Curated OER
Lively Read of the Tale of Despereaux
Students create a character map of the main characters in The Tale of Despereaux. After reading the text, students create a character chart based on information they gleaned from the story. They use this information to write a letter...
Curated OER
Reading and Writing About the Solar System
Utilizing the classic Magic School Bus series, young scientists explore the solar system. Some excellent worksheets are included in this plan, such as Planet Roll Call and Solar System in Motion. This is an ambitious 5-day unit that...
Curated OER
Opening a Special Ed Class
This is not just a lesson plan, it's a life saver! Here are 10 separate documents intended to assist a new Special Ed teacher. There are 4 different games, instructional tips, ways to handle documentation, behavioral modification...
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
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
Reading to Elementary Children
Students participate in a cross-age reading program. In this language arts lesson, students choose a class of younger children and read them the book The Legend of the Bluebonnet. Students reflect upon their service project in a journal.
Curated OER
Go Ahead--Say What You Feel!
Young scholars observe and demonstrate a variety of strategies for reading with expression. They listen to the teacher read sentences with and without expression and discuss the type of punctuation that is needed. Students then listen...
Curated OER
Introduce: Comprehension Strategy: Comprehension Monitoring
Help readers develop awareness of comprehension issues and employ tools for better understanding. The best way to begin this strategy is to model it through a think aloud. Choose a book scholars will also be reading, preferably one they...
Achieve The Core
Linda R. Monk, Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution - Grade 8
“We the people . . .” Thus begins the Preamble to the Constitution. Using a close reading approach, class members examine an excerpt from Linda Monk’s article that traces how the interpretation of these words has evolved. Some of your...
Curated OER
1984 by George Orwell
Readers of Nineteen Eighty-Four engage in a close reading exercise that directs their focus to the key details Orwell provides in the opening paragraphs to introduce his dystopian society. The included worksheeet is divided into three...
Washoe County School District
Three Skeleton Key
Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...
Curated OER
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: DR-TA Strategy
Making predictions is an excellent reading strategy. Work on building this into your pupils' toolkit of strategies by trying out the process outlined here for reading the very beginning of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The...
Curated OER
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
"The Gettysburg Address" is the basis of a series of activities that not only model for learners how to conduct a close reading of a text, but also how a close reading can help them comprehend a difficult text. The detailed, step-by-step...
Curated OER
Pretending with Prefixes
The book Fortunately provides an excellent opportunity to discuss prefixes and suffixes as they appear in context. The class goes over a list of prefixes and suffixes with the teacher. They then write two sentences; the first including a...
Curated OER
Hatchet: Before Strategy- Problematic Situation
If you were stranded on a desert island, what items would be the most important to have with you? Decide whether you'd want a five gallon can of water, a radio, shark repellent, or any other item with an activity designed to prepare kids...
EngageNY
Inferring Author’s Opinions and Writing Opinion Statements: Journalists’ Opinions about Segregation Post–World War II (Promises to Keep, Pages 22–25)
Let's play ball! Scholars summarize information from Promises to Keep about segregation in professional baseball after World War II. They then listen as the teacher reads pages 22-25 aloud. Pupils write the gist in their journals of the...
Curated OER
A Poetic Place
Here is a nice way to introduce your young learners to poetry and writing their own poems. Children create their own poems about their favorite quiet-time places. After listening to some poems read aloud by the teacher, each child gets...
EngageNY
Analyzing a Model Essay: “Challenges Facing a Lost Boy of Sudan”
Copy that! Writers carefully analyze a model essay to gain a better understanding of their upcoming essays about A Long Walk to Water. They begin by circling unfamiliar words in the model as teachers read it aloud. They then pinpoint...
Curated OER
My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D.C.
Although this legislative process lesson is designed to accompany a specific text, it is valuable independently. Young learners participate in a picture walk (worksheet included) through My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington,...
Curated OER
Making Predictions:
Pupils of all ages practice making predictions about what will happen next in a fairy tale as the teacher reads it aloud. They demonstrate how to support their predictions with information and facts from the story.
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast: Literary Analysis
Great for a reading intervention or remedial Language Arts class, this instructional activity uses two stories from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III ("Terri Jackson" and "Mary Lou" to reinforce note-taking skills, story elements,...
Curated OER
Jubal's Wish
Students discuss the story "Jubal's Wish." In this literature lesson, students take turns making predictions about what will happen next in the story and state their own wish by taking turns as well.
Curated OER
Read It, Picture It! Reading to Learn
Students examine the reading comprehension strategy of visualization. They practice visualization by making pictures in their mind. They draw the pictures from their visualizations with explanations.
Curated OER
Meta-Cognitive Reading
Students define the term "meta-cognitive" and explain its significance to reading strategy. They speak aloud the thoughts that pass through their minds as they are reading and write down thoughts that come to their minds while reading.