Foster critical thinking skills by using the DR-TA Strategy with Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Class members read portions of the essay, stop and discuss what is happening, make predictions based on evidence from the text, and...

Start your unit by reading the "Ballade des Pendus," by the character Villon. The class makes predictions, discusses what they might already know about the text, and reads the selection together. There are step-by-step plans detailed...

If you'd always wanted an expensive swimming pool, how would you make the money to build it? Kids read a short passage about a quest to create a dream swimming pool, and use a list of words to fill in eight spaces throughout the...

Accompany a reading of First Come the Zebra written and illustrated by Lynne Barasch with a teacher's guide equipped with before reading, vocabulary, and after reading activities. Additional social studies,...

Read about the ways that different cultures set up homes with a set of reading activities. Learners read short paragraphs that cover one or more different ideas, and answer four questions about what they have read, including whether or...

Perfect for springtime, Christmas, or any other unit in which elves play in the garden, a cloze activity is a great addition to your language arts curriculum. As kids read the story, they fill in the blanks with words from the word bank.

What do you think of when you hear the word adult? Or friend? Learners brainstorm with a group of peers to list the words they think of when they hear seven words from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.

Only one thing can compare to the whimsy of Dr. Seuss: a child's imagination. Pair the bouncing narrative of a Dr. Seuss book with your learner's illustrations in a fun reading activity. As you read a selected passage, your class draws...

While the Black Death wiped out a third of Europe's population during the Middle Ages, its destruction paved the way for better wages for workers and even an early form of modern capitalism. The relationship between the cataclysmic...

Primary readers read books in order to practice word recognition, rhyming, and play reading games. They will "read" simple books to reinforce basic reading skills in order to create a foundation. Readers are available to print out along...

Show your class how to read a map and decipher all of the markings and features. Start out by connecting maps to their homework from the night before and their current reading, in this case That Book Woman, and a related informational...

Add a great resource to your collection of The Grapes of Wrath curriculum materials. A thorough packet contains loads of useful suggestions, whether you use the novel as an anchor text, as a reading circle...

Literature circles give learners a chance to explore a novel in a unique way. An educator's guide for the book Savvy uses literature circles as part of the novel study. Additional activities cover elements of figurative language and...

An online interactive activity asks learners to analyze a group of documents related to the women's suffrage movement and then place the documents on a timeline. The results assess users understanding of the progression of the women's...

Here is a reading strategies lesson in which learners use post it notes to create a bulletin board. They post their new questions on the bulletin board and look back at questions they have already learned the answer to. A great idea,...

How can teachers ensure their pupils are well prepared for the AP® English exam? The reference material is a good place to start! Educators read seven essays detailing best practices for teaching scholars to read critically and write...

Practice making inferences about fiction with a language arts slide show presentation. After kids read a few tips about ways to predict the next event in a story, they read several passages and try to find out what will happen next based...

Determine what young pupils already know about earth science with a brainstorming activity. After class members work together to complete a KWL chart about the Earth, they craft an acrostic poem to demonstrate their understanding.

Active listening is all about thinking, asking questions, and making connections. That's the take-away from a lesson about active listening. Participants learn techniques for identifying important information, including how to ask...

An interactive resource teaches readers how to annotate all kinds of texts. After reading an introduction that stresses the benefits of text annotations, users examine several models and then demonstrate what they have learned by...

Here's a list-group-label vocabulary activity for The Catcher in the Rye that will knock readers out, it really will! Groups sort, label, and define a list of words taken from Salinger’s novel. Complete directions for the activity, the...

Sometimes the most important details of an informational text aren't within the text at all. Teach your class how to read timeline with a set of activities that prompts them to find specific dates and events on the timelines, as well as...

Monsters have feelings, too! Scholars explore a variety of emotions with a festive, Halloween flair with two dice-rolling activities. The first activity prompts learners to draw and write about a monster feeling a specific emotion. The...

Reading literature is one of the best ways for kids to build a strong vocabulary while honing in on their comprehension skills. These vocabulary activities go along with the wonderful book, James and the Giant Peach. The children will...