powerful. Currents must mean "powerful water."
PRACTICE AND ASSESS
Have students look for another word with more than one meaning and use context clues to figure it out. (strokes, p. 93) Have students use the word in a sentence of their own.
AMERICA'S CHAMPION SWIMMER: GERTRUDE EDERLE

"America's Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle"
by David A. Adler

Student Edition
Unit 4, pp. 90–105

This Snapshot is from a biography about Gertrude Ederle. A biography gives facts about a real person's life.

President Calvin Coolidge called her "America's Best Girl" in 1926. She had a huge parade in her honor, the mayor of New York praised her, and she was known all over the world.
Gertrude Ederle was born in 1906. She grew up in New York City with five brothers and sisters. When she was seven she fell into a pond and almost drowned, so her father decided to teach her to swim. No one could have guessed how much she would love it.
When she was thirteen, Trudy took swimming lessons. Two years later she won a big race. The next year she swam a 21-mile course from Manhattan to New Jersey. She beat the men's record--and newspapers began to notice her.
In 1924, her eighteenth year, Trudy Ederle made the U.S. Olympic team and won three medals. By 1925 she had set twenty-nine U.S. and world records. Her next challenge? To be the first woman to swim the English Channel. She almost made it.
In August 1926, more determined and better prepared, she tried again. Her sister covered her with heavy grease to keep her warm in the cold Atlantic current. A tugboat followed her to make sure Trudy was safe. A second escort boat carried reporters and photographers.
Trudy started from the coast of France at around 7:00 a.m. She kept swimming through rain and wind. Twenty-foot waves and strong tides stirred the water against her every stroke. She was exhausted, but she continued. Finally, around 9:30 that night, her feet touched the land of England. People waded into the water to welcome her. Her father wrapped her in a warm robe.
Trudy Ederle broke the record of five men by almost two hours. She swam the Channel in 14 hours and 31 minutes. Newspapers around the world pictured her. She herself said, "I knew if it could be done, it had to be done, and I did it. All the women of the world will celebrate." And they did. So did the men.

From America's Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle, copyright © 2000 by David A. Adler, reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc.

Copyright © Pearson Education.

 
   
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ELL
Understand Idioms Explain the idioms to tire out and to slow down on p. 99. (to become tired, to go slower) Point out that even though both expressions contain words that have similar meanings, the complete phrase is necessary in order to have the particular meaning. (For example, we would not tell someone to "slow" when we want them to slow down.) Ask students what tires them out and when they need to slow down.