Learning to read is not a simple task, but there are methods for assisting pupils as they develop literacy skills. The first four pages of this resource include information about language development and reading development, as well as...

Beneficial for beginning readers, struggling readers, and those in need of review, a set of language arts activities is a great addition to any foundational reading unit. Focusing on phonological awareness, fluency, instructional...

With What Do You See at the Pond?, young readers explore pond life and practice reading strategies. Learners first make predictions and then read the simple story independently. After a second read-through with a partner, kids come...

Teach your readers strategies for breaking down informational texts. Pupils develop and implement the tools they'll need to decode texts for the rest of their lives with an informational resource that focuses on the structure and...

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. 

Only a thorough understanding of history can save us from repeating it. Practice close reading skills with an eighth grade unit that focuses on 19th century America, including European immigration into Ellis Island and Frederick...

Take the fear out of reading with this series of three lessons from HotWire Magazine about fears and phobias. Each lesson contains pre-reading and post-reading activities aimed at improving learners' reading comprehension skills with the...

Close reading doesn't mean to literally read text close to your face, but rather to pay attention to particular details in order to develop a deep and purposeful understanding of text. The first part of a five-part resource provides an...

The attached resource is no lie! The K-W-H-L activity, which is fourth in a series of seven, serves as a pre- and post-assessment. First, pupils brainstorm what they know about a specific topic, then they list what they want to know, how...

Here are three guided reading lesson plan templates; each designed to meet the needs of a specific level of readers. Levels in focus are emergent, early, and transitional readers. Additionally, prompts to support your small group...

A 206-page kindergarten anthology offers various nursery rhymes and fables. Each lesson covers a different reading and examines a concept that best relates to the rhyme or fable. Lessons begin with an introduction to the reading, go into...

Ready to integrate technology into your ELL instruction? Check out this reading lesson that has language learners using the Internet and apps, joining online book clubs, and creating blogs. A fine model of what can be done.

Class members create literary mandalas for two characters from Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his father’s experiences with the Holocaust. After finding quotes that reveal three good traits and three bad traits of each...

Pink and Say, a picture book by Patricia Polacco, and an anticipation guide, set the stage for a reading of Mississippi Trial, 1955, Chris Crowe's novel based on the true story of the murder of Emmett Till. Instructional routines, the...

Make note of what readers know, what to know, and have learned during a unit on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As class members read the book, they jot down their ideas on a KWHL chart, and consider what they have...

John Knowles' A Separate Peace provides readers with an opportunity to develop their close reading and analytical skills as they look for what Knowles feels are the factors that shape our identity.

Challenge readers to read closer in an activity based on the Socratic questioning strategy. As kids read Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince, they use sentence starters to ask deeper questions about the text, and...

A KWHL strategy prepares young readers for the different type of writing found in Kate Klise's story of the Dry Creek Middle School drinking fountain. Step-by-step directions, student and teacher copies of the KWHL template, and...

How do you grow a goal from a dream to reality? You make a plan! After reading chapters two and three of Where the Red Fern Grows, learners map how Billy earns his dogs by completing an organizer in pairs and then discussing answers in...

A read-aloud anthology provides informational texts about ecology to boost reading comprehension. Third-graders listen and discuss readings where they answer questions and focus on vocabulary. Pupils complete extension activities,...

Pogrom, schlepped, meshuga. Kapo, reich, Wehrmacht. As part of a unit study of Maus I and II, readers use a list-group-label (LGL) strategy for vocabulary drawn from Art Spiegelman's famous graphic novels. The focus of the activity is...

J.K. Rowling's world of wizards and magic focuses on some topics that relate to our own society, especially in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Have kids complete a KWHL chart (what they know, what they want to know, how...

Here is a great learning task that focuses on the development of areas in computational fluency including strategies in mental math. Young learners are guided through a list of addition expressions that help them visually understand the...

Readers of Ordinary People employ a cubing strategy based on Bloom’s Taxonomy to analyze, from multiple perspectives, an excerpt from Chapter 10 of Judith Guest’s novel.  The excerpt, a rationale and complete directions for the...