Newspaper Association of America
A Good Read
Teach your readers strategies for breaking down informational texts. Pupils develop and implement the tools they'll need to decode texts for the rest of their lives with an informational resource that focuses on the structure and...
Odell Education
Reading Closely For Textual Details: Grade 8
Only a thorough understanding of history can save us from repeating it. Practice close reading skills with an eighth grade unit that focuses on 19th century America, including European immigration into Ellis Island and Frederick...
Curated OER
Reading Non-Fiction: Sentence Structure
Use this worksheet to help make explicit the connection between sentence structure, audience, and author's purpose. Readers track and find patterns in sentence structure in various nonfiction texts, and connect it to the purpose of the...
Curated OER
The Lightning Thief: During Reading Strategy
After reading up to page 371 of Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, get insight into how Percy felt making a major decision through active discussion strategies that enable both academic and thoughtful...
Curated OER
ReQuest Strategy: Reciprocal Questioning
Explore reciprocal questioning with this ReQuest comprehension strategy. After reading a passage, learners first question the teacher, trying to "stump" her. Then it is the teacher's turn to ask the pupils questions. All correct answers...
National Math + Science Initative
Reading an Informational Text: "It All Started with Sputnik"
Sputnik was one of the greatest scientific advancements of the 1950s, and this reading lesson does it justice. Pupils start off with pre-reading questions and a video. They then read an excerpt from an article, which is accompanied by...
Brigham Young University
Silent Discussion: After Reading Strategy for Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Complete this after-reading activity for the novel Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy in order to explore the books themes of societal prejudice, peer pressure, authority, and bullying. Write the seven provided questions on...
Curated OER
During Reading Strategies (Visualization)
Learners develop and apply strategies using visualization. In this reading lesson, students listen to sounds and draw images that depict the audio recordings. Learners then apply this visualization strategy to nonfiction material read...
Curated OER
The Lightning Thief: Questioning Strategy
Step into the shoes of the Oracle from the novel, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, with this response to reading activity. After reading chapter nine, scholars answer questions from the Oracle's point...
Brigham Young University
HOOT Directed Reading Thinking Activity
It's helpful to encourage kids to make predictions when beginning a reading unit. Before reading Hoot by Carl Hiaasen, have kids read Susan Barlow Broggi's Am I Grown Up When I'm Not Afraid of Spiders in My Shoes? to make predictions...
Teachers.net
How to Write a Movie Review from a Pet's Perspective
When would two paws up denote a blockbuster film in your classroom? Only when young writers create movie reviews from a pet's perspective in this imaginative expository writing practice. This engaging topic begins with a class discussion...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Paragraph 1 of “Refugee and Immigrant Children: A Comparison” (from “Refugee Children in Canada: Searching for Identity”)
What common challenges do refugees and immigrants face? Using the 9th lesson plan from the 20-part Grade 8 ELA Module 1, Unit 2 series, pupils read about the similarities between refugees' and immigrants' adaptation processes. Partners...
Curated OER
Introduction to Writing Traits and Writing Strategies
Intended for an audience of teachers, this presentation lays out the six traits of writing, the writing process, and the teaching process for traits and strategies. If you are trying to understand the writing process more fully, you...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: Notecard Vocabulary Strategy
Understanding the vocabulary in a text, especially a text like Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science that includes quite a few technical terms, can be the key to understanding the text as a whole. Learners focus on...
Curated OER
Unwind: Vocabulary Strategy, Creating an Unwind Glossary
Prior to reading Unwind, Neal Shusterman's 2007 young adult science fiction novel, class members research the common definition of words drawn from the novel that will come to have a very different meaning to them as they are drawn into...
Curated OER
Tunes for Bears to Dance to: Vocabulary Strategy
To prepare for a reading of Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance to, kids research vocabulary drawn from the novel and share their findings with their groups.
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: History of the Periodic Table
Although the article that launches this lesson is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and craft one essay....
Curated OER
Unit 1: Water is Life: The Heart and Science Behind this Phrase
Water, water, everywhere — but will there be enough to drink? Check out these detailed lesson plans to meet NGSS water cycle and CCSS literacy standards in your science classroom. Learners do a close reading of a challenging, poetic text...
Curated OER
Running Out of Time: Vocabulary Strategies
Review concepts and terms after reading Running Out of Time. Learners each come up with a few terms that they think are important and then participate in a list-group-label exercise, paying close attention to the two main years featured...
Curated OER
The Lightning Thief: Vocabulary Strategy
Take an in-depth look into the vocabulary from the novel, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. With a list of words to choose from, scholars discover the definition, origin, stories associated with the...
Curated OER
Using Context
Teams practice decoding and using context strategies to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. After verifying the meanings of words through the use of dictionaries, the Internet, thesauruses, and other sources, learners write the...
Have Fun Teaching
Predict and Infer (22)
Encourage close reading and critical thinking with a instructional activity that asks readers to select an event from a story, predict what they believe will happen, and list clues from the story that support this prediction. After...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Louie’s Change of Heart
Scholars read additional pages in Unbroken to discover more about Louie's character. Readers use turn-and-talk strategies to discuss character traits that describe Louie. They then answer text-dependent questions and cite evidence to...
Curated OER
Magical Musical Tour: Using Music Lyrics to Teach Literary Elements
While music lyrics are often used to teach literary elements, the richness of this resource comes from the wealth of exercises, activities, and support materials provided in the packet. Although designed for gifted learners, the...