Read Works
Spring
Celebrate the season of spring with a poem. After reading a four-stanza poem about the season, sixth grade readers respond to 10 reading comprehension questions that have them thinking about the purpose, imagery, and other types of...
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Genre Lesson: Poetry
Hook kids into a study on poetry elements by asking them to bring in the lyrics to their favorite song. Discuss the elements in one or two songs (preferably that demonstrate rhyme, figurative language, or a repeating phrase). Groups do...
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Poetic Word Choice
Groups or pairs choose ordinary objects from a bag and rename them based on traits, so that a stapler becomes a "paper cobra." Then they connect this exercise to the way authors use language to emphasize certain traits through word...
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Lesson 3: Puns
Encourage more pun-derstanding of word play in your literary scholars as they explore Brian P. Cleary's book Rhyme and Punishment: Adventures in Wordplay. Although this isn't suggested, consider beginning this study by simply showing...
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Similes
A simile is a non literal phrase that needs to be deciphered for contextual meaning. Similes are also fun to read and write. Third graders get cozy with similes found in the book If You Hopped Like a Frog by David M....
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Identifying Missing Words
How do you figure out the meaning of a word you don't know? Young readers develop skills to identifying missing words in a story using context clues. Picture clues are used to identify covered words in the story I Can’t Get My Turtle to...
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Lesson 5: Red Herrings
A red herring isn't just a fish! Identify the clues that an author makes in a book to mislead the reader and make predictions accordingly. Have your class discuss how it feels to be tricked as a reader and about making wrong predictions....
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Lesson 1: Determine the Meaning of Unknown Words
Sixth graders use context clues to find the meaning of new vocabulary. In this vocabulary lesson, 6th graders read A Wrinkle in Time written by Madeleine L’Engle and use post its to flag words they don't know. They figure out the meaning...