Curated OER
Reading Fiction: Analyzing Sentences
Young scholars investigate sentence construction in fiction. In this sentence construction lesson, students examine examples of fiction work and discover why sentences are a certain length. Young scholars create their own passages...
Curated OER
Retell And Summarize Text
Help your learners read a text and summarize it using their own words. The main idea and important details of an article are discussed before individuals write their summaries. To support discernment about what to include in a summary,...
Curated OER
Reading With Speed
Students practice passages to increase their fluency. They work in pairs and time their peers for how long it takes to read sentences. They repeat the process three times and move to short text to continue practicing becoming a fluent...
Curated OER
Reading with Expression
Students practice reading with expression. After discussing how reading with feeling and expression can enhance the text, students listen as their partner reads a story with expression. Individual students read selected passages with...
Curated OER
I Can Read Fast, Smooth, and Expressively!
Learners listen to the explanation of the words expressively, smoothly, and quickly as being keys to fluent reading. They review some of the vowel sounds and identify them in different words and listen to some passages from The Rainbow...
Bantam Books
The Tempest: Kinesthetic Grammar Approach
Though beautiful, William Shakespeare's prose can be inhibiting for learners who are new to his works. A instructional activity based on The Tempest guides high schoolers through the paraphrasing process, including noting the subjects...
Curated OER
How Do Adjectives Improve Writing?
Using adjectives to create vivid descriptions is the focus of exercises in this resource. A cloze reading activity asks class members to add missing adjectives to passages from Mark Teague's The Lost and Found. They then read Teague's...
EngageNY
Revising for Organization and Style: Bold Beginnings
Get young writers thinking about how to write a great beginning for their narratives. After examining examples of solid beginnings in literary text, young writers discuss the criteria for a compelling introduction. Then, independently,...
EngageNY
Real-World Positive and Negative Numbers and Zero
Class members investigate how positive and negative numbers are useful in the real world. Individuals first read a short passage and identify terms indicating positive and negative numbers. They consider situations involving positive...
Curated OER
The Big Green Monster
Students practice rereading selected passages to improve their reading fluency. Working in pairs, students read and reread decodable, leveled passages. They complete center activities in groups of four in order to aid in decoding and...
Curated OER
1-2-3 Go!
Students practice becoming fluent readers with timed repeated readings. They read passages for one minute and tally the number of words read. They repeat this process several times and count the number of words each time. They complete...
Curated OER
It's All about Expression
First graders practice rereading selected passages to improve their reading fluency. Working in pairs, 1st graders read and reread decodable, leveled passages. They create a tape recording of their reading to assess their fluency and use...
Curated OER
The Tell Tale Students
Students practice summarizing text by retelling what they have read. They read selected, leveled passages and use enthusiastic and createive ways to members of their group. Students complete a journal entry documenting their experience...
Curated OER
The Sound of Music and Passage to Freedom
Seventh graders examine music examples to investigate a conflict in history about Hitler's invasions during WWII. In this music analysis instructional activity, 7th graders discuss vocabulary and the history for the Holocaust and...
Curated OER
Just "Itching" to Read More Fluently!
Students access how to decode words for meaning in text. They strive to read fluently with accuracy. Students read more fluently through utilizing one-minute reads of repeated readings, as the more a student rereads a passage, the more...
Curated OER
Treasure Tales
Create an artifact kit to engage your young learners. Then, assign small groups a section of chapter three. They will identify the main idea and three supporting details for their section. Then, they select one artifact from the kit that...
Curated OER
The Use of Language in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"
Readers of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings are asked to craft an essay in which they compare how Maya Angelou uses figurative language to depict herself and Mrs. Flowers.
Curated OER
Shizuko’s Daughter: Discussion Web
Is Yuki a selfish character? Analyze her motivation and behavior during a unit on Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori. Readers fill out two sides of a graphic organizer with reasons why or why not she is selfish, and then come up with a...
Curated OER
Women In Space: Sally Ride
Second graders explore the life and accomplishments of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Through reading and discussion, they recall details from Sally Ride's life.
Curated OER
Hendrick Avercamp and the Winter Landscape
Students study the winter landscape art of Hendrick Avercamp. In this art history lesson, students read passages about the art and artist Hendrick Avercamp. Students learn about winter landscape art and write an acrostic poem about a...
Curated OER
Strength in Summarizing
Third graders practice summarizing passages while creating a fishbone map of important details in non-fiction text. They examine how to tell the difference between important and less important details by highlighting them in reading...
Teaching American History
Interpretation of the Declaration of Independence
Ready to interpret the Declaration of Independence and understand its meaning? The resource divides scholars into pairs, where they work as a team to match translations with excerpts from the declaration. The class then engages in...
Curated OER
Keywords: A Memorization Strategy
Here is a fabulous, five-page lesson plan on how keywords can help a reader with his/her reading comprehension. After a teacher-led discussion, pupils pair off with each other and work together to identify the main idea in a passage of...
National Woman's History Museum
The Equal Rights Amendment
The debate over the Equal Rights Amendment continues. To better understand the controversy, class members research the history of attempts to get the amendment ratified. In addition, pairs engage in a structured academic conversation...