In the third activity from this unit based on the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, learners focus on using specific details from the text-to-answer questions about the habitat of bullfrogs. While reading the text, young...

Middle schoolers receive a handout that lists the five types of context clues. The class divides up into groups of three or four, and each group chooses five unfamiliar words. They write a multiple-choice question for each of their five...

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...

Want to boost your readers' comprehension skills and strategies? Look to these five pages, each with a short story and questions to answer covering main idea, facts, sequence of events, context clues, conclusions, and making...

Here is a lesson plan that invites learners to engage in a kinesthetic activity that allows them to physically move and manipulate words in order to think about ways to understand vocabulary in context. After that activity is complete,...

"Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle?" Inspired by this quote from the award-winning novel written by Andrew Celements, this lesson plan allows children to invent their own...

It's all about a bit of give and take. Scholars silently read War in the Pacific and circle any unfamiliar words. Using context clues, they write each word on a strip of paper along with the inferred definition. After looking the word up...

Explicitly explained and delightfully detailed are two ways to describe this tenth lesson plan in a larger unit designed for the first few weeks of third grade. Learners continue to use and develop previously learned close reading...

Third graders answer text-dependent questions of the story Nasreen's Secret School both independently and then collaboratively through using the carousel of questions strategy. This plan is the seventh instructional activity in a...

In the second lesson plan in a series that revolves around the story, Thank You, Mr. Falker, learners practice the skill of answering direct questions from the text while using complete sentences. After a teacher-led review of how to...

The sixth lesson plan in this Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle unit assesses your third graders' ability to read and understand informational text. The included assessment asks learners to take notes about the main idea and supporting...

Bring some music to your language arts lesson with a reading comprehension activity. Learners read an informational passage about different musical instruments before answering a series of comprehension and vocabulary questions.

Scholars obtain a brief background of the Mayflower Compact, read its contents, and answer two questions that look at the passage's context to enhance reading comprehension.     

What could have happened to a plane buried in snow? Have kids practice making inferences with a writing prompt for which they describe a photo without using specific key words.

A four-part worksheet challenges scholars' knowledge of American, Australian, and British slang. Learners use context clues to decide which country a slang word is from, complete sentences, decipher a conversation, and answer...

As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this...

Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the...

Excerpts from an 1898 speech by civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell offers young scholars an opportunity to investigate how Black American women fought for civil rights long before Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement of the...

What will happen next? Young writers plot what will happen next after studying the clues in four story starters.

As the final lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit to establish routines and teach close reading skills, this plan is designed as an assessment piece. Using the story, The Librarian of Basra, learners independently...

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club brings together the central ideas of identity, ambition, expectations, and relationships. As high schoolers read an excerpt from the chapter "Two Kinds," they note how Jing-Mei's connection to music relates to...

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is an illustrative source of rich prose, deep character development, and strong literary themes. Use two of the book's key chapters, which focus on Waverly's relationship with chess and with her mother, to...

Here is a unit designed to support English language development. Scholars speak, move, and write to learn more about topics that focus on community and local concepts. The series of lessons aids to reinforce concepts...

Jane Eyre offers scholars an opportunity to practice reading comprehension skills. Pairs are assigned a word from the text, use their prior knowledge, and consider the context, connotation, and denotation of the word to posit a...