Comprehending a nonfiction text such as Maira Kalman's Fireboat, requires readers to identify and remember the most important details. This determining importance mini lesson prompts students to pause and reflect on the importance of various details while reading.

Because most students have had some experience with the events of 9/11, Fireboat is an excellent choice for practicing making connections. Using this mini lesson, students will discover how making text-to-world, text-to-self, and text-to-text connections improves their understanding of the material.

Inferring details about the historical information presented in Fireboat by Maira Kalman is a great way for students gain understanding of this nonfiction text. This focused mini lesson is supported by engaging text and colorful illustrations.

Author Maira Kalman relied on description, problem/solution, and cause/effect text structures when writing Fireboat. This ready-to-use mini lesson shows students that identifying how a nonfiction text is organized will help them better understand the material presented.

This visualizing mini lesson prompts students to practice using the author's words to "see" the text. Author Maira Kalman presents both positive and emotional events in Fireboat; making it a wonderful anchor text for students developing this skill.

This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use Fireboat by Maira Kalman as a springboard for instruction focused on CVCe words.

By anchoring word study to the text, students will benefit from seeing how silent e words are used inside of the text before engaging in both guided and independent practice with CVCe words.

This set of vocabulary development resources for Fireboat highlights the words that are most important for students to know and understand while reading the book. Through engaging in fun word games, matching words to definitions and pictures, and practicing how to categorize words, students will develop the vocabulary necessary to comprehend this story and many others.

Use this Common Core aligned comprehension assessment to evaluate students' comprehension of Fireboat.

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with Fireboat. Track meaning, structure, and visual accuracy using the first 100 words of the text to determine whether or not this book is a good fit for the readers in your classroom.