Novelinks
The Giver: Guided Imagery
Guide your class through the imagery of Lois Lowry's The Giver with a peaceful meditative experience. After you create a serene environment in your class, read through a provided script in which kids sift through their favorite memories...
Curated OER
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Before Reading Strategy
Spark interest in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with an anticipatory exercise that begins with a brainstorm around the words heroic and good boy. Pupils then complete an anticipation guide, discuss the results in groups, and...
Novelinks
Running Out of Time: Anticipation Guide
Get your class ready to read with this anticipatory set for Running Out of Time. Small groups each consider one thought-provoking statement. After each group comes to a consensus, the whole class participates in sharing ideas and voting...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: “How Do You Get Through Hard Times?” Chalk Talk
Hold a discussion in writing about coping strategies to prepare your pupils for reading Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman. After journaling, pupils come up in an organized fashion and write...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: “Medicine: Then and Now” Pre-Reading Activity
What did medicine look like a hundred years ago? Two hundred years ago? Invite small groups to conduct research on the history of a chosen medical advancement before reading Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science....
Curated OER
My Antonia: Guided Imagery
Willa Cather's novel My Antonia is full of vivid imagery. Encourage your pupils to visualize and translate images from the text into original writing with this guided imagery activity. Learners listen to an excerpt, take a moment to...
Curated OER
My Antonia: Prereading Guided Imagery
What makes a place safe? What makes a setting effective? Explore the safe spaces and descriptive language with a prereading activity for Willa Cather's My Antonia. The teacher describes his or her own safe space and then prompts pupils...
Scholasic
The Magic School Bus and the Missing Tooth
We chew with our teeth every day, but how much do we really know about them? Allow Ms. Frizzle to teach your kids a thing or two about teeth. Kids complete a prereading exercise, read the book, and respond to several prompts about the...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to John Updike
Expand your pupils' understanding of the short story genre with a study of John Updike and his story "A&P." This lesson plan, the fourth in a series of fourteen, invites learners to examine literary terms and read and discuss the...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to the Short Story
How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory instructional activity that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In...
EngageNY
Talking with My Peers: Carousel of Reading Superheroes Around the World
In many places in the world, people go to great lengths to get books to read. This beginning-of-the-year activity uses pictures of people reading in extraordinary situations to stimulate effective listening and speaking using the...
Curated OER
Flipped: Anticipation Guide Instructions
Encourage text-to-self connections with a prereading strategy designed for Flipped. Clear steps are included, and the actual anticipation guide is the final page of the three-page packet. Ten statements are provided, and class members...
Curated OER
An Introduction to The Catcher in the Rye
Who is J.D. Salinger? Give your class some information on the famous recluse before reading his only novel, The Catcher in the Rye. His life and works are detailed, and there are even a few slides dedicated to controversies and criticism...
Curated OER
Odd Ones Out
Some of these words don't rhyme; scholars determine which ones as they examine four sets of images with the vowel sound /e/. For each set, they circle the words that don't rhyme with the first image. Be sure kids know what these images...
Curated OER
Phoneme Substitution (With Letters)
Get pre-readers comfortable with phoneme substitution using these helpful letter cards, which are printable in three different sizes depending on your classroom needs. Once scholars understand some letter sounds, they can begin...
Curated OER
Middle Sound Segmenting Accuracy
Mico the puppet wants to play a game! Can you figure out which picture card he's thinking of if he only says the middle sound? Choose three picture cards from the extensive library provided here, making sure scholars know what word each...
Curated OER
Onset-Rime Segmenting Accuracy
Use a puppet (in this case named Mico) to make onset and rime more fun. Mico presents 12 picture cards to kindergartners, all depicting single-syllable words. He pronounces them with segmenting onset and rime, encouraging kids to say the...
Curated OER
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Explore storyboards with your pre-reader using the familiar story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." They look at pictures as you read the captions in a comic book style. At the end, they try to finish the story based on a resolution...
Curated OER
Rhyming Words: Fox and Socks
What rhymes with the word fox? Actually there are quite a few words that contain the short o vowel sound and rhyme with fox. Pre-readers find, color, and circle the objects in the picture that rhyme with the sly looking fox. They also...
Curated OER
Word Puzzle
Add some fun to rhyming using a word puzzle worksheet. First, learners match up single-syllable rhyming words. Then, they find all the words in a word search. This beginning reading activity only has words spelled horizontally from left...
Curated OER
Draw it Yourself
Here are four familiar pictures and words for emerging readers: dog, mouse, cat, and hen. After examining the image and spelling, they draw something that rhymes with each in the space provided. Encourage pre-readers to sound out words...
Curated OER
Write Your Name
Kids love to write their own name. Here is a twist on the old trace and write your name three times task. Little ones hunt through the provided alphabet and circle the letters in their name. Then they write the letters on the line below....
Curated OER
What's in Front?
Front and back are common prepositions. Early readers will practice understanding relative positions while using common prepositions by placing a check next to objects in front. Then they draw a cat in front of the house. Tip: Discuss...
Curated OER
Connect the Rhymes
If your budding readers are new to rhyme, this is a visual way to give them practice. They examine familiar sets of objects, matching them to their rhyming partners by drawing a connecting line. Practice left to right skills by asking...