Explore the variety of context clues that help us learn new meanings of unknown words! With this presentation, pupils go in depth into each type of context clue and have their knowledge tested with several small reading passages in which...

Explore point of view and more with a Common Core-designed instructional activity. Learners experience different points of view by representing one of two characters from Esperanza Rising during a partner discussion. They must use...

In the third activity from this unit based on the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, learners focus on using specific details from the text-to-answer questions about the habitat of bullfrogs. While reading the text, young...

As 3rd graders continue reading Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, they focus on the concepts of predator and prey in the fifth lesson plan of this unit. Scholars further develop their ability to answer questions using evidence from the text...

Here is a lesson plan that invites learners to engage in a kinesthetic activity that allows them to physically move and manipulate words in order to think about ways to understand vocabulary in context. After that activity is complete,...

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...

Readings of fiction and nonfiction texts followed by a series of activities put scholars in an archaeologist's shoes. Learners read two texts, Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke and The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with...

Walk your pupils through the beginning of My Antonia by Willa Cather with a read-aloud-style activity. The goal is to make predictions and back them up with textual evidence.

Want to boost your readers' comprehension skills and strategies? Look to these five pages, each with a short story and questions to answer covering main idea, facts, sequence of events, context clues, conclusions, and making...

Collaborate with your class after reading William Shakespeare's The Tempest with a group labeling activity. As you note key concepts or words from the play on the board, class members suggest associations and connections...

To generate interest in reading Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel Unwind, class members engage in a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA) that asks them to examine the front and back covers, the blurbs, and "The...

Although this is part of a series, lesson plan nine has your class take a break from their close study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) text to read the firsthand account “Teaching Nepalis to Read, Plant, and...

Young readers consider text-to-self connections. Learners discover the text-to-self connection as they read Flora's Box by Tina Althaide. They practice high frequency words, prepositions, and 1:1 correspondence.

Give this skills-based assessment halfway through your unit on Esperanza Rising. After a brief review, class members take the test, which asks them to show that they know how to analyze the novel independently. They are asked to...

Help your youngsters find meaning in the text they read with this series of five intervention lessons. Offering explicit, step-by-step instructions for walking children through shared readings of leveled books, these...

The engaging story Rain School is further explored in the third activity of a larger unit that explicitly teaches close reading skills by answering questions whose answers can only be found inside the text. Through teacher...

Explicitly explained and delightfully detailed are two ways to describe this tenth lesson plan in a larger unit designed for the first few weeks of third grade. Learners continue to use and develop previously learned close reading...

Third graders answer text-dependent questions of the story Nasreen's Secret School both independently and then collaboratively through using the carousel of questions strategy. This plan is the seventh instructional activity in a...

The sixth lesson plan in this Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle unit assesses your third graders' ability to read and understand informational text. The included assessment asks learners to take notes about the main idea and supporting...

As your 3rd grade class finishes reading Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, the eighth lesson plan of this unit helps readers from an understanding of the very specific information on the final page of the book. As with the entire unit,...

Multiple meaning words is the focus of a lesson designed to reinforce the use of context clues. Scholars listen carefully to a variety of sentences using the words pool and cast to decide which definition best fits the...

Support your instruction of The Cay by Theodore Taylor with this extensive unit of materials. Provided here are prereading activities, worksheets and discussion questions for the entire book, and reading quizzes that you can use to check...

It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text...

Readers continue to learn how natural resources are important to Canada's economy. They read, annotate, and answer text-dependent questions about Natural Resources and the Canadian Economy. They then discuss key terms in the text.