Readers' theater is a fun way to get kids reading with expression and improve their fluency! There is a full script here for The Three Bears with five characters to assign.

After several short 15-minute mini-lessons, your learners will gain an understanding of the characteristics of a non-fiction text. Using the book Map It by Elspeth Leacock, your class will become acquainted with non-fiction terms...

Who is Mo Willems? Explore the author with your class. Learners read books written by Willems, compare and contrast the characters therein, and make predictions about what will happen. Finish off this author study by having small groups...

Class members create a PowerPoint presentation showing artifacts they would include in a time capsule. The artifacts and explanations reflect personal hobbies, grooming choices, school life, etc. A great way for class members to...

Looking for a Halloween-themed vocabulary lesson plan? Study words in context using Zoe Hall's story It's Pumpkin Time, an excellent informational text for budding readers. The spooky suggested words are: buds, gather, hollow,...

Compare and contrast two pieces of literature with this lesson. With the use of a Venn diagram, pupils make connections between literature and real-life situations. They practice skills of surveying a text looking for important details,...

Introduce your class to encoding text. Pairs work together to create a protocol to send text prior to learning ASCII encoding. Groups then collaborate to send and translate ASCII codes creating a formatted text message. 

While reading the book Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, the class ties together the core reading objectives, which are making predictions, comprehending new information, reading for author's purpose, independence in reading,...

Help budding readers learn words like develop and revolting as they listen to you read Mitchell Sharmant's Gregory, the Terrible Eater. Get the new vocabulary rolling before reading it aloud so youngsters can raise a...

Human anatomy learners will grow more knowledgable about body tissue by viewing this presentation. Injected with a little humor (e.g. using a toilet paper roll graphic in place of the word "tissue"), it is sure to keep them engaged....

Find guidance to introduce math vocabulary in context using Henry Pluckrose's book Sorting. This text is an excellent cross-curricular resource for budding readers. Before starting, review some new vocabulary words: collect, common,...

Can you wish the moon a happy birthday? Beginning readers contemplate this as they listen to Frank Asch's book Happy Birthday, Moon, the context for a vocabulary study. There are three words outlined here: chat,...

Are your scholars interested in bugs? Get future entomologists excited about vocabulary through Joanne Oppenheim's colorful book Have You Seen Bugs? They use the informational text (although this strategy is useful for any book) to...

Get in touch with the emotional side of writing by reading Words By Heart. The writing assignment helps learners make personal connections with the text and hone their writing skills by exploring a time that they had to forgive...

English is not the only subject that requires its own set of vocabulary words—geography does too! A series of language development lessons designed to be used with Theme 5: One Land, Many Trails helps introduce readers to key vocabulary...

Prejudice? Religious intolerance? Political sedition? Class distinction? Plight of women? Voltaire satire, anyone? A literary newspaper offers an opportunity for readers of Candide to make text-to-self and text-to-world connections as...

Help young mathematicians make cents out of the US currency system with this two-part math lesson. Children first learn the names and values for each type of coin, before learning to count and compare the values of coins using the...

How far would your pupils go to be able to have access to books? Revisit Heather Henson and David Small's That Book Woman and challenge class members to take on the role of Cal or the Book Woman. By putting themselves in someone else's...

Not all party platforms stay democratic. A resource covers many political issues in Germany during the time of World War II, and teaches pupils about the Nazi party platform and what went wrong. Individuals participate in a warm-up...

Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson plan,...

Sometimes it's hard to relate to a new text. Teach kids to use their prior knowledge when reading something new with a comprehension exercise. A short passage tells them how to think of their brains like filing systems, and provides five...

Support your instruction of The Cay by Theodore Taylor with this extensive unit of materials. Provided here are prereading activities, worksheets and discussion questions for the entire book, and reading quizzes that you can use to check...

The historical background for Fever 1793 is the focus of a pre-reading strategy that has class groups rotate through a series of stations stocked with photographs, articles, and other texts that describe the Yellow Fever outbreak of...