Curated OER
Caesar Ciphers: An Introduction to Cryptography
Students encode and decode messages using a Caesar Cipher. In this encoding and decoding messages using a Caesar Cipher lesson, students discuss cryptography and how it is used. Students make a Caesar wheel to encode and decode...
New Class Museum
Lesson: Emory Douglas: Decoding Images and Vocabulary Activity
To better understand the work of Black Panther logo artist Emory Douglas, learners define literary devices. They define a series of words such as metaphor, simile, and assonance, then place an example of that device found in Emory...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Segmenting, Say and Slide Phonemes
Develop phonological awareness using this partner activity, where scholars segment words into phonemes. Using Elkonin Box picture cards, pairs practice orally segmenting sounds and physically representing the phonemes using counters....
Curated OER
Onset-Rime Segmenting Accuracy
Use a puppet (in this case named Mico) to make onset and rime more fun. Mico presents 12 picture cards to kindergartners, all depicting single-syllable words. He pronounces them with segmenting onset and rime, encouraging kids to say the...
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
Word-Form Recognition Accuracy
What word is it? Build fluency with sight words using this sounding out strategy which enforces silent reading techniques. There are more than enough words included here on index card templates, but you can use this idea with any set...
Curated OER
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....
Reading Resource
Take Me Out to the Ballgame Card Game
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack! Inspire some competition between your learners with a baseball-themed reading game. Players take turns reading as many words as they can, and once they reach a card they can't read, they tally up...
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...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Person to Person: Extra Support Lessons (Theme 4)
Authors use many strategies when writing stories. A series of extra support lessons breaks down those strategies, as well as key grammatical and phonics-based concepts to support struggling learners. The last of three lessons offers...
Curated OER
Compound Words - Individual Activities
In these compound word worksheets, students engage in numerous activities to reinforce what they have learned about compound words. Nine worksheet provide various means of reinforcing the concept including word puzzles and...
Curated OER
Consonant Blends
While this presentation is just a series of slides with a consonant blend, it could be a useful resource. Teachers could use these slides to have learners come up with words that contain these consonant blends. They could do it as part...
ReadWriteThink
Decoding the Dystopian Characteristics of Macintosh’s “1984” Commercial
Known as one of the most iconic advertisements of the 20th century, Macintosh's "1984" commercial has become more of a social statement. Present the ad to a new audience of viewers with a lesson focused on identifying dystopian...
Curated OER
Phonemic Awareness and Sounding Out Words
Although designed for children with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, the multi-sensory tips and tricks included in this illustrated eight-page packet are designed to develop phonemic awareness and are appropriate for any classroom.
Book Units Teacher
Skill Lessons – Prefixes and Suffixes
Sometimes the best way to understand a concept is to break it down. Young vocabulary pupils work with word parts in a hands-on activity that prompts them to connect flash cards with affixes to their root and base words. Additionally,...
Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin
Lesson 17 - Adding Suffixes That Change Base Words' Finally to I
If it ends in a y, change the y to i when adding a suffix like -ness, -ly, or fy. The final lesson in the Word Recognition and Fluency series of 17 explains when to change the final letter in a base word to i before adding a suffix....
Shodor Education Foundation
Caesar Cipher
Caesar ciphers hide secret missives. A simple interactive lets users encode and decode hidden messages. The cipher method here is the Caesar shift.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Give It All You’ve Got!: Extra Support Lessons (Theme 2)
Understanding word parts can play a crucial role in understanding a word in the context of a larger text. A series of extra support resources designed to accompany Theme 2: Give It All You've Got offers activities related to grammar and...
Curated OER
Silent W
Spelling can be hard enough without silent letters. Help your third graders decode nine words that have the silent letter W, such as wrinkle or wrong. Once they decipher all nine words, they use each in a new sentence. The bottom of the...
Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin
Lesson 9 - Contractions
Is it do'nt or don't? How about doesn't or does'nt? A instructional activity on contractions helps learners identify, form, and use contractions. Components within the plan include direct instruction on decoding and encoding...
Reed Novel Studies
Skink No Surrender: Novel Study
The oldest turtle ever recorded lived to the age of 188! As it turns out, two characters from Carl Hiaasen's Skink No Surrender are fascinated by these shelled creatures. Using the novel study, scholars research three types of turtles...
Florida Department of Education
Phonemic Awareness
Build your library of strategies and activities for teaching phonemic awareness with the ideas provided in this resource. Described here are five different activities to try out with your class.
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...
University of Pennsylvania
The Reading Road
Practice r-controlled vowel sounds and words with a series of phonics activities. Ranging from straightforward instruction sheets to a fun rhyming story about video games, the exercises will interest all of your learners, regardless of...