Instructions Teacher Resources

Providing learners with a solid armory of reading strategies is a good way to help them build better reading comprehension. The teacher will model how to use a questioning checklist to better understand what she is reading. Pupils will...

There are 10 classroom words located at the top of this instructional activity. Kindergartners match the word to the object in the picture, they write that word on the line near that object. This is a great way for them to recognize...

Practice reading strategies using Elizabeti's Doll by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. Readers utilize decoding and comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading the story. A detailed list of text features, high frequency words,...

Is your class ready to read Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793? Before they begin this historical novel, have them complete this cloze procedure to determine if it is at the correct reading level. The directions for introducing a cloze...

Do students really need to be taught how to read cartoons, comic books, and comic strips? Yes. Just as they need to learn how to read other forms of graphic text such as diagrams, photos, timetables, maps, charts, and tables. Young...

“There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest,” which may or may not have been the first chapter of the original Dracula manuscript, is the focus of a Directed Reading Thinking Activity...

The language of the Constitution can feel quite ominous to young learners, but there are a variety of strategies you can utilize to help your class grasp the important concepts and ideals in our nation's founding document. This lesson...

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth novel in the series by J.K. Rowling, is the focus of a directed reading activity that begins by asking readers to examine the book cover and chapter titles and to predict what the story may...

A guided imagery exercise draws class members into a particularly intense scene in Edward Bloor's Tangerine. After listening to a reading of an excerpt from the text, participants respond to a series of questions and then share their...

A reading guide designed for Jennifer Fleischner's nonfiction text, The Apaches: People of the Southwest, provides readers with three levels of comprehension questions meant to encourage higher-level thinking.

An activity boosts readers' fluency in reading common phrases and idioms. Peers time one another and track their progress using phrase cards and record sheets.

Scholars reflect upon their reading strengths and challenges to create personal reading goals. Participants use goal-setting verbiage in an accordion-style graphic organizer, a first step in writing a letter that details their reading...

Readings of fiction and nonfiction texts followed by a series of activities put scholars in an archaeologist's shoes. Learners read two texts, Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke and The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with...

A Reading Adventure Pack focuses on rocks. Scholars participate in three activities after reading a fiction and nonfiction text—The Jade Stone, a Chinese folktale adapted by Caryn Yacowitz, and Rocks in His Head by Carol Otis Hurst....

Scholars become architects in an engaging unit on building structures. The Reading Adventure Pack features Roberto: The Insect Architect by Nina Laden and Construction Zone with photographs by Richard Sobol and text by Cheryl Willis...

A Reading Adventure pack explores the busy life of bees. After reading a fiction and nonfiction text, scholars complete three hands-on activities. Participants invent a robot that can do the work of bees, cheers to hardworking bees with...

Is it the end of the school year and you're in need of test practice? Use a set of reading passages to challenge fourth graders to answer questions based on what they read. Some of the questions require readers to compare and...

Over the course of five periods, scholars create a poetry portfolio. They begin with a reading of the poem, Firefly. With a focus on vocabulary, learners reread the poem then look for sight words and other skills. 

Introduce young readers to informational texts with a well-designed, ready-to-use, and Common Core-aligned unit. Young readers learn a variety of skills while studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). As the first...

Imagine a packet packed with reading resources designed for every grade and reading level. Imagine worksheets, graphic organizers, flash cards, activities, and exercises. This is just such a packet and is well worth...

Focus on sight words with a series of worksheets for beginning readers. Kids can work on where, are, did, and no with matching games and tracing activities, and many more.

This pre-reading activity will certainly make your class ponder. With five questions to reflect upon, get insight to the moral dilemma Percy faced in the novel Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. 

Teach your class five reading strategies to help them with reading informational texts and literary texts. This packet, designed to help learners prepare for the CAHSEE, provides specific strategies that could be used to help prepare for...

Practice makes perfect, and this lesson provides a rubric to prove it! To improve their ability to read with fluency and expression, readers listen to a series of online stories in order to hear how a well-read story should sound. They...