Scholars delve into an informational text with the help of four pages that focus on the author's purpose, vocabulary words, summarization, and main idea.

It is true that the more you practice something, the better you'll get at doing it. Lesson three in a three part series on author's purpose has kids venture out to determine the author's purpose in three different passages. They'll read...

Examine informational text with a three-page learning exercise that focuses on taking notes, identifying the main idea, and locating supporting details in order to form a summary paragraph. 

Signal words are one way that authors make the relationships between their ideas clear. Allow your learners the chance to investigate cause and effect in texts by identifying signal words. They locate and analyze cause-and-effect...

Bring the enjoyable story of Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock by Eric A. Kimmel to your young readers. After reading the story as a class, students answer questions about a reading and make a graphic organizer.  They make...

Scholars scour thematically aligned texts to gather a bank of words they can use in an original acrostic poem. 

Discover the life of renowned children's author, Eric Carle, with a biographical, graphic organizer. Scholars read an informational text and locate details such as Carle's birthday, siblings, favorite books, and write a reflection about...

Analyze a fictional text with a four-page packet that explores a story's main character and moral, challenges scholars to ask and answer questions about the text, and to create a story map. 

Use this comprehensive packet to accompany a study of Missing May by Cynthia Rylant. Starting out with a brief author biography and background information about the novel, this guide includes materials to use throughout the entire novel....

Students explore author's voice. In this literary elements and reading comprehension lesson plan, students listen to two poems about snakes (included) and identify adjectives and other descriptive words and phrases that help them...

Second graders use the title and text clues from a poem to determine what the author's voice is. In this author's voice lesson, 2nd graders participate in a directed lesson using the poem "Amazing Bats." They discuss their feelings with...

Point of view, purpose, and tone: three concepts readers of primary and secondary source materials must take into account when examining documents. Class members view a PowerPoint presentation and use the SOAPS strategy to identify an...

Students complete a worksheet.  In this author's opinion lesson, students learn how to determine an author's opinion when it is not explicitly stated in the text.  Students answer fact and opinion questions and use them to draw...

Students explore the Project Gutenberg website and conduct a webquest to answer questions about well known literature and authors.

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is a classic novel that readers have enjoyed for years. Resources within the study guide such as discussion and guided reading questions, extension activities, and graphic organizers aid...

What is a good citizen? Here is a fantastic unit of ten lessons that will thoroughly cover the concept of civics and citizenship in your class. Examples of activities include learning stations, primary and secondary source analysis of...

Sixth graders identify information from texts by working in pairs using Wikki Stix or highlighting tape to locate, mark, and read items on preview checklist. Students then compare what they marked with what another pair marked.

Students arrange illustrations in sequential order. In this text organization lesson, students access a webpage where they must follow the instructions to learn about the steps of pumpkin carving. Students then click and drag...

Track instances of foreshadowing in any text with a straightforward graphic organizer. In one column, learners note down the events that happened, and in the other they list the clues that indicated that those events would happen. Some...

Address the literary elements in a piece of writing using these materials. The packet includes plenty of resources, and focuses mainly on theme, character, and point of view, with some materials for setting, symbolism, and author's...

Inferencing is a necessary reading skill to uncover non-explicit messages in text. Use the set of resources as a way to guide learners toward becoming expert inferrers through reading prompts and literature with text and without text.

Review the terms denotation, connotation, diction, and mood in paragraph writing. After defining the terms, middle schoolers practice writing examples of both connotation and denotation. They complete a connotation and denotation...

Take a look at foreshadowing in any text by recording instances of foreshadowing in a straightforward graphic organizer. Learners note down the event, the clue, and the page number for five foreshadowed events. There is also space for...

Honor Abe Lincoln with a set of activity-based worksheets that can be used independently and in collaborative groups. Young historians participate in a listening activity where they fill in the missing blanks in a passage while being...