November is National Native American Heritage Month. Quality text from eBook collections provided by INFOhio supports knowledge-building and vocabulary development while increasing awareness and understanding of the contributions, history, and achievements of Native Americans.
The text used for reading instruction is important. Quality text meets the needs of readers and the task, develops background knowledge and vocabulary, and stretches readers with complexity to prepare them for college and careers. As readers learn through the systematic and explicit instruction of structured literacy, it is important that authentic, grade-level, and content-area-specific text be used for the development of language comprehension.
When choosing quality text, educators should consider the components of the graphic below.
INFOhio offers quality text to supplement the text found in curricula. These eBooks can help engage, empower, elevate, and extend readers. The vetted eBook collections provided by INFOhio for all students, educators, and families offer ease in finding the best grade-level or complex text for reader task and purpose. Browse the collections below to support National Native American Heritage Month and find the text that is right for your students.
BookFlix offers unlimited use fiction and nonfiction paired titles. Popular fiction picture books are presented as Weston Woods films with the text on the screen. Nonfiction titles appear as traditional eBooks, but both give readers the option to turn the read-aloud function on or off. Doing a keyword search for "Native American" results in one fiction/nonfiction pair. The title Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message can be used in classrooms as an introduction to the Native American culture.
Learn more about using BookFlix in the classroom in the Teach With INFOhio Blog post, Simple Strategies to Supplement Instruction with BookFlix.
The eBooks from Capstone Interactive are standards-aligned and support science and social studies. More than 1,000 unlimited-use titles offer quality text to support content area background knowledge and vocabulary. Educators can search by topic or use filters to find the right text for students.
Titles to consider using as quality text in the classroom include:
Learn more about using Capstone Interactive eBooks in the classroom by reading Simple Strategies to Supplement Instruction with Capstone Interactive eBooks.
For middle-grade students, the eBooks in the World Book collection give readers information about Native Americans. The collection's unlimited use titles provide opportunities for readers to develop background knowledge on a topic and improve comprehension.
This collection can easily be browsed using the horizontal topics menu above the eBooks. Browse Cultures of the World to find titles such as The Cherokee, The Ojibwa, and The Osage. Other topics include titles as well.
More than 12,000 titles, including classic literary works, important historical documents, and general reference materials, can provide high school students with various supplemental texts to support reading to prepare them for college and career readiness. Extend high school students with complex text about topics essential for understanding the history of Indigenous Peoples in the United States. The EBSCO High School eBook Collection titles are unlimited use, perfect to implement for whole group reading.
It is easy to search by topic or title in the EBSCO interface. Authentic texts in a variety of genres will engage and empower teens. Unlike the other eBook collections featured, not all the texts have a Lexile level. However, educators can find the quantitative level to ensure the text is grade-level or higher for whole-class instruction.
Consider using these texts from the collection if they meet your readers and their needs:
Educator Tools is a repository of INFOhio's quality digital content for educators. Filters and a search feature narrow results to find specific titles for use in instruction with students.
Educators can do keyword searches and limit the search results by different filters. For example, conducting a keyword search for Native Americans results in 31 titles. Using the eBook limiter under Item Type narrows the search to 21.
Be sure to try other keywords as well, including indigenous people and American Indians.
Share these choice boards on Native Americans with students to give them options in their reading. Indigenous Peoples of America: Trials and Triumphs includes eBooks appropriate for students in grades 5-8, while Indigenous Peoples of America: Tribes and the People is intended for grades 3-8.
Explore eBook collections from INFOhio to find titles to support readers with specific topics, seasons, and events all year long. With thousands of eBooks to choose from, quality text for language comprehension development is just a few clicks away!
Emily Rozmus is a Senior Instructional Specialist at INFOhio. She has worked in education for more than 30 years, first as a secondary English teacher and district librarian before starting at INFOhio in 2013. Emily has developed district growth plans, integrated technology, created instruction for information literacy, fostered teacher development, and worked on teams to implement curriculum. At INFOhio, she focuses on training educators to use INFOhio resources to improve early learning. She also works to share research and best practices for helping students be better readers of INFOhio's digital text.
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