Curated OER
Developing Reading Comprehension
Developing reading comprehension is an ongoing process that begins the moment a child becomes engaged with literature. From learning the skills to navigate a picture book to reading an assigned chapter in a chemistry text, good readers...
Curated OER
Using Pre-reading Strategies: Infer
Use this resource to support your class practicing inference with poetry and visual art. The plan calls for an examination of "The Scream" by Edvard Munch and the "Mona Lisa" to promote speculation about artist's intent. From there, it...
Curated OER
The Sun Also Rises: A Close Look at the Cloze
A passage from Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises offers class members an opportunity to demonstrate their reading comprehension skills.
Curated OER
Unwind: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
To generate interest in reading Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel Unwind, class members engage in a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA) that asks them to examine the front and back covers, the blurbs, and "The...
Brigham Young University
Out of the Dust: KWHL Strategy
A K-W-H-L chart is a great way to scaffold prior knowledge. As class members begin their reading of Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse’s 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel, they chart what they already know about the Great Depression and...
Curated OER
Unwind: Vocabulary Strategy, Creating an Unwind Glossary
Prior to reading Unwind, Neal Shusterman's 2007 young adult science fiction novel, class members research the common definition of words drawn from the novel that will come to have a very different meaning to them as they are drawn into...
Curated OER
The Metamorphosis: Herber Readiness Activity
Delve into Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis before opening the book with a lesson on literary themes. High schoolers engage in a word association activity before reading a list of statements based on the book's themes. Then, in groups,...
Curated OER
Great Expectations: After Reading Strategy
Class members are asked to consider how they would respond to situations faced by characters in Great Expectations. After completing one exercise as guided practice, individuals are presented with a second problematic situation and...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension Strategy: Using Background Knowledge
The value of this presentation is that it not only defines background knowledge but includes exercises that show readers how to activate and use what they already know about a topic to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Montaigne “On Cruelty”: A Close Reading of a Classic Essay
An excerpt from Michel de Montaigne's essay "On Cruelty" provides advanced readers an opportunity to polish their close reading skills. Scholars read the passage twice and then respond to the provided questions.
Curated OER
Strategies Used During Reading
Students try a variety of reading strategies. In this reading strategy lesson, students read a nonfiction passage and put Post -Its to mark the spots where they are using a reading strategy. They focus on inferring, predicting,...
Curated OER
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: Pre-Reading Strategy
Get your class ready to read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard with an anticipation guide. This document describes exactly how to create and implement an anticipation guide.
Curated OER
Name That Sound
Students begin to demonstrate beginning reading strategies. In this technology lesson plan, students match the correct beginning letter and letter sound to a variety of pictures created in a "Kid Pix" template.
Curated OER
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Students demonstrate beginning reading strategies. In this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom lesson plan, students identify upper case letters of the alphabet while relating them to a selection of literature.
Curated OER
An Alphabet Book
Students demonstrate beginning reading strategies. In this letter recognition lesson plan, students produce sounds associated with given letters and identify pictures that begin with given letters using "Kid's Pix Deluxe 3".
Curated OER
The Red Badge Of Courage: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
As part of a Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) class members are asked to predict events in Patricia Polacco's Pink and Say based on illustrations in the story, on their knowledge of Steven Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, and...
Curated OER
Pride and Prejudice: Question Answer Relationship Strategy
Help middle and high school readers access the text with a series of question-answer relationship (QAR) strategies. Using Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as an example, the resource prompts learners to ask and answer questions using...
Novelinks
Zach’s Lie: Magic Squares
Individuals match vocabulary words within a magic square, a concept that ties in nicely with math class. The words are all located in Zach's Lie and were specifically selected to increase comprehension of the text. Fifth in a series of...
Novelinks
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: Question Answer Response Strategy
Readers of Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are introduced to the Question Answer Response Strategy (QAR) as a way to increase their engagement in and comprehension of the novel.
Brigham Young University
HOOT Directed Reading Thinking Activity
It's helpful to encourage kids to make predictions when beginning a reading unit. Before reading Hoot by Carl Hiaasen, have kids read Susan Barlow Broggi's Am I Grown Up When I'm Not Afraid of Spiders in My Shoes? to make predictions...
Curated OER
Out of the Dust: DR-TA
Encourage good reading habits with an activity that asks class members to examine the title and cover of Out of the Dust, and then make predictions about the setting of and events in the tale.
Curated OER
The Grapes of Wrath: KWHL Strategy
Before beginning The Grapes of Wrath, readers create a KWHL chart recording what they already know about the Dust Bowl, the author, and the book, what they want to know, and where they might find answers to these questions. After reading...
Novelinks
The Hobbit: Directed Reading - Thinking Activity
An in-class reading of Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece Meets the Big O introduces class members to the journey motif that forms the basis of The Hobbit.
Noyce Foundation
Apple Farm Field Trip
Monitor the growth of young mathematicians with a comprehensive addition and subtraction assessment. Using the context of a class field trip to an apple orchard, this series of four story problems allows children to demonstrate their...