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...

Third graders develop their reading superpowers in a lesson plan on fluency. After first listening to an audio recording or teacher read aloud, the class works together identifying criteria for fluent reading, focusing on phrasing, rate,...

Young readers continue to strengthen their fluency skills with a text of their choosing. The teacher first engages the class with an audio recording or read-aloud of a short poem, modeling for children how to read fluently. Next it's...

Enhance a class read-aloud of the children's story Hi! Fly Guy with this reading comprehension lesson. Children first listen as the teacher reads the story, stopping along the way to discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary. The book...

Asking questions about the text is a great way for kids to become self-sufficient readers. Use the question-and-response strategy (QAR) to get them thinking about John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. After they read select...

Turn your passive readers into active readers with an engaging lesson plan on reading informational text. Focused on compare and contrast structured essays, the activity prompts elementary learners to jot down questions and think-aloud...

Pay close attention! After finding details in a picture, scholars begin to find details in videos and text. They work together in groups, discuss in pairs, and carry out independent reading to answer guiding questions. Organizers, tools,...

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...

High schoolers synthesize the information they've learned from each chapter of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting with a creative summarizing activity. With a graphic organizer for all of the book's chapters, readers title...

Class members review expectations for successful discussions before reading chapter one of A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They engage in a think-pair-share to discuss the gist of the text and add their thoughts to their Readers'...

Scholars work in pairs to analyze the characters, plot, and setting of Katherine Paterson's novel, Lyddie. Next, they apply what they learned about the characters' feelings and motivation to perform a mini reader's theater. 

A great aspect of teaching math is that children have the freedom to solve problems using a variety of different strategies. The focus of this lesson plan is for young mathematicians to become aware of many ways of answering addition...

Take a break from reading to find the magic number with this vocabulary game using words drawn from Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee.  Participants match the definition to the word in each numbered square of the puzzle, then add...

Readers learn together with a group discussion activity. As they read William Shakespeare's The Tempest, high schoolers prepare for a fishbowl discussion in which three or four learners sit in the middle of a large circle and...

Scholars boost their knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement with a instructional activity that challenges writers, readers, and historians to analyze primary sources and caption their observations. By way of reading, writing, discussion,...

Turning 11 comes with a range of emotions. Explore those emotions by reading the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Readers analyze the main character's reactions to the events of her day. Then, they write an essay describing what...

It can be difficult to refer back to a text when analyzing it, so annotation is a great tool for kids to track what they are reading. A thorough and well-organized lesson guides learners through the process of annotating William...

Enter the world of Harry Potter and learn new vocabulary at the same time. A high-interest reading passage provides insight into the history of Harry Potter. Follow-up activities incorporate key vocabulary strategies, such as using...

Can you find the themes from Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea in other books? What about picture books? Compare the novel to a picture book with a lesson about making predictions and finding textual evidence.

Encourage learners to ask questions about what they read with a worksheet about comprehension and inference questions. The resource provides directions and examples that guide kids through crafting their own questions.

Get deep! Teach scholars how to make connections between texts to deepen their understanding of a topic. Using the resource, pupils read and annotate a short informational text about Sudan's Civil War and refugee crisis. Next, they...

Factoring doesn't have to be intimidating. Build on prior knowledge of multiplying binomials and factoring simple trinomials to teach advanced factoring of quadratic expressions with a lesson that uses various methods of exploring the...

Study cause and effect in both literature and informational text with a lesson designed for several different reading levels. After kids review the concept of cause and effect, they read an article or story and note the causes and...

"Let the hunt begin!" As an introduction to synonyms, second graders generate a list of word pairs that have similar meanings. The words pairs are written on sentence strips, cut apart, shuffled, and distributed to class members who must...