The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Is the nature of humans inherently good or evil? That is the question scholars consider in the fourth lesson of the Lord of the Flies unit. In a Four Corners activity, they examine statements about human nature and stand by the poster...

Connecting to literature and learning how to infer are two great reading strategies everyone needs to know. Here, the class will read along with the story The Miracle of the First Poinsettia, review folktales as a genre, and make...

Spruce up a class reading of the children's book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback with this fun series of activities. Starting with a list of reading comprehension questions and key vocabulary to address during a teacher...

Dive your class into the novel The Pinballs by Betsy Byars with the support of this reading guide. Including short answer questions, a multiple choice comprehension quiz, and extension activities, a variety of materials are...

Using either online worksheets or print outs, 12th graders practice expository text comprehension skills by answering multiple choice questions, completing a vocabulary matching activity, and completing a crossword puzzle. This is...

If you give teachers a few good ideas, they can really bring a story to life. Included in this resource are dozens of activities to use as your class reads books in the If You Give... series. From holding puppet shows and creating...

Throughout history, the growth of big cities has resulted in the destruction of ecosystems. In the case of Chicago, IL, a grassland that was once home to bison, deer, wolves, and foxes quickly became a booming city of over three million...

After completing Chapter 5 of Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, readers make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections to Victor Martinez's novel by crafting journal entries addressing comments and questions to characters in...

Sometimes it's hard to relate to a new text. Teach kids to use their prior knowledge when reading something new with a comprehension exercise. A short passage tells them how to think of their brains like filing systems, and provides five...

Do you like music? Have your youngsters read We Play Music, practicing select reading strategies, like using picture clues to determine new words. Then, after their first independent read, have them re-read the story to a...

Follow-up a physical science lesson with a reading passage that connects sports to force. Readers respond to six short answer questions that requires them to use the text as a basis for the answers.

Examine stories with a moral in a character development instructional activity. The class reads a short story written by Benjamin Franklin in which he pays too much for a toy whistle. Individuals then make text-to-self connections and...

"Eh?" That is the short vowel sound the letter e makes when it is used in the middle of a word. Little ones will draw a line between the letter e and objects that make the short e sound. Then they will fill in the missing e in six...

If forced to move and give away almost everything you own, what five non-essential things would you take with you?  Prior to reading about Mrs. Bentley in chapter 15 of Dandelion Wine, individuals are asked to respond to this...

Get deep! Teach scholars how to make connections between texts to deepen their understanding of a topic. Using the resource, pupils read and annotate a short informational text about Sudan's Civil War and refugee crisis. Next, they...

While reading the book Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, the class ties together the core reading objectives, which are making predictions, comprehending new information, reading for author's purpose, independence in reading,...

Discover the science behind astronomy. After reading the book Maria's Comet, which is about a young woman who breaks new ground by becoming a female astronomer, young learners practice reading comprehension with...

Sure to spark lively discussion in any Language Arts classroom, this article from The York Times asks the question, 'How much self-control do you have?'. Pupils begin by reading a short passage about a study on delayed gratification and...

These questions ask learners to think about the text "Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" in a variety of ways. In addition to practicing reading comprehension, class members work on interpreting, making inferences and connections,...

Practice with uppercase and lowercase letters using this matching worksheet. There are several letters here and scholars match the ones that make the same sound. The trick is that the matching pairs are between capitals and lowercase...

Bring nonfiction into the classroom with this high-interest op-ed piece from the New York Times about love, marriage, and relationships in the 21st century. Pupils read a short article on the topic of cohabitation and offer their own...

Challenge your young readers with a passage about physical science. After reading about sound waves and electric currents, kids answer five reading comprehension questions about what they have read.

As a before reading strategy, class members select a tale from mythology, examine several picture book versions of the myth, and fill out part of a Venn diagram with observations about the hero in particular and the myth in...