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Developing Reading Comprehension
Developing reading comprehension is an ongoing process that begins the moment a child becomes engaged with literature. From learning the skills to navigate a picture book to reading an assigned chapter in a chemistry text, good readers...
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Analyzing Two or More Nonfiction Texts
How does recognizing the author's purpose help you draw conclusions about a topic? Using two articles (both are attached), learners brainstorm why each author wrote each article. Are their purposes similar or different? Learners use a...
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Reading Comprehension: Voice of Nature
Understanding a text can be a very interesting task. Fourth graders read a passage describing the origin of an Aboriginal myth. They answer 11 comprehension questions that require them to pull key details, use context, and think...
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Making Inferences about Problem and Solution
Students use unfamiliar objects to make inferences. In this making inferences instructional activity, students make guesses about what an item does. Students brainstorm together and make lists of ideas and write them on index cards. The...
Curriculum Corner
Academic Reading Vocabulary
From A to Z, learners define, draw, and find examples of specific reading focus skills in an alphabetized reading vocabulary packet. Words include dialogue, theme, text structure, genre, paraphrase, and many more.
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Inferences/Opinions
Fourth graders practice making inferences and forming opinions. In this reading strategy lesson, 4th graders listen to the book Woodsong by Gary Pauisen. They make predictions about the story before beginning and discuss the story as...
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Reading Between the Lines: Making Inferences About Idioms
Learners discover idioms. In this inferencing lesson, students identify idioms from passages and infer meanings of unknown idioms using prior knowledge and experience. Learners write sentences using newly learned idioms.
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Sunny or Shady?
Students practice answering questions to aid in creating meaning when reading. Through guided practice, they read a passage from the chapter book "Tuck Everlasting" and answer in-text and inference questions. Independently, they read...
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Comparing Key Ideas and Details in Fiction and Nonfiction
Students recognize the differences between fiction and nonfiction texts. In this genre study lesson, students discuss what nonfiction means and write the definition. Students listen to a read aloud and vote whether the text is fiction or...
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LETTER FROM ONE CHARACTER TO ANOTHER
Fourth graders read stories and pick one with characters they find interesting. Then students create a dialogue of writing a letter from one character to another. The letter must relate to the original story in some way that can easily...
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But We Need More, Where Will It Come From?
Students write a persuasive letter and create a poster about pollution and conservation. For this pollution and conservation lesson plan, students learn how humans are the number 1 cause of pollution.
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Weaving a Story of Cooperation: The Goat in the Rug
Weaving is an important part of Navajo culture. Read The Goat in the Rug to your fourth and fifth graders, and give them a glimpse into the process of rug making from the point of view of a goat! They will learn new vocabulary words and...
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Idioms
Use this podcast instructional activity to familiarize scholars with the characteristics, history, and cultural implications of idioms. As part of the Walking Classroom curriculum, kids listen to a 12-minute podcast as they walk around...
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Introducing Literacy Elements in Nonfiction
Explore nonfiction writing with your class. They will identify elements in nonfiction by reviewing elements of fiction. Then they use biographies, memoirs, menus, Time for Kids, and text books to identify elements of nonfiction. They...
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The Star-Spangled Banner
Get your kids moving as they learn about the history of the United States National Anthem. Scholars examine the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key, and the meaning behind The Star Spangled Banner as they listen to an 18-minute...
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Scrapbook of Evidence
Students read three different genres of fiction. They create a story map and brainstorm possible collage inclusions. Each student prepares a minimum of two scrapbook page entries for each text or passage. Students write beside each...
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Summarizing Key Information
Imagine the surprise when small groups present their Evidence Charts to the class and discover that each group has studied a different version of the Cinderella story. Irish, Ojibwa, Egyptian, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Mexican, and...
Curriculum Corner
ELA Common Core Checklists for K-6
In the hustle and bustle of life in the classroom, it's easy for teachers to lose track of the standards they have taught, and those that still need to be addressed. This Common Core checklist provides educators with an easy-to-use...
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Teaching and Learning Through Objects
Students identify and interpret the function, usefulness or utitlity, form, beauty or aesthetics, and meaning, context or story, of objects and how they learn new skills and make things that they learn traditionally, by observation and...
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Come On, You Can Trust Me
Fourth graders see how to define and then recognize a variety of propaganda techniques at work in their everyday world. Choosing one technique, they creatively demonstrate a thorough understanding from real world experiences. A very rich...
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Analyzing Literary Elements in Literary Nonfiction
Fourth graders identify the literary elements of a nonfiction text. For this literary elements lesson, 4th graders read the text Piano Starts Here--The Young Art Tatum and fill in a chart that includes the events from the book....
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Get in Order
Students practice putting events from a written passage in chronological order, both in groups and individually.
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To Question Or Not To Question?
Fourth graders practice questioning to aid in creating meaning when reading. Through guided practice, they read a passage from a chapter book and answer in-text and inference questions. Independently, they read another chapter from the...
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A Different View
Readers need to understand how their personal view point may differ or change how they see the view point found in a written text. Third graders read two informational pieces and fill out a graphic organizer to help them differentiate...