Learning how to deliver good literacy instruction is key to becoming a successful teacher. This resource isn't so much a instructional activity as it is a guide to leading children in an interactive read-aloud session to increase...

Teach your class what it means to be a smart reader with this simple classroom poster. Including short I am statements describing seven different reading strategies, this is a great resource for improving students' reading...

Silly journal and essay prompts may be fun to write, but they don't model the kind of writing needed for college papers and standardized tests. The 15th part in a series of 24 covers the concept of reading to write—during and after...

Readers use Bloom's Taxonomy to create multi-level questions about Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. 

Readers of Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel, Unwind, record what they know, what they want to know, how the will find answers to the questions, on a KWHL chart.

This pre-reading activity will certainly make your class ponder. With five questions to reflect upon, get insight to the moral dilemma Percy faced in the novel Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. 

Readers respond to a series of questions focused onJuliet Marillier's young adult novel Wildwood Dancing, and crafted to reflect the levels in Bloom's Taxonomy.

Readers of The House of the Scorpion try to stump their teacher in a QAR questioning game. Pairs craft Right There, Think and Search, On Your Own, and the Author and You questions and the class members then take turns responding to...

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...

A four corners pre-reading activity introduces class members to the major themes in Victor Martinez's award winning novel, Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida.

Introduce your freshmen to reading comprehension strategies and key literary elements with a year's worth of lessons and exercises. Each lesson focuses on a specific literary device and includes a definition of the term, a passage that...

Chapter 12 of The Hobbit provides the text for an exercise that asks readers to use the QAR strategy to develop and respond to questions about story.

Readers of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth craft and answer "Right There," "Think and Search," "On Your Own," and "Author and You" questions.

John Knowles' A Separate Peace provides readers with an opportunity to develop their close reading and analytical skills as they look for what Knowles feels are the factors that shape our identity.

Imagine 28 instructional strategies, appropriate for all subject areas and all grade levels. Directed Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) activities, KWL charts, comparison matrixes, classification...

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides the text for a series of close reading exercises that model for instructors how carefully crafted guiding questions can help readers think critically about what they read, thus developing...

Readers of Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are introduced to the Question Answer Response Strategy (QAR) as a way to increase their engagement in and comprehension of the novel.

Take your guided reading lesson plans to the next level with a collection of printables, templates, and reference tools equipped to support the reading needs of your readers. Included is a detailed information page, grouping sheet,...

Why did they say that? What did they mean? How did they feel? Using the six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, challenge your young readers to answer the comprehension questions about chapters 41 and 42 of Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Each...

English language arts and science combine in a instructional activity that focuses on asking and answering questions about frog skin. Discussion, a read-aloud, and partner work lead the way towards a three-page worksheet that tests...

The Amazon Horned Frog is the focus of a activity designed to encourage readers to ask and answer questions. A frog-themed poem opens the door to a whole-group discussion. Following a read-aloud of an informational text, a three-page...

Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...

Take the next step in the writing process with a lesson plan geared towards the completion of writing an evidence-based essay about a rule to live by, as Bud did in Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Pupils collaborate with their...

Questioning a text is a very effective way for kids to develop their reading comprehension skills. Designed to engage all class members, a reading activity prompts pairs to develop and share their own questions about the ending of Neil...