Curated OER
Ag In The Outfield
Young scholars explore baseball. This is a cross-curricular plan that includes math, history, and agriculture. Pupils use their five senses to observe the materials a baseball is made from and identify the agricultural products used. In...
Curated OER
Wheat: From Field to Oven
How does wheat go from the seed to the table? While focusing on main ideas and supporting statements, class members read an excerpt about wheat production and complete a worksheet. The end goal is a display that shows the different...
Curated OER
Mighty Earth Movers
Note that although the publisher lists almost all of the Common Core standards for both math and language arts, you will most likely want to take the general topic and choose which area to focus on. Regarding math, pupils measure worms...
Curated OER
Just Lookin' For a Home
What is a boll weevil? Your class can find out that and more by following the activities included here. Pupils read an article, sing a boll weevil song, add to the song with their own original lyrics, illustrate the song, study the...
Curated OER
Back to the Farm
Read up on farming and ranching and connect this information to your learners' lives. After reading, send class members home to fill out a family tree and trace their family history, focusing on farming and ranching backgrounds. Once...
University of South Florida
Fcat Express: Teaching Strategies (Reading) [Pdf]
Printable, fifty-five page PDF file of a staff development manual containing strategies for teaching reading. Includes chapters on vocabulary, main ideas and supporting details, author's purpose, chronological order, plot and conflict...
University of South Florida
Fcat Express: Semantic Feature Analysis
Site provides extensive assistance in preparing 4th grade students for Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. This section on semantic features helps students recognize supporting details as they read.
University of South Florida
Fcat Express: Selective Underlining
Site provides extensive assistance in preparing 4th grade students for Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. This section focuses on identifying main ideas and significant details by selectively underlining them in a text.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Writing With Scientists
After students investigate a topic through research, hypothesizing, observing, and experimentating, teachers can use this instructional activity to help their students prepare short science reports and publish them online. The Writing...
University of Houston
University of Houston: Extra! Extra! What's the Big Idea?!
Get the feel of running a newspaper by selecting articles and pictures. If you are interested in checking out real newspapers, there is a clickable list of online newspapers for younger readers.
University of South Florida
Fcat Express: Main Idea With Supporting Details
Strategies to help students recognize main ideas and supporting details provided by a standardized test preparation site intended for fourth grade. Includes strategies such as Main Idea Pyramids, Number Notes, QAR (Question/Answer...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pingus Penguins: Writing Good Instructions
Students use the free computer game Pingus to learn how engineers, specifically environmental engineers, use their technical writing skills to give instructions and follow the instructions of others. Students learn to write instructions...
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: Lessons From Fishing
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a fiction text about a boy named Morgan who loved to fish and answer questions about comprehension, comparing details, supporting details, main idea, vocabulary, and more. Links to a...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Determining Importance & Summarizing Informational Text
These teacher resources focuses on why it is important to teach elementary students to determine the importance and to summarize informational text. It leads an activity to help teachers experience when and how we use these strategies.
Read Works
Read Works: Lesson 2: First and Last Sentences (Passage)
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students comprehension will be reinforced as they reading first and last sentences of paragraphs. Direct teaching, guided practice, and independent worksheets are available for this third grade lesson.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Visual Representations in Informational Text
Students will look at examples of illustrations and diagrams in informational texts and discuss how each one helps enhance the text. Students gain the knowledge that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words because a complex idea...
Other
Smekens Educational Solutions: Expose K 2 Readers to Annotation Strategies
This article discusses how to begin teaching students in K-2 to record their ideas about text using highlighters, colored pens, large graphic organizers, and sticky notes. Students can retell a story with a storyboard, use a web to find...
Other
Educator Voices: Grade 3 Research Skills Unit
Describes the process teachers went through to create a lesson unit where students first brainstormed what it means to do research, then were tasked with choosing a topic, researching it, and presenting on it several days later. The...
Michigan State University
Michigan State University: Intervention for Reading: Summarization Strategy
Improve understanding of expository materials by summarizing the main ideas. The summarization strategy helps students recall the main ideas and specific facts of materials they read. There are five rules for writing summaries.
Beacon Learning Center
Beacon Learning Center: Web Lesson: Did I Read It: Implicit vs Explicit Details
Follow Carson through a lesson in order to become a better reader of informational text. Learn the difference between implicit and explicit information. Includes multiple interactive assessments and reading activities.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: American Explorers [Pdf]
"American Explorers" is a one page, non-fiction, reading passage about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They traveled from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean with the help of Native Americans and made maps along the way. It is followed by...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Block Clubs [Pdf]
"Block Clubs" is a one page, non-fiction, reading passage about block clubs, which are groups of neighbors who work together to make rules and solve problems in their neighborhoods. It is followed by constructed-response questions which...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Chicago Changes [Pdf]
"Chicago Changes" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about how Chicago changed from a small town to a large city. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: determining...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Chicago's First Leader [Pdf]
"Chicago's First Leader" is a one page, biographical passage about Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the first non-native American to settle in Chicago. He started a trading post around which the city grew. It is followed by an open-ended...