Center for Literacy and Disability Studies
Activities to Support Teaching the Alphabet
Whether or not your class includes kids with significant disabilities, teaching the alphabet to emergent readers and writers can be a challenge. Here's an activity packet designed for all learners.
Kathryn J. Davis
Abridged Short Vowel Spelling Workbook
Find 50 pages of worksheets to help emerging readers practice short vowel sounds using pictures, simple sentences, and word matching. They focus on CVC and two-letter words with short vowels.
Curated OER
Read The Words and Copy The Words
This worksheet offers young readers and writers a chance to read ten sight words, then try their hand at writing them in empty boxes at the bottom of the worksheet. Not the most exciting worksheet in the world, but could be used for...
Curated OER
Inspire a Life of Reading
Making letters out of goop, sight word bingo, tic-tac-toe vowels. Download this packet loaded with activities designed to engage beginning readers. Although designed for adults, many of the activities are appropriate for any age group.
Curated OER
Use The Polar Express to Develop Rich and Detailed Writing
Bring The Polar Express into your middle school classroom to spark the creativity of your emerging writers.
Curated OER
The Compound Sentence: Correcting Run-ons and Comma Splices
Do some of your writers need an extra lesson on correcting run-ons and comma splices? This worksheet clearly defines the terms, provides models of run-on sentences, comma splice errors, and how to correct them. The second page of the...
Developing a Global Perspective for Educators
Imagine Being Me
The design of this two-day lesson eloquently exposes learners to the topic of social justice for people with disabilities. The plan is built off the reading of Are You Alone on Purpose? by Nancy Werlin. The activity introduces readers to...
ELA Common Core Lesson Plans
American Romanticism
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" provides the text for an activity that asks readers to select specific passages from the story, identify the aspect of American Romanticism the passage exemplifies, and then provide an...
Starfall
Lemonade Girl
Let your students' inner comic book artists emerge in this fun activity, which provides a word bank of twenty-seven words to be used in a story about what kids want to do when they grow up. Opportunities to illustrate their ideas, as...
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Informational Writing
Emerging writers identify an informational piece of writing. They are provided with examples of informational writing and view a PowerPoint on narrative writing. Then, they design their own informational writing with a brochure,...
Curated OER
Writing Technique Foreshadowing/ Home Child
Examine foreshadowing with your emerging writers. First, define the technique, and then search the first three chapters of Barbara Haworth-Attard's Home Child for examples.
Curated OER
Using a Venn Diagram to Compare / Contrast: Double Bubble
Create a "Double Bubble" to organize information in a Venn diagram-like graphic organizer. There are a few options included to differentiate this assignment, but unfortunately, there are no topics for selection. Provide your emerging...
Avi Writer
Crispin: The End of Time
Crispin: the End of Time is the core text for this teaching guide, a valuable resource for those who use Avi's trilogy as whole-class reading, in book circles, or as independent reading.
Curated OER
Mother Goose on the Loose: Teaching Reading and Writing in a Way That's Exciting
Students become familiar with the conventions of print as they recognize Mother Goose poems. In this Mother Goose lesson, students follow the words from left to right as they read Mother Goose poems. Students recognize rhyming words and...
Curated OER
Using Comic Strips to Teach the Use of Quotation Marks
Young scholars identify when and why quotations are used. Using comic strips and speech bubbles, they read and discuss examples of quotation marks, and in pairs write text for a cartoon on a piece of paper using quotation marks around...
Curated OER
George Washington and Slavery: The 1799 Census of Slaves
Middle schoolers discover details about the slave community at Mt. Vernon. In this George Washington lesson, students examine Washington's 1799 Slave Census in order to determine what life was like for slaves of the first president. An...
Japan Society
Changing Times, Changing Styles: New Japanese Literary Styles of the Late Nineteenth Century
Focusing on Doppo's "Unforgettable People" and late nineteenth century Japanese literature, this resource also leads to discussions of form being dictated by content. Explore the development of new literary styles first-hand by...
Geography 360°
Poetry Writing
Put the tips and tricks in this guide into practice in order to encourage your pupils to blossom into poets. A wonderful reference material for teachers, this packet includes definitions of poetic terms and forms as well as step-by-step...
Curated OER
Critical Reading, Imaginative Writing and the Montage
Students discuss the difference between primary and secondary sources and consider how an exhibit is researched. They design and create a montage that reflects themselves in a social and historical context.
Curated OER
Naguib Mahfouz
In this famous leaders worksheet, students read a passage about Naguib Mahfouz and then complete a variety of in-class and homework activities to support comprehension, including partner interviews, spelling, cloze, synonym matches, and...
Curated OER
Ida Tarbell: Hysterical Woman vs. Historical Facts
Pupils examine journalism and its different styles. In this effective communication instructional activity students create an editorial message and articulate an article.