Provide readers with an opportunity to practice drawing inferences by giving them this worksheet. Kids identify the text and author, record a sentence they believe infers rather than directly says, and then write the deeper meaning the...

How many times did it take Thomas Edison to invent a successful working lightbulb? Young learners read a short passage about this famous inventor and his determination in getting an idea to work successfully. Then, pupils respond to four...

Ever come across an unfamiliar word while reading and can't decipher its meaning? Use a worksheet and graphic organizer that tracks and helps bring meaning to unknown words as learners read a text. A worksheet and graphic organizer come...

A three-part assessment challenges scholars to write opinion essays covering the topic of the student council. After reading three passages, writers complete a chart, work with peers to complete a mini-research project, answer...

How has the American Bill of Rights influenced the rest of the world? An interactive web activity helps individuals see the similarities between countries' bills of rights. A text-to-text tool compares the American Bill of Rights to...

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...

Building on a previous lesson plan, readers continue using context clues to learn new vocabulary. Additionally, they continue working on their Gathering Evidence graphic organizers, making connections between an informational text and A...

Piece by piece ... Scholars read the text World without Fish by breaking the text into pieces. They identify challenging words and determine the gist of each section as they read. They then work together in triads to answer...

Only fear fear itself. Scholars read Public Fear from The Exterminator. Triads work together to annotate and determine the gist of the text. They then complete a Tracing an Argument graphic organizer to identify arguments, claims,...

How is a map a type of informational text? Class members view a world map of major rainforests, discussing its text features with a partner. Next, they take notes on key details from multiple texts about rainforests and write an...

Get the facts straight. Scholars complete their mid-unit assessment by reading a text, watching a video, and observing a picture about howler monkeys. They take notes about the facts they discover to use in future lessons.

Pictures often reveal different meanings. Scholars analyze the images in Eight Days and discuss how they add meaning to the text. Readers answers questions about how specific colors are used to create different emotions. Learners then...

Young learners listen to a read aloud of Gail Gibbons book, Apples and the story A Red House With No Windows and No Doors. They compare characteristics of a number of kinds of apples, graph them and create a apple print picture. Learners...

Here is a great way to get pupils to express a scientific concept in a fun way. After hearing the story of Walter the Water drop and learning facts about the water cycle, the class will write a creative expository piece describing what...

Bring digital storytelling to your language arts class! To begin, learners select their own topic, such as a poem that reflects a life experience they had or a historical figure who interests them. Then they work to create a storyboard...

Help budding readers learn words like develop and revolting as they listen to you read Mitchell Sharmant's Gregory, the Terrible Eater. Get the new vocabulary rolling before reading it aloud so youngsters can raise a...

After completing the first five chapters of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle By Avi, use direct quotes to make inferences about how Charlotte feels about certain characters. Later, when the novel has concluded, revisit...

Passages from Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart provide the text for a QAR: Question Answer Response comprehension activity. Readers respond to right there, think and search, on your own, and author and you questions.  ...

The best thing about dragonflies is that they make great topics for informational texts. Get those readers excited with a fun and interesting insect-related text passage that can help them increase their comprehension skills. As children...

Did you hear that? It's the main idea! Teach your class listening and note-taking strategies for determining the main idea by following the steps provided in this plan.

Young historians practice in-depth, quality analysis of primary source texts in this three-lesson unit, which examines excerpts from the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Caleb...

Sometimes it's helpful for kids to predict what is coming next when reading a story. Show your learners how to use evidence from the text they are reading to predict what happens next in five short passages.

Can you guess what is going to happen in a story just by looking at the cover? Readers engage in a directed-reading activity in which...

Boost reading comprehension skills with a lesson all about freaky frogs. A poem hooks scholars and takes them into a reading of an informational text followed by peer discussions. A three-page worksheet focuses on text features and...