If your learners are curious about human achievement, superlatives, or esoteric trivia, the Guinness Book of Records is a way to tap into instrinsic motivation and relevance. Here's an informational reading that will grab their attention...

Looking for ideas on ways to recognize Veteran's Day? Check out this 92-page packet that includes exercises designed for all grade levels. Reading passages detail the history of the holiday, research projects get individuals involved in...

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.

Accuracy, phrasing, flow, and pace, the four traits of of oral reading fluency, are the focus of a series of exercises that are designed to help readers develop these comprehension and literacy skills.

A passage from Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises offers class members an opportunity to demonstrate their reading comprehension skills.

We are all capable of changing the world for the better; all it takes is a spark. Read about a group of seventh grade students in Chicago, IL who took it upon themselves to improve their community by turning a vacant lot into a garden....

Examine different types of questions while studying Peter and the Starcatchers. After learning about the different types of questions, pupils read passages from the text, answer the questions, and label each question with its...

Parades are a joy to watch and learn about. Class members read about a child who attended a parade with her mother and brother, match past tense verbs from the reading, identify and fill in blanks for sight words candy,...

Insects are like little aliens living all around us. Explore fun and interesting insect facts by having the class read a short informational paragraph. The paragraph focuses on how we are similar and different to insects and includes...

Hiding in the filth of a sewer, as a child, to avoid capture by Nazi soldiers—sounds scary! Scholars investigate the youngest victims of the Holocaust, the children. They research video clips and written sources from the Holocaust...

Good readers question text as they read. The Question Answer Relationships Strategy (QAR) used in this resource with The House on Mango Street, provides readers with a concrete approach for questioning Sandra Cisneros' text and...

Looking for a way to introduce class members to the concept of symbolism and multiple levels of meaning? Readers examine two different passages about the beach and consider how the writers use concrete objects, and places to...

As part of a study of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, class members respond to, and craft, higher-level comprehension questions based on passages from the text. 

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is used to model for readers how to craft four levels of questions that promote comprehension. Questions that can be answered with evidence right there in the text, questions that require readers to think and...

Encourage good reading habits with an activity that asks class members to examine the title and cover of Out of the Dust, and then make predictions about the setting of and events in the tale.  

Examine the life of steamboat inventor, Robert Fulton, through reading comprehension worksheet that includes both multiple choice and short answer questions. Then, take part in a word search and write definitions, words, and...

After watching the documentary Dark Water about a traditional Chumash ceremony and reading a Chumash origin story, viewers are asked to create a coat of arms and to craft an essay that details a family tradition or their own origin story.

Thanksgiving is a treasured national holiday, but it can look different from table to table. Through a reading passage, real-world images, and class discussion, scholars take a look into Thanksgiving's importance to the...

Imagine being a child forced from your home and into a concentration camp during World War II. Scholars prepare for a visit to the United States Holocaust Museum by researching the children of the horrible event. They analyze...

Readers of Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are introduced to the Question Answer Response Strategy (QAR) as a way to increase their engagement in and comprehension of the novel.

Here's an activity that uses a reading comprehension strategy based on Bloom's taxonomy to focus readers' attention on key passages from Edward Bloor's Tangerine. Worthy of a place in your curriculum library.

Poe goes high tech with a lesson that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use Minecraft to...

Scholars read a short story about a girl visiting her grandmother, identify the main idea of the tale, and then write a sentence about this idea. Learners practice their phonics skills by filling in word blanks with letters to complete...

What was everyday life like in Colonial Virginia? To find the answer cooperative groups work collaboratively to read an informational handout and complete a graphic organizer. The speaker of the group then shares their new-found...