Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
Ascd: Building Literacy in Social Studies: Ch 1: Reading Social Studies Texts
Article provides excellent tips and strategies for building comprehension and critical thinking skills in Social Studies. It describes some of the challenges students have with reading and understanding their textbooks.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans - sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Listen, Look, and Learn: An Information Gathering Process
This lesson models an information-gathering process for primary learners as they listen to and look at resources, seeking information pertinent to the questions on an information wheel. Guiding the listening, looking, and learning...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Assessing Theme
This is an introductory lesson on the concept of theme. Students choose two words that sum up the theme of the novel "So B. It" by Sarah Weeks. They then analyze a passage to find evidence of their choices and create a theme map. They...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Multiple Texts: Multiple Opportunities for Teaching and Learning
Engaging all students in a themed study or unit is a challenge that teachers can resolve by using materials that match students' independent or instructional reading levels (Robb 1994, 2000). When students face textbooks that are above...
Digital History
Digital History: The Revolutionary War
An overview of the military encounters in the Revolutionary War. Read about the lows and highs of the Continental Army, and the eventual defeat of the British.
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Personal Stories and Primary Sources
Students will explore the value of personal stories and first-hand accounts when exploring history, in this case, the events of the early twentieth century, which included World War I and the Great Depression. Through this five-unit...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: The Components of Effective Vocabulary Instruction
Effective vocabulary instruction begins with diverse opportunities for word learning: wide reading, high-quality oral language, word consciousness, explicit instruction of specific words, and independent word-learning strategies. This...