Imagine 28 instructional strategies, appropriate for all subject areas and all grade levels. Directed Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) activities, KWL charts, comparison matrixes, classification...

From baseball and tennis to capture the flag and four-square, here is a great document that will help you design your next unit on a sport-related activity. 

Practice who, what, where, when, and why with a series of activities designed for forming and answering questions. Kids work on choosing the correct wh- word to ask the question they want with a word chart,...

Reading between the lines helps discover important information! The 11th lesson of a 22-part series on American history has scholars use historical thinking skills to uncover the deeper meaning behind the words on a page. Using backward...

Art classes, like any lab class, require extensive preplanning and set-up time. Use this planning template in the quiet before the storm to identify the equipment and materials that will be needed, the procedures and processes...

Identifying nonfiction text features is a skill students can take to any subject. A packet of posters demonstrate different text features that learners would encounter in a textbook or informational article, encouraging pupils to think...

Is a college education necessary for success in today's world? The class investigates the question, along with others at the end of the sixth workshop in a 15-part series. The lesson has four parts with multiple activities and...

The Progressive Era brought about a word that often leads to turmoil—change! Learners research the late 1800s in American history to uncover societal issues gripping the nation back in the day. The 15th lesson of a 22-part series...

Someone finds a time capsule 100 years from now, and it includes your family photo album. What would the photos tell that person about you and your place in history? Scholars investigate how artifacts tell stories. Using photos, maps,...

Before, during, and after-reading ideas for introducing students to informational texts in the early-elementary grades in order to boost reading achievement through the upper-elementary grades.

An Anticipation Guide is a strategy that is used before reading to activate students' prior knowledge and build curiosity about a new topic. Before reading a selection, students respond to several statements that challenge or support...

A concept sort is a strategy used to introduce students to the vocabulary of a new topic or book. Teachers provide students with a list of terms or concepts from reading material. Students place words into different categories based on...

Many areas of instruction can have a rippling effect for the expansion of readers' repertoire of skills, including pre-reading, predicting, testing hypotheses against the text, asking questions, summarizing, etc. Literacy-rich,...

This is a workshop for teachers of grades 3-5 with a focus on building reading comprehension. It includes a video demonstrating some of the strategies used as well as activities, printouts, and even tips for new teachers. [28:25]

Listen-Read-Discuss (LRD) (Manzo & Casale, 1985) is a comprehension strategy that builds students' prior knowledge before they read a text. During the first stage, students listen as you present the content of their reading through a...

It provides students with a way to recognize the relationships between words and concepts using their prior knowledge about a topic. The list-group-label strategy can be used before and after students read.

Discussion of the critical reading skills needed in Social Studies, although the skills discussed can apply to a variety of areas. This is part of a larger site containing numerous lesson plans for Social Studies, and this page is really...

Abby Brown explores the world through books and activities. Each topic addresses developmentally appropriate instructional themes for kids ages 4-9. Academic content is layered in with storylines of fun and adventure! Children of all...

A Seed Discussion is a two-part strategy used to teach students how to engage in discussions about assigned readings. In the first part, students read selected text and identify "seeds" or key concepts of a passage which may need...