Explore writing techniques by analyzing newspapers and magazines with middle schoolers. They will collaborate in small groups to read local news stories and identify the main ideas and author's intent. They also utilize an information...

Here is a great way to explore narrative writing! Learners review a previously constructed story map and identify the characters, setting, and main events in the book Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock retold by Eric A. Kimmel. They...

Now is the time to identify the great teachers in your school! Discuss the characteristics of persuasive writing and analyze an example. Then, each pupil chooses a teacher who they feel should be named teacher of the year. They plan and...

Whether you use this reading comprehension instructional activity as the basis for a short lesson on comprehension strategies or for additional practice, the passage about tricky octopi is sure to engage the interest of your young...

Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...

How are mood and tone similar? Different? Help your readers understand the difference between the two with this helpful guide. On the first page, they read the definition for both tone and mood and identify words that are describe each....

Discuss the reading comprehension strategy of summarization with your elementary schoolers! They read a chapter from their social studies textbook, Regions Near and Far, and create a map, or word web, for the chapter. They identify...

Sixth graders use short reading passages to identify, explain, and discuss the author's purpose for writing. After a lecture/demo, they utilize a graphic organizer embedded in this plan to organize their writing ideas.

Discuss media stereotypes with your emerging consumers. They view a television program to identify gender bias. After discussing the clip as a class, each learner writes a story showing more equitable roles. Or consider having them...

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...

Should researchers be able to excavate, examine, and remove Native American artifacts from historic sites? Should companies be permitted to build on sacred Native American land? After watching West of the West's documentary, The Lone...

Students develop listening and reading skills with the oral reading of a story. The students demonstrate good listening skills using appropriate body language and answering assessment questions. They discuss the story looking for main...

Students make predictions about the coming up chapter in their book. Students are introduced to new vocabulary words and definition for this new chapter. Students create a table where they can input the new vocabulary word, definition...

Acquaint your class with informational text through a close reading. First, examine a couple of pages together, looking at text features and content. The whole class focuses on marking down a brief summary of each paragraph before...

Emergencies happen. Be prepared the next time you have to call in a substitute with a lesson plan designed to meet the needs of a kindergarten class. Throughout the day, class members work with number and alphabet cards, identify numbers...

Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...

The end of the year has arrived, which means it's time to find out exactly what your fifth graders have learned over the past few months. With the help of this Common Core-designed assessment that includes two narrative passages and...

With the end of the year quickly approaching it's time to find out exactly how much your sixth graders have learned. Specifically designed for the Common Core ELA standards, this practice test gives students five reading passages,...

Keep an eye on the growth of your sixth graders' reading and writing skills with the help of this practice Common Core assessment. Working their way through the six included fiction and nonfiction reading passages, learners answer a...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

Newspapers aren't only for reading—they're for learning skills, too! A journalism unit provides three lessons each for primary, intermediate, and secondary grades. Lessons include objectives, materials, vocabulary, and procedure, and...

Third graders practice the skills of identifying the main message in a story, describing the main character, and sorting the key details of a story into specific categories. The story they read is, The Boy Who Loved Words. Using a...

As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this lesson...

The lesson plan provides a richly detailed narrative and sample problems for teaching or reinforcing how to work with percentages. In particular, your audience will compute the costs per serving of food and simulate setting menu prices...