Curated OER
Build Mastery: Prediction
What do you think will happen? Use a graphic organizer to help learners predict what will happen in a text. Consider modeling the chart using a familiar story, pretending you don't know what happens. Show scholars the book, explaining...
Curated OER
The Breaking of Charity
The danger of mob mentality is on display in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Get your class thinking with some challenging quickwrite questions, then assign characters from the play to be read aloud altogether. Links to worksheets for...
Curated OER
Story of Self
What a great beginning-of-the-year activity! Get your class to identify their values through a three-page worksheet (included). Each speaker will craft a two-minute description that includes their story and how they can help their...
Sean Banville
New Year's Day
Focus on a passage about the new year with your English language learners. You can start with reading the passage aloud to your class, and then launch into the related activities. Pupils match phrases, complete cloze-style activities,...
PBS
Henry David Thoreau: Author, Philosopher, and Abolitionist
What would Henry David Thoreau think of life in 21st-Century America? Pupils investigate the abolitionist using primary and secondary materials. They analyze what Thoreau would think of the changes to American lifestyles since the time...
Curated OER
Tomas and the Library Lady
Students practice read aloud comprehension strategies. In this literacy comprehension lesson plan, students listen to Tomas and the Library Lady, stopping to discuss with a partner aspects of the story suggested by the teacher. Students...
Center for History Education
Women's Rights in the American Century
Today, many young people find it hard to understand why it took over 150 years for women in the United States to get the right to vote—why there was even a need for the suffrage movement. As they read a series of primary source...
Teach With Movies
The Great Gatsby
Are you thinking about incorporating a film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel in a study of The Great Gatsby? Check out a guide loaded with suggestions for how to supplement a reading of the novel with scenes from three film...
Curated OER
Getting to Know You
After going over the five steps of the writing process, pupils fill out "Getting to Know You" worksheets. They trade papers with each other, and have the task of writing a descriptive paragraph about the person whose worksheet they...
Curated OER
Two Greedy Bears
Improving listening comprehension skills is the goal of this language arts instructional activity. Young readers listen to the story Two Greedy Bears, stopping to have discussions with a partner. They predict outcomes and make inferences...
Curated OER
Thinking About Money
Students evaluate various approaches to spending money.For this spending money literacy lesson, students broaden their financial goals by reading "Alexander Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday" and "A Chair for My Mother."Students use a Venn...
Curated OER
Lesson Plans That Boost Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a cyclical process that can be supported with lesson plans that build students' knowledge and cognition.
Clark County School District
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
A thorough lesson plan takes your first grade class through Jane Yolen's beautiful Owl Moon. It crafts the unit with clear objectives, high-level guiding questions, cloze activities and sentence frames, and extension activities at the...
Curated OER
Mouse Mess
Scholars practice rhyming and phonemic awareness using trade books and poetry. They will listen to the book Mouse Mess several times throughout the week, identifying rhyming words, and matching words that begin with the same sound. Then...
Curated OER
Read Aloud: "The Bookshop Dog"
Students listen to the book "The Bookshop Dog" and discuss what happens when there is a change in their lives. They create a class T-chart about changes and feelings, develop a graph related to the story, and define key story vocabulary...
Curated OER
English - "Once Upon a Time" - Storytelling
In this storytelling activity, 4th graders fill in 17 missing words without looking at the story. After the students read the story again aloud in pairs, the students complete a matrix on how well each student reads the story aloud.
Curated OER
We All Need Speed Limits
Students consider fluency and speed of reading. In this speed limits activity, students discuss the importance of speed when reading and how the rate affects comprehension and listening skills. Teacher models think aloud as a strategy.
Polk Bros Foundation
Punctuation Signals
Choose any passage that uses punctuation effectively and analyze it with your class. Learners read the passage out loud once, ignoring the punctuation. Then they read it again, but this time paying attention to all of the punctuation....
Curated OER
Intermediate Critical Reading - Clocks
In these critical reading worksheets, learners read the short story about clocks. Students then answer 3 critical reading questions about the passage.
Curated OER
Charlotte's Web
Fourth graders focus on fluency by reading the book Charlotte's Web. In this reading strategies instructional activity, 4th graders partner read, do guided reading, and independent reading to increase fluency. Students use Venn Diagrams,...
Curated OER
Making Inferences
Students discover how making inferences helps people solve problems. In this inference lesson, students read a story aloud and discuss problems as they occur in the story. Students work in small groups and use events in the text to infer...
Curated OER
Reading and Responding
Fourth graders read and respond to poetry. They identify the author's purpose and connect the literature to their personal experiences. Students critically analyze the poem and write a poem of their own.
Curated OER
Grandma Thinks It's Cake Baking Weather
Second graders listen to a read aloud of Patricia Polacco's book "Thunder Cake" to explain how daily life has changed over the past 150 years.
Curated OER
Hattie and the Fox
Who is Hattie? Youngsters explore animal characteristics by reading poems and stories in class. They read the book Hattie and the Fox about a fictitious fox and his drama with the other farm animals. Then they reread the story over...