Curated OER
Word Reference Materials
A class discussion on reference materials opens up a lesson plan on how to use these important resources. They discover that dictionaries, glossaries, and thesauruses are called word reference resources, and they practice using them. The...
EngageNY
Revising: Strong Conclusions for My Accessing Books Around the World Informative Paragraph
It's important that writers leave their readers with a strong and satisfying conclusion. Help your young writers develop the skills to compose a concluding sentence with the steps outlined here. After class members have had a chance to...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: Close Reading of the "Spadefoot Toad"
A mid-unit assessment challenges scholars to use their close reading skills to identify the main idea and key details. After reading a brief excerpt, learners answer a series of questions—multiple-choice, short answer—complete a graphic...
EngageNY
Reading about Freaky Frogs: “The Glass Frog”
Freaky frogs are the focus of a lesson plan designed to boost reading comprehension skills using text features and asking and answering questions. Informational text and a poem supply scholars with animal-related vocabulary and facts. A...
EngageNY
Comparing and Contrasting Two Texts about Poison Dart Frogs: Eggs and Tadpoles
Poison Dart Frog babies are the focus of a instructional activity that challenges scholars to compare and contrast two informational texts. Beginning with a read-aloud, followed by a discussion, readers complete a practice page that...
EngageNY
Comparing and Contrasting Two Texts about Poison Dart Frogs: Poison!
Scholars compare and contrast two informational texts about Poison Dart Frogs. A brief vocabulary review and discussion lead the way to a two-part close reading—the first reading for gist the second reading for details. Followed by a...
K12 Reader
Sum Difference
If you need a way to address math and reading in one lesson, look no further than a passage about inverse operations, complete with reading comprehension questions. Kids focus on context clues to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words.
K12 Reader
MLK: Complete the Speech
Take a close look at a few paragraphs of Martin Luther King, Jr.s' famous speech, "I Have a Dream." Class members fill in the missing words using the bank of words provided and then respond to a question about the speech and modern day...
K12 Reader
Alliteration and Tongue Twisters
Did she sell seashells by the seashore, or did Bill buy berries by the ballpark? Practice literary skills with an activity based on famous tongue twisters. Kids replace the nouns, verb, and adjectives in two phrases to create a new...
Library Sparks
When Marian Sang: Reader's Theater
Put on an eight-actor show based on Pan Munoz Ryan's When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson. The resource comes with a color-coded script that includes some images from the picture book.
Florida Center for Reading Research
Vocabulary: Words in Context, Meaning Maker
Support children with finding meaning in unknown words using this graphic organizer. While reading a piece of writing, learners identify unfamiliar words, using context clues and reference materials to find and record definitions before...
Curated OER
A Zoo Book for All
A visit to the local zoo launches an integrated life science/ language arts research project into the habitat, feeding habits, offspring, lifespan, and other interesting facts about animals. Each group selects two animals to photograph...
Curated OER
Language, As Experienced Through Pin-Hole Photography
Students read about and discuss photographic principles and, under the direction of the art teacher, construct individual cameras from heavy black cardboard and thin sheet metal with a hole for the lens and black tape for the shutter.
Curated OER
15 Seconds of Fame
Students write an autobiographical essay. In this writing lesson students read a narrative, Panic in Paris, and review the elements of a narrative as a class discussion. Well-known stories are used as examples for writing their own...
Curated OER
A Guide to Getting Along: Listening
Here is an effective way to have your charges practice and model important listening skills. After a short review of effective active listening concepts, such as using body language, summarizing what the other person said, and asking...
Curated OER
Dictionary Detective
Build your class's dictionary skills with this fun game. The activity allows learners to better understand dictionary usage, spelling, and vocabulary. By the end of this activity, they should be skilled word finders.
Curated OER
Candy Heart Stories
Learners will write stories using the words that are found on candy conversation hearts. They show the proper use of quotation marks while writing the stories with modifications. Randomly, hearts will be selected to start a conversation...
Curated OER
Time Capsule: Oral Presentation
A great way to gain proficiency when learning a new language is to prepare an oral presentation. In this foreign language lesson, pairs collaborate to develop a Time Capsule which they present to their class using their target...
Curated OER
Snappy Solutions, Sizzling Sentences
An examination of the figurative language in Gwendolyn Brooks’ To Young Readers challenges your writers to think about the richness of language. Ask your class why Brooks says, “Good books are bandages.” This discussion of alliteration,...
Curated OER
Finding Captain Hook's Treasure
Students use their map-reading skills to find Captain Hook's treasure. They see how the directions on a map correspond with "real-life" directions, and that symbols on a map represent real things.
Curated OER
Meet Our Teachers
Learners of all ages interview, record, and photograph teachers and staff at their school. They organize the photo with a soundbite into a PowerPoint presentation. They transcribe the interview and write a response to it.
Curated OER
Main Idea in Informational Text
Readers identify main ideas and supporting details using informational texts. For this literacy lesson, they make predictions and read the text to find the main ideas. They use a table diagram to define the main idea and supporting...
Syracuse City School District
Summary of Fiction and Non-Fiction Text
Somebody Wanted But So Then (SWBST)? Yes! Here's a great strategy for teaching young readers how to summarize narrative text. In addition, the packet includes exercises that show kids how to summarize nonfiction text using the classic...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Dinosaurs Before Dark
Young readers travel back to the time of the dinosaurs in this literature unit based on the story Dinosaurs Before Dark. Intended for use with upper-elementary special education students, this resource provides reading...