Learning to read between the lines, to recognize the on-the-surface meaning as well as the implied or inferred meaning of text, is an important skill for all readers. The materials and activities in this 73-page packet are designed to...

Practice sequencing with your 2nd graders via Patricia Polacco's Civil War book Pink and Say. Begin with a blindfold and a bag of mystery items. Connect their use of clues to identify what they can't see with the skill of making...

How can a screenplay create meaning and drama in ways that other forms of writing cannot? That is the question class members must answer as they compare the cantina scene of the screenplay for George Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope...

Encourage young readers to use their prior knowledge, as well as text clues, to draw inferences from text. Provide them with this learning exercise that asks them to record a passage, the background information they already have, the...

Don't forget to read between the lines! Educators learn tips and activities to help scholars learn to infer to increase reading comprehension. Activities suggested include think alouds, backwards words, and who's who. the packet includes...

Class members take center stage as groups perform scenes from Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope. Actors are encouraged to add stage directions to the script, as well as create costumes and props to...

How can you tell if someone is happy? The lesson works with elementary and middle school scholars to activate their schema and pay attention to details to make inferences in their daily lives, poetry, and other literature. Cleverly...

Use this lesson to study similes and metaphors and the inferred meaning. In this language arts lesson, 5th graders write their own similes and metaphors. A worksheet is provided for extension work or to check understanding as homework.

Besides the dictionary definition, words also carry the added weight of meanings that are inferred or implied, meanings conferred on words, or connotations. To gain an understanding the importance of connotation, class members...

This is a disaster. Scholars look through the book Eight Days: A Story of Haiti and discuss their wonderings about the text and natural disasters. They then complete a first read to determine gist and second read to answer...

Improving listening comprehension skills is the goal of this language arts lesson. Young readers listen to the story Two Greedy Bears, stopping to have discussions with a partner. They predict outcomes and make inferences based on...

A thorough lesson on persuasive writing takes middle schoolers through several activities, including group discussion, collaborative posters, and independent writing. They compare historical speeches and analyze the persuasive techniques...

Work on developing strategies for determining the meaning of unknown words and phrases with a quick context clues exercise. Class members choose two words from their reading and write down what they think they mean and why. See the...

Provide readers with an opportunity to practice drawing inferences by giving them this worksheet. Kids identify the text and author, record a sentence they believe infers rather than directly says, and then write the deeper meaning the...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

Explore the variety of context clues that help us learn new meanings of unknown words! With this presentation, pupils go in depth into each type of context clue and have their knowledge tested with several small reading passages in which...

Middle schoolers examine the importance of physical activities and use word parts to infer meaning to a story. They discuss agility, baseball, and ballet dancing, read an article, and observe a demonstration on breaking down words and...

Inntroduce primary learners to essential critical reading strategies with an activity based on James Reeves' poem, "The Wind."  Learners listen as the poem is read, first as a riddle, and then re-read with the title visible. The...

"i before e. . ."  Spelling is easier if kids know the eight basic spelling rules  contained in this resource packet.

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.

I survived! Scholars read a firsthand account from a natural disaster survivor in the text Save Bella! They record the gist of the text in their journals and answer text-dependent questions. They then take notes to more deeply analyze...

Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" provide seventh graders with examples of odes. After reading and discussing these and other examples, young poets craft an ode and respond to the ode of a...

After reading chapter one of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, take part in a magic square vocabulary activity in which scholars match the term with its definition and insert its corresponding number in to...