Just as the United States is a land of immigrants with many cultures, English has many words adopted from many other languages—which accounts for many irregular spellings of some words. Language learners research the origins of a list of...

Review myths and the characters therein, connecting them to vocabulary words in the English language today. Begin by searching online for myths and character names. With at least ten names that are familiar English words, students use...

What do the words alligator, armadillo, and cockroach all have in common? Each one is an English word with Spanish origins. Introduce young etymologists to the joys of discovering word origins with a lesson that asks them to create a...

Use the Visual Thesaurus to predict the subject matter of Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief. A pre-reading activity encourages middle schoolers to use context clues and word meaning to discover what the book is about. After they...

Encourage the development of proactive readers with this graphic organizer, which prompts pupils to identify words they do not recognize as they are reading a textbook or literary piece.

Explore compound words and their use in text with young readers. They locate, create, separate, and define compound words found in meaningful text and print. In addition, they create a compound word bank, create words using strips, and...

Sick to death of reading papers loaded with trite expressions and over-used words? Enliven your reading and animate the vocabulary of your young learners. Laminate on a paper tombstone a short list of “dead” (banned or over-used) words....

What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...

Pupils take a well-rounded approach to the traditional vocabulary chart with this graphic organizer, which prompts students to include a sentence, antonym, definition/synonym, and picture for each vocabulary word.

Prepare young researchers for the world of publication with a lesson on how to use Microsoft Word to format their papers in the Modern Language Association (MLA) style.

How have inventions and events changed the English language? Learners create posters showing specific words and language changes that resulted from an event, discovery, or cultural change. The class develops their vocabulary by...

Analyze the story Chicken Little by Stephen Kellogg to identify more detailed word choices to replace the word said. Writers list new words in a notebook, dramatically act out lines from they story to demonstrate the finer shading of...

Practice vocabulary skills with this word analysis activity. Middle schoolers examine the roots of unfamiliar words and use their knowledge of roots to discern meaning through word analysis.

Discuss and research slang expressions from the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Canada. They use the Web for their research and translate sentences from slang to standard English, while evaluating the effects of geography on English.

Word relationships, connotation, and denotation are the focus of an activity to teach the use of a thesaurus. Scholars seek out vocabulary words to replace common starter words; they use the new vocabulary words to write three...

Learners write sentences using dictionary guide words, putting two guide words from the same page in the same sentence. They demonstrate creative-writing and vocabulary skills to write sentences using dictionary guide words.

Brainstorm new words for a class dictionary. In small groups, young learners read and discuss an article about how words get into dictionaries. They then develop a new word, use it in a sentence, and share their creations with their peers. 

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....

Pull a root word from a hat and make new words by adding prefixes and suffixes. After a read aloud of the Peggy Parish book No More Monsters for Me and whole group practice identifying root words and affixes, youngsters play a game to...

Using Microsoft Word and the blank "Jack and Jill" templates provided, class members find picture files of themselves and create a written photo ID document to be printed and lamented for the classroom. The lesson plan is divided into 4...

Ninth graders complete spelling activities for Latin roots. In this Latin roots lesson plan, 9th graders complete a teacher-led oral activity and worksheet to practice writing one-word meanings for Latin roots.

Groups or pairs choose ordinary objects from a bag and rename them based on traits, so that a stapler becomes a "paper cobra." Then they connect this exercise to the way authors use language to emphasize certain traits through word...

HIgh schoolers respond to a persuasive article on using animal research. In this english lesson, writers listen to a conversation, and discuss the point of arguments. They write a critique on a certain film and share it with their...

As 3rd graders continue reading Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, they focus on the concepts of predator and prey in the fifth lesson plan of this unit. Scholars further develop their ability to answer questions using evidence from the text...