Noah Webster and His Words

Nonfiction: Biography

Ferris, J. (2012). Noah Webster and His Words. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing.

The book, Noah Webster & His Words, is a great addition to any classroom.  There are several easy connections to language arts, with the definitions of difficult words right on the page, to US history as Noah's colorful life connected him to so many important figures of his time.

Due to the carful selection of words in this book (it is a book about Noah Webster!), a good lesson to do with this book is to look carefully at what the book has said about Noah, verbatim, and what we can inference about Noah.  As a class, we could make a list of description words that are found in the book about Noah.

Confidence, Scholar, Busy, Blue-Backed Speller, Newspaper, Dictionary, Teaching, Talking, etc.

Then, from the list we generated and evidence we have from the book, we could practice inferencing what else we know about Noah that wasn't explicitly told in the story.

Reader, Writer, Father, Politician, Poor, Patriotic, Outspoken, Journalist, Persistent,etc.

Inferencing is an important skill, especially for upper elementary students.  If students can inference things from a story, it helps them make connections to other ideas that have or have hear.  Additionally, it helps them to understand what the author of a particular story is trying to say about that character or event. Overall, inferencing helps students make sense of what they just read.