Recorded Books
Teacher's Guide: The Pinballs
Dive your class into the novel The Pinballs by Betsy Byars with the support of this reading guide. Including short answer questions, a multiple choice comprehension quiz, and extension activities, a variety of materials are provided for...
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Mapping Out the Story
Discuss the reading comprehension strategy of summarization with your elementary schoolers! They read a chapter from their social studies textbook, Regions Near and Far, and create a map, or word web, for the chapter. They identify...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Dinosaurs Before Dark
Young readers travel back to the time of the dinosaurs in this literature unit based on the story Dinosaurs Before Dark. Intended for use with upper-elementary special education students, this resource provides reading comprehension,...
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Mapping Out A Summary
Students summarize a selected piece of fiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read silently, students read a chapter in the novel they are currently reading. They write a chapter summary using a story map and the process...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Civil War on Sunday
Reading Mary Pope Osborne's Civil War on Sunday? Here's a packet crammed with activities, exercises, reading guides, and project suggestions. A must-have for your curriculum library.
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Summarizing: James and the Giant Peach
Text marking and a T-chart format to distinguish important information from trivia help elementary readers summarize effectively. Encouraging readers to construct a chapter summary from paragraph-level topic sentences is another sound...
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Summarization Mapping
Students observe and demonstrate the strategy of summarizing the main idea. They discuss six rules of summarizing, and observe the teacher summarizing the first chapter of the novel "The Incredible Journey." Students then read chapter...
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Fun with Summarizing
Students practice summarization by creating a story map. After reading Freckle Juice, students working in groups, create a story map of the main events of the story. Groups use their story maps to summarize a chapter of the story and...
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Sum It Up
Students write summaries of books to exemplify comprehension of the stories. They create a story web to outline the important details of the story. In groups, students make story webs for separate chapters for the book. After the webs...
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Reading to Learn: How Do We Sum That Up?
Students explore the topic of summarizing. They read the book, Dolphins at Daybreak, to practice summarizing. They determine what information is important and choose sentences to summarize the passages they read. They write a summary...
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Holes Comprehension Companion
Here is a one-stop planning resource for Louis Sachar's Newbery Award-winning book Holes. You'll find 21 links to worksheets and various activities designed to span the entire book. Learners draw to help analyze settings and make...
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A Web of History -- Summarization
Students listen to a reading selection about explorers in Alabama called "Spanish Explorations and Settlements." They listen for main ideas of the reading selection. As a whole group, the students create a word web using the important...
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It's Time to Sum It Up!!!
Students practice the reading strategy of summarization skills by picking out main events or ideas while reading a chapter in a book. They interact with the article, "SuperCroc," from National Geographic for Kids magazine to summarize...
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Retelling the Main Event in Sequence
Students identify the key events in a fiction book. In this literacy lesson, students read the book Harry and the Lady Next Door and work in pairs to discuss the main events of each chapter to develop a short summary.
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Meaty Words
Headlines from newspapers launch a discussion of image-rich, meaty words. Just as headline writers choose vivid vocabulary to attract readers, young writers develop headlines that capture the essence of a passage from a book they are...
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The Chocolate Touch
Students read a book. In this story elements instructional activity, students share their favorite food, predict what the story will be about and discuss how they would feel if they got to eat their favorite food everyday. Students...
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Plot Development and Conflict
Students explore plot development and how conflicts are resolved. In this plot development and conflict lesson, students discuss antonyms and list the ones they find in their story. Students complete online activities and write a summary...
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Where the Red Fern Grows Vocabulary Slides
Students identify vocabulary words in Where the Red Fern Grows. In this vocabulary lesson, students view an included PowerPoint presentation on vocabulary words from each chapter in the novel. Students identify and use the vocabulary in...
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"Afternoon on the Amazon" by Mary Pope Osborne
Students read and complete activities dealing with the book "Afternoon on the Amazon". They create webs of words used in the book and write about what they have read.
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Summarizing to Understand!
Students review the concept of silent reading. Through modeling and guided practice, they follow six given steps in summarizing a written passage. Then they read a passage independently and follow the same steps in summarizing the...
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Summarizing
Fifth graders write summaries. For this summarizing lesson students decide which events of a chapter in a book are important to summarizing. Students also create a title for the chapter based upon the contents of the chapter. Students...
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Summarizing is Fun with Flat Stanley!
Students read the book "Flat Stanley" by Jeff Brown. Through modeling and guided practice, as a class, they complete a story map and 1-paragraph summary of the first chapter in the book. Then, in groups, they follow the same procedure...
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The Map of Summarization
Students review the concept of silent reading. Through modeling and guided practice, they follow six given steps in summarizing a chapter from "Charlotte's Web." Then they follow the same steps in summarizing the next chapter on their own.
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Missing May
Students listen to the first couple chapters in the book, Missing May by Cynthia Rylant and then sketch or write about a character or the setting, using words and phrases from the book as guides. They then discuss the chapters using the...