Student Achievement Partners
"The Glorious Whitewasher" from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain with Mini-Assessment
It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text as...
Curated OER
Alphabet Poems
Develop fluency with a variety of works. Help kindergartners use multiple strategies to understand text and decoding. They will create an alphabet poem book on Kid Works 2 to illustrate and write their own poem. In the end, they will...
Curated OER
Using the Sounds of Words Reading Task
Young readers demonstrate phonemic awareness in words and blends, and recognize 100 high-frequency words. Use a nursery rhyme to point out rhyming words, and change the words by putting a new letter at the beginning. Each learner will...
Curated OER
Kindergarten/First Grade Phonics
Get involved with phonics by recognizing one particular letter. Learners name a letter, know it by sound, decode basic CVC words and use the letter in writing. A variety of options are given to the your learners: making a letter collage,...
Curated OER
Political Cartoons: Literacy
Readers decode and deconstruct political cartoons to heighten critical thinking, extra-textual literacy, and making meaning from symbolism and metaphor. A compatible activity to use in English class when your 8th or 11th graders are...
Ohio Department of Education
Word Origins
Understanding a word's etymology can really help with decoding and building vocabulary skills. Readers compare and contrast words of similar origins but with different difficulty levels. They focus on prefixes, suffixes, and affixes....
Curated OER
Vocabulary through Text
Explore word meanings. Sixth graders identify examples of words with affixes while listening to the story Paul Bunyan by Steven Kellogg. They participate in the game "Pass the Parts" and practice separating given words into their root...
Curated OER
Affix This
Wait, what am I supposed to affix? Explore the concept of roots/affixes with your class. They use discussion questions to discover the meaning and usage of specific roots and affixes. They watch a video explaining Latin and Greek roots...
Curated OER
Riddles
Riddles can be a fun way to practice word decoding. Scholars read two riddles to determine the word each is referencing. These riddles are based on word analysis to build letters one at a time rather than big-picture idea concepts....
Curated OER
Decode and Write Words with More Than One Syllable
Practice sounding out multi-syllable words with this scaffolded lesson. Learners decode words by segmenting them into phonemes and combining the sounds. Your lines are in bold here, but you can easily use this simply as an outline...
Curated OER
Muddles Doubles!
These compound words are all mixed up! Learners examine eight words that need to be reorganized, writing the correct words on this instructional activity. Next, they think up some compound words of their own. Finally, learners complete...
Curated OER
Word Review Card Activity
Pupils play a card game where they match the meaning of the word to the word or its prefix/suffix. They listen for the teacher to call out the definition and, with two players facing off, the first one to slap the correct card wins! Kids...
Curated OER
Lesson One: Decoding Strategies
Review decoding strategies to read a chosen text. Readers tape themselves reading out loud, listen to the recording, and mark where they have misread words or phrases. They then discuss which words were misread and review how to correct...
Curated OER
Take the Prefix Challenge
Students form words using prefixes. In this prefix lesson, students compete in a "prefix challenge" to see which team can combine a set of twelve prefixes with a set of twelve words fastest. Students enter their words in a word log and...
Curated OER
Binary and Communication Systems
Learners participate in an activity that introduces them to the concept of binary coding as a language. They decode messages using special boards that has its own code for different letters. They create new codes by rearranging wires...
Curated OER
Decoding Strategies
Young readers apply decoding strategies to identify unknown words. In this reading lesson plan, they read the Preamble and practice using decoding strategies. Small groups rotate to five charts that have questions regarding the...
Curated OER
Applying Decoding, Vocabulary, and During Reading Strategies
Apply reading strategies to boost phonemic awareness. While reading a provided informational text, learners use decoding, vocabulary, and a graphic organizer to strengthen their overall reading ability. Handouts and the reading passage...
Curated OER
Telephone Numbers
In this three-digit identification worksheet, learners determine who has each of the telephone numbers listed using the key shown. They also use a standard telephone keypad to decode the phone numbers with the correct letters in the name.
Free Reading
Free Reading: Guess What I'm Thinking?: Initial Sound Accuracy
A version of the "20 Questions" game. The instructor tells the class he is thinking of something that starts with, for example, /b/. The students have to come up with what the teacher is thinking of.
PBS
Pbs Nova: Send a Coded Message Virtual Enigma
Explore the NOVA's Virtual Enigma machine used during WWII. You can send an encrypted message to a friend along with the special key needed to decipher the message. A link is also included to the Virtual Enigma.
PBS
Pbs Nova: Decipher a Coded Message
The basic difference between a code and cipher is explained briefly. You can try to crack a simple cipher at this location.
BBC
Bbc Mundo: Decodificando a La Humanidad Del Adn
Learn about DNA and decoding the human genome by clicking graphical DNA models. You can also review a timeline that shows important moments in human genetics research. In Spanish.
Auburn University
Auburn University: The Letterbox Lesson
What is the rationale behind the "Letterbox Lesson?" This site reveals how students must understand the phoneme sequence in words in order to decode them. Come and learn more.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Numb3 Rs: Coded Messages
Based off of the hit television show NUMB3RS, this lesson uses matrices (inverse and multiplication) to decode messages hidden within digital pictures -- a process known as steganography. This method of hidden communication is known to...