November is National Native American Heritage Month, and today on the blog, I have a handful of reading materials you can introduce to elementary students over the next few weeks – and throughout the school year. These resources on Indigenous Peoples’ History are from one of my favorite spots to go when looking for high-quality materials to share with students!
Regular readers of the blog know that I’m a big fan of all things Capstone, including PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next. You might have caught this recent post on the blog all about “How to Help Students Build Research Skills.” You can use their collections of articles and ebooks to help students explore a wide variety of topics. It’s the perfect place to go as you explore seasonal content and spotlight moments throughout the year as well as search for resources on Indigenous Peoples’ History.
Let’s jump into some of the fantastic literacy resources for National Native American Heritage Month!
Literacy Resources on Indigenous Peoples’ History
Have you used PebbleGo Next? PebbleGo Next provides teachers with reading materials to share with upper elementary school-aged students. It is designed with third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students in mind. There are hundreds of curriculum-connected articles designed for students, including lots of literacy resources on Indigenous Peoples’ History you can use this November and beyond.
As you can see in the screenshot above and linked here, there are dozens of articles to explore related to National Native American Heritage Month right from within PebbleGo Next. You can share articles with students on topics like Tribal Sovereignty, Great Basin Indigenous Nations, or Subarctic Indigenous Nations. You might share a few articles with students as part of a whole class lesson before giving them a chance to jump in and explore on their own.
Let’s take a look at some of the standout features and a few examples from this collection!
13 Categories to Explore
When you and your students log in to PebbleGo Next, you can access thirteen categories within the Indigenous Peoples’ History. You’ll find categories that take you to a wide range of resources to explore and learn about Indigenous Peoples from around the world.
Organized Reading Materials
Inside each article, students will find tabs at the top that organize information into topics. Students can press play to start on the very first tab or click at the top of the page to learn about a specific aspect of that topic.
Timelines to Organize Information
At the bottom of an article you’ll see lots of extra resources to explore, including timelines. I love timelines, and having this feature is super useful for helping students make meaning of the text. They can see the sequence of events and make connections to what they’ve read in each article.
Supporting Videos for Students
Having multimedia to support comprehension is another fantastic feature of the articles in PebbleGo Next. Students can press the video button at the bottom of a passage and access video content, including a transcript accompanying the video. This is certainly useful for students who are building their vocabulary around a topic, too.
Citation Support
If your students are learning digital citizenship skills or using the PebbleGo Next articles to conduct research, you can leverage the “Cite” button at the bottom of each article. This will give you three types of citation options that students can use in a bibliography.
Whole Group Sharing
Do you have an interactive whiteboard in your classroom? You may want to display an article for everyone to explore together. This is a great way to model informational text reading strategies for students. You can share text in a whole group and talk about the special features present in each article.
Independent Reading
One of the reasons I’m such a big fan of PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next is how it supports independent reading in elementary school classrooms. Students can read independently, use the read-aloud feature for support, and choose which text they are most interested in exploring.
Resources on Indigenous Peoples’ History
In addition to PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next, Capstone also has ebooks that are perfect for National Native American Heritage Month. You might have seen this article, “Indigenous Voices Come to Light in Kid Lit” in The School Library Journal. It features some of these resources from Capstone. This includes the first four “Liam” books from Capstone which came out in January 2023.
PebbleGo Next includes six collections full of articles for students to explore. In addition to resources on Indigenous Peoples’ History, there are collections of Biographies, Health, Science, Social Studies, and U.S. States. You’ll find lots of special features inside of PebbleGo, This includes read-aloud audio and academic vocabulary words with definitions in each article. You’ll also find that each article includes images, video, and audio to support student comprehension.
One of the reasons that I love the articles from PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next is that it is perfect for supplementing instruction and giving students choice as they research and explore different concepts. Use this link to learn more about PebbleGo Next, and click on any of the articles linked above to see examples of what they have to offer!
