Upper elementary and middle school writers learn how to craft an expository paragraph by following the six steps detailed in a 48-page instructional guide. Learners learn how to write six different types of informational paragraphs:...

In order to better understand Muslim civilization, culture, and politics one must first familiarize themselves on the 5 Pillars of Islam, ideas which dominate much of Muslim societal and cultural norms. Provide your learners with a...

Help third graders focus on improving their speaking and listening skills with this Common Core checklist. By phrasing each standard as an I can statement, learners can monitor their progress toward clear, attainable goals.

How confident are your readers in responding to short reading passages? Find out with a worksheet that reinforces reading comprehension skills and requires self reflection on one's ability to read and answer questions...

Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...

Emergencies happen. Be prepared the next time you have to call in a substitute with a lesson plan designed to meet the needs of a kindergarten class. Throughout the day, class members work with number and alphabet cards, identify numbers...

Interpret current events using editorial cartoons and other print media. Middle schoolers explore the meanings of literary and artistic terms such as satire, irony, and caricature. They visit internet sites to develop an understanding of...

The end of the year has arrived, which means it's time to find out what your third graders have learned with this practice Common Core assessment. Presented with one narrative and one expository reading passage, young learners...

The end of the year has arrived, which means it's time to find out exactly what your fifth graders have learned over the past few months. With the help of this Common Core-designed assessment that includes two narrative passages and...

With the end of the year quickly approaching it's time to find out exactly how much your sixth graders have learned. Specifically designed for the Common Core ELA standards, this practice test gives students five reading passages,...

Keep an eye on the growth of your sixth graders' reading and writing skills with the help of this practice Common Core assessment. Working their way through the six included fiction and nonfiction reading passages, learners answer a...

Everyone has a different point of view, even when it comes to the enormity of the universe. Two separate text passages explain the scope of a galaxy, prompting young readers to write an essay about each author's argument and how the...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

Third graders read excepts from the story, Thank You, Mr. Falker in order to gain practice in understanding an unfamiliar story by focusing on the details. They use a worksheet, embedded in the plan, which directs them to certain...

Newspapers aren't only for reading—they're for learning skills, too! A journalism unit provides three lessons each for primary, intermediate, and secondary grades. Lessons include objectives, materials, vocabulary, and procedure, and...

Fourth graders read a short story and then answer questions based on what they read. Learners are asked to support their answers with evidence from the text.

To take "the definitive portrait of that person in that moment" is the quest of photographer and hip-hop historian Jonathan Mannion. In this short video, Mannion details his dedication to his art and the process he goes through to catch...

Third graders examine how finding the main ideas and summarizing increases their reading comprehension. They read "The Sea in Danger" while applying the six rules of summarization in a modeled lesson. Next, working in small groups, they...

In this comprehension:  the bounding ball activity, student color the picture, read the sentence, answer 3 multiple choice questions about the story, trace and write the word ball.

Students observe and demonstrate the process of summarizing text. As a class they read the first five pages of the book Sarah Plain and Tall by Sarah MacLachlan and answer the five W questions. Students then create five questions using...

Student gains insight into the culture of Japan. They articulate the main ideas and supporting details, also they create a "glimpse of Japan" with an illustrated and written summary of the main idea and four supporting details from the...

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...

Third graders practice the skills of identifying the main message in a story, describing the main character, and sorting the key details of a story into specific categories. The story they read is, The Boy Who Loved Words. Using a...

Scholars examine an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and determine how the author builds up smaller details to create the larger idea of the main passage. To finish the lesson plan, learners discuss in pairs, answer...