As a summative assessment for this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders listen to and read informational texts in order to demonstrate their ability to take notes, write summaries, and draw connections. Young scholars first listen as...

Let’s learn about frogs! Young readers are led through “Freaky Frogs,” a non-fiction article. Teach learners how to edit an article so there are fewer details to sift through. After talking through the article, they learn the six steps...

Select an article that explores people of another culture. After reading it as a class, distribute copies of this worksheet. It asks for a brief summary, encourages readers to make text-to-self connections, and asks learners to identify...

In instructional activity 13 of this unit on colonial trade, young researchers learn about apprentices as they prepare to write help-wanted ads for the specific trade they have been researching. To begin, the class listens closely as the...

Improve writing skills using methods from Robert Gay's Writing Through Reading; Gay espouses reproducing the work of successful writers to build the ability to convey original ideas effectively. Young writers transcribe, paraphrase,...

Emerging readers summarize a nonfiction text using a five step process. After a brief demonstration of the five-step method for summarizing text, they read a nonfiction article and write their own summary. A checklist of each summary is...

How do you read when you know you're going to be summarizing a text? Summarize a nonfiction text with your upper elementary schoolers. Your pupils independently read a nonfiction article and write a summary paragraph using the six-step...

Help your learners read a text and summarize it using their own words. The main idea and important details of an article are discussed before individuals write their summaries. To support discernment about what to include in a summary,...

Elementary readers in literature groups practice summarizing chapter-by-chapter with Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. Focus on main idea, supporting details, and the 5 Ws. Unfortunately, a clever "peach" graphic organizer to which...

Readers learn how to summarize scientific text and evaluate the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in writing summaries. They select science-related articles you've pulled and collected from the New York Times and, with a partner,...

In the first lesson plan of this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders gain background knowledge of different jobs performed by early colonists. The class begins with a slide show presentation that includes a variety of great...

Students, after brainstorming what summarization is, practice the strategy of summarization to help pick out the important parts of text each time they read. They read and summarize the article, "10 Cool Things About Dolphins," from the...

Seventh graders write a few sentences explaining the most important events of their lives during the past year. As a class, they discuss why they chose the elements they did for their sentences. To end the lesson, they read a variety of...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Practice the strategy of summarizing to gain meaning and knowledge from an informational text. Young readers highlight supporting details and main ideas, and then they use this to summarize two articles: "The Great Quake" and "What...

Who is Mo Willems? Explore the author with your class. Learners read books written by Willems, compare and contrast the characters therein, and make predictions about what will happen. Finish off this author study by having small groups...

Through direct instruction, the teacher demonstrates how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a text when creating a summary. As a class, read a paragraph, highlighting relevant information and crossing out extraneous...

  Wake up, sleepy head! High schoolers craft a creative presentation that represents how they feel when they wake up on a school morning. After the presentations, a reading of Academic Sleep Times and Academic Performance launches a...

Imagine the surprise when small groups present their Evidence Charts to the class and discover that each group has studied a different version of the Cinderella story. Irish, Ojibwa, Egyptian, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Mexican, and...

Middle schoolers summarize a one to two page article of informational text. They compose a summary according to the guidelines on the "Five Rules for Writing a Summary" chart. They take turns reading their summary to the group, and...

Let your learners be the judges for a series of case studies that focus on broadcast codes in Canada. In order to familiarize your class with the codes and guidelines that govern the broadcasting industry, in particular Canada's...

Following brief instruction about the Iran Hostage Crisis during Jimmy Carter's presidency, small groups read three-page sections from the diary of hostage Robert C. Ode. They write editorials from the perspective of either U.S. citizens...

Students summarize a selected piece od nonfiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read silently, students read a nonfiction article concerning Thanksgiving. They write a summary paragraph using the five step process outlined by...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...