Meaningful Sentences - Vocabulary
Making a sentence meaningful means that we need to be able to understand the meaning of the vocabulary word from reading the sentence.
Including context clues will also help to understand the meaning of the word.
Hovering – The helicopter was hovering and floating over the landing pad.
Rotate – The hamster spins and rotates around and around in his wheel.
In the sentence above, I can understand the meaning of rotates because I know rotates means to spin. Using context clues, I can figure out the meaning of rotates because I know what a hamster wheel does.
Point of View- Comprehension
Author’s point of view is who is speaking in the text. Looking for pronouns can help to figure out the meanings of words.
1st Person – I, me, we, mine, our, my
2nd Person – you, you’re, your
3rd Person – he, she, it, they, them, him, her
Theme – Comprehension
The theme is the central message or lesson that an author wants you to understand. It’s sometimes the moral of the story. Focus closely on what the characters say or do.
Constructed response for the text “The Fisherman and the Kaha Bird.”
The theme from the story, “The Fisherman and the Kaha Bird,” is that greed leads to loss. I’ve learned from this story that you should be grateful for the things that are given to you and you should not try to betray someone who is helping you. “But how can I betray the bird? He argued with himself until, finally, his greed for gold blinded him to the generosity of the Kaha bird.” At the end of the story the fisherman was left with nothing and he learned that he should have simply accepted the Kaha bird’s kind gesture.
To properly answer the question in a detailed response there needs to be the following:
· Restate the question
· Include own thoughts and opinions
· Include text evidence that is relevant to the question
· Sum up the response and make sure that it is well written
Author’s/Narrator’s Perspective - Comprehension
What are the narrator’s thoughts or feelings? To figure this out students need to infer based on what they read in the text. Answers should be more detailed than simply saying the narrator likes or dislikes a certain character or event. They need to think for themselves and infer what the author or narrator is feeling/thinking when they may not specifically say it in the text. Students need to infer (guess) but they should not make a random assumption. Students make their decision based on clues from the text to decipher the author or narrator’s feelings. Answers will always vary as long as students can back up what they say by providing evidence.
Sometimes it helps to pick out details before deciding on the point of view.
Detail: When I want to eat a snack I stick a stick in termite heaps.
Detail: I pick them off one by one.
Perspective: The chimpanzee is confident about finding food.
Constructed response for the text “Chimpanzee.”
After reading the poem, “Chimpanzee,” I think the narrator feels that the chimpanzee is confident that he can find food. He is confident because he knows he will find food when he reaches into the termite heaps. Throughout the poem the Chimpanzee is never worried about ever finding food. The narrator describes the chimpanzee eating the termites. “I pick them off one by one and crunch them like potato chips!”
Main Idea and Key Detail – Comprehension
Main idea is the most important idea that an author presents in a paragraph or section of text. Main ideas can be figured out by looking for key details. Here students need to think what is important about what they’re learning and what can be left out. Details can be taken directly out of the text. Sometimes to decide main idea, writers need to put the details into their own words or summarize what they think it means.
Detail: Algae produce food through the process of photosynthesis.
Detail: The coral provides a home and carbon dioxide for the algae.
Detail: Parrotfish eat the algae inside the coral.
Main Idea: Animals and plants in the coral reef depend on each other.