Are you a friggatriskaidekaphobic? An excerpt from an article about the fear of Friday the 13th is used as the basis of a reading comprehension exercise. The five questions require readers to employ several strategies (drawing...

The strategies associated with Reciprocal Reading are outlined in this language arts presentation. Pupils discover what it means to be the questioner, the summarizer, the predictor, and the clarifier. All four strategies lead to...

Here’s a reading comprehension assessment that will capture the interest of your learners. Stink bugs and the danger they pose to farmers is the subject of the passage, while the eight questions ask readers to infer, predict, summarize...

Explore storyboards with your pre-reader using the familiar story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." They look at pictures as you read the captions in a comic book style. At the end, they try to finish the story based on a resolution...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and...

W.W. Jacobs' story "The Monkey's Paw" provides plenty of foreshadowing which readers use to make predictions in this tightly composed, sound instructional plan. Your class reads the story, recording predictions and checking for veracity...

Practice sequencing with your 2nd graders via Patricia Polacco's Civil War book Pink and Say. Begin with a blindfold and a bag of mystery items. Connect their use of clues to identify what they can't see with the skill of making...

Read this twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Dusty Locks and the Three Bears by Susan Lowell. Kindergartners listen, predict, and discuss the story. They then participate in a dramatization of the story and draw a picture...

Explore the text, Cold and Hot, with comprehension strategies for young readers. First, give them a purpose for reading: find out what the boy wore outside in the snow! Then have them use one-to-one matching and picture clues to...

Class discussions can really make concepts come to life. The class discusses the differences between compare and contrast, read a book, then talk about ways they can compare events or characters in the story. Good leading question are...

Why is an atlas called an atlas? Because it is named for the Greek Titan, Atlas, of course. Young readers learn all about Atlas and atlases in a short passage used as the basis of a reading comprehension exercise. After responding to...

Although designed as an assessment, consider using this resource as the basis for a lesson on reading comprehension strategies or as a practice exercise. The five multiple choice questions, based on a short passage about stock market...

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...

Much more than a simple reading assessment, this resource can form the basis of a review of comprehension strategies, as a worksheet that models for readers how to employ strategies to answer questions based on passages, or as a practice...

Here is a fabulous set of teacher's notes that will make your next hands-on gravity and force lab fun and interesting. These notes provide you with three activities that allow children to make and test hypothesis regarding force,...

What a fantastic idea! Give these bookmarks to your readers to help them conquer pages 206-222 of Gus and Grandpa and the Two Wheeled Bike. They make inferences, conduct close reads, search for cause and effects, and focus...

Before reading chapter three in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, provide your class with this prereading activity. Readers study nine questions to determine how the events of chapters one and two will affect chapter three. Get your kids...

Fourth graders work individually or in a small group to (1) read a fictional passage, (2) practice test-taking strategies, and (3) practice using context clues to increase their vocabulary. Reading passage and comprehension questions...

What will happen in Hatchet by Gary Paulsen? Kids read a series of possible events that will occur in the novel and mark whether they agree or disagree with the probability of each event happening.

Guide your pupils through The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with a directed reading exercise. The teacher asks questions as the class reads a chapter to help lead learners toward making well-supported predictions.

Practice making informed predictions. Have your class create a paper fortune-teller and ask questions about the future. They compare the fortune-telling process to the more informed kind of predictions they make while reading. They...

Walk your pupils through the beginning of My Antonia by Willa Cather with a read-aloud-style activity. The goal is to make predictions and back them up with textual evidence.

Craft your own fairy tale based on Momotaro, a Japanese story referenced in Kyoko Mori's Shuzuko's Daughter. A list of nouns guide learners in writing their own story, and predicting what might happen in the novel.

We chew with our teeth every day, but how much do we really know about them? Allow Ms. Frizzle to teach your kids a thing or two about teeth. Kids complete a prereading exercise, read the book, and respond to several prompts about the...