Here is a wonderful lesson designed for pupils with special needs. This well-thought-out lesson uses Big Books, familiar stories, and has a lot of review learning built into it. The book, The Keeping Quilt is used in the main part of the...

What media literacy skills do people need to evaluate a news source? Scholars listen to and discuss an NPR story about how fake headlines often dupe young people and adults alike. Next, they study news stories, using a fact-checking...

Your learners need to develop skills to argue effectively, and this comes by understanding the traditions that make claims valid, and what detracts from their effectiveness.  Although this resource does not give advice on how to...

Encourage your young readers to become true detectives in their next literary adventure! Here you'll find an attractive display that will prompt your learners to constantly be looking for clues, asking questions, making cases...

A brief, dialogue-rich passage from Jerry Spinelli's novel Maniac Magee is accompanied by a well-written literacy assessment tool. Thematic content lends itself to age-appropriate discussions about race relations and social justice....

A PBS clip focused on collecting sports memorabilia launches this research project lesson. Class members then read Dan Gutman’s Honus and Me in which Wagner’s baseball card is used to time travel. The lesson ends with researchers...

Get the most out of your guided reading lessons with this collection of literacy materials. Offering a system for using color-coded tags to mark pages while reading books, as well as an assortment of comprehension and grammar...

Students identify the short /o/ sound in this lesson. They discover that the "o" is shaped like a magnifying glass, and are "detectives" looking for the /o/ sound in words. They listen to "No, David!" and identify the short /o/ sound...

Students compare and contrast a variety of daily newspapers in order to detect bias. They critically analyze the role the media plays in responsibly reporting government activities.

Students identify how they are feeling and deal with feelings constructively. In this conflict resolution lesson, students explore their feelings through discussion. Students read and complete the What Can I Do? e-sheet. Students "think...

Students listen to the story about  a naughty dog who writes to his owner in letter form. In this writing a letter lesson, students pretend to write to a character in the story and practice their literacy skills. Students then...

Students complete a variety of activities related to the short /u/ sound. As a class they recite a tongue twister, then trace and write the letter U. Students then listen to a list of words and identify the words containing the short...

Discuss a Nero Wolfe mystery on brining criminals to justice. Secondary students will read the book A Nero Wolfe Mystery: The Doorbell Rang. They then will watch the movie depicting this story and answer discussion questions. There are...

Fourth graders investigate the style of diary writing as its own genre of literature. They read Harriet The Spy in order to have a text for this literature study. Students use the skill of prediction to preview the story, and then...

Fifth graders identify stereotypes of Indian people based on perceived characteristics. They discuss the misconceptions. Students define quality of information and give an example from the story "Seaman's Journal: On The Trail With Lewis...

Pupils listen to the story Ant Cities by Arthur Dorros, and discuss the ways that ants are similar to people. They create a butcher paper mural of an ant colony that includes hills, tunnels, rooms, grass and sky.

Turn readers into investigative journalists. The 11th and final lesson that accompanies The Twits by Roald Dahl asks the question "What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Twit?" The lesson uses mind maps and group discussion to help answer...

Students view more video clips of Shakespeare's plays. They answer comprehension questions over the video. They are introduced to the language Shakespeare used as well.

For this lesson, students will become word detectives to find spelling patterns in a story, and then sort the words they find according to the patterns. This "word detective" will become a favorite independent activity throughout the...

Students investigate the iconic and much-beloved character of Sherlock Holmes, as well as the mystery genre, in this excerpt from Masterpiece's 2002 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. As students are introduced to Holmes, they use...

Short, illustrated children's detective stories collected by the well-known "Jornal do Comercio," a Brazilian periodical. Read the stories online and see if you can help Inspector Arruda solve the mysteries.