Curated OER
Mystery Words
In this language arts lesson, 8th graders verify the meaning of a word in its context, even when its meaning is not directly stated. After a class discussion on how to use context clues, students pairs are given a worksheet of "mystery...
Curated OER
Can You Get the Signal?
What is a signal word? Recognizing these words is an important step in both reading and writing formal text. Review a list of signal words (provided and organized into specific categories), and then have your class play a game to...
Curated OER
Dangerous Road: A Letter of Complaint
Engage your English learners with this resource. To begin, learners describe a map to a partner. After a vocabulary exercise and a jumbled letter activity, pupils are asked to write their own letter. The letter reading and writing...
Curated OER
Using Aphorisms to Help Dealing with People
Here's a formal plan for what many effective teachers already do: Provide a week's worth of aphorisms and have learners choose one to write about in their journals each day. They reflect on the meaning of each aphorism and project how it...
Curated OER
American Focus on World Constitutions
Upper graders read several passages to gain an understanding of the nations that have adopted a constitution similar to the United States Constitution. This is a scripted instructional activity that is intended to build content-specific...
Curated OER
Suffix Addition: Dropping Silent "e"
High schoolers engage in a lesson that is concerned with the concept of using the silent "e" in certain words. They practice using the rules while reading them in a review. The application of the rule is given in the lesson and can be...
Curated OER
Snowflakes
Students use their listening skills in order to follow diretions to create a paper snowflake. They listen as the directions are read, use their scissors and create a snowflake using a cofffee filter. Students practice using their fine...
Curated OER
Parrot in the Oven: Word Tree - Bonsai or Banyan
What fun! As part of a vocabulary exercise designed for Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida readers create word trees with the trunk representing the root word and the branches representing prefixes that can be added to the...
Curated OER
Life During the Civil War for Women and Civilians
Young scholars follow an overview of the American Civil War from a film, the text and/or teacher direct instruction. They create a timeline with a large map of the U.S. in the 1860's available for student reference as they do the spider...
Curated OER
READ 180 Routine Assessment
Students complete assessments to determine strengths and weaknesses in their reading and writing skills. They use an educational software package to complete a computerized assessment. Afterward, they write a narrative about a memory in...
Curated OER
Reading Partnership Book Project
Students choose a book and read it with a partner throughout the week. They discuss and evaluate the text with their partner as well as complete a question form. They desing and choose a way to present their book to their peers in the...
Curated OER
Prepare to Read Nonfiction
Students get an introduction to using KWL Charts as tools for reading nonfiction. They study unfamiliar words and share what they already know about the topic of the non-fiction selection and use this knowledge to help prepare to read.
Curated OER
Reading Research!
Students observe the pictures in non-fiction books that focus on animals in the winter. In addition, they also listed to some read aloud books about hibernation, migration, adaptation and dormancy. Students draw pictures and write notes...
Curated OER
"Aye, Aye, Captain!"
Students explore direction by reading sailing stories in class. In this navigation lesson, students identify the techniques used by sailors in order to travel safely and accurately. Students read stories about sailing in class and define...
Curated OER
Pre-reading Activity: Earnest Hemingway
Students explore the life of Ernest Hemingway. They complete a KWL chart about him and then complete a webquest about his life to find out about aspects of his life they wanted to learn. They follow by reading a novel Hemingway wrote.
Curated OER
Multisensory Sight-word Strategies
High schoolers engage in a lesson that uses sight word strategies in order to increase reading comprehension. The skills are applicable to rote skill, math facts, formulas, etc... The lesson includes sample exercises for the teacher to...
Curated OER
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Vocab Squares
Creatively develop and reinforce new vocabulary from the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, using these vocabulary squares. Each square is divided into four quadrants asking scholars to input the word, a...
Curated OER
Finders Keepers: Vocabulary Instructional Routine Guide for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Like Oskar, the curious boy in Jonathan Safran Foer’s story, class members journey through other “stories that the mouth can’t tell” to find another sentence that uses a word found in novel. Individuals create their own vocabulary list,...
Curated OER
Flipped: Anticipation Guide Instructions
Encourage text-to-self connections with a prereading strategy designed for Flipped. Clear steps are included, and the actual anticipation guide is the final page of the three-page packet. Ten statements are provided, and class members...
Novelinks
Sense and Sensibility: Anticipation Guide Reading Strategy
Begin your discussion about Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility before you even open the book. Kids fill in a worksheet that lists five statements about the literary themes of the novel, and then discuss their opinions as a...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Strategy Instructional Routine: Maus I and II
Pogrom, schlepped, meshuga. Kapo, reich, Wehrmacht. As part of a unit study of Maus I and II, readers use a list-group-label (LGL) strategy for vocabulary drawn from Art Spiegelman's famous graphic novels. The focus of the activity is...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: Personal Phrenology Chart During Reading Activity
Phrenology, the belief that parts of your brain control certain aspects of your personality, is described in Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science. While we now know much more about the brain, learners use this...
College Board
AP® English Language and Composition: The Rhetoric
Does it seem impossible to make academic growth with advanced learners? Without rigorous instruction, it likely is impossible. The AP® English Language and Composition: The Rhetoric offers a complete resource for educators teaching...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Isolating, Final Phoneme Find
This phonics activity engages listening skills and concentration. Young scholars listen to a teacher-made recording and use the provided worksheet to number the final phonemes they hear.