Rhyming is fun and it helps build phonological awareness that is key in early reading. Learners use a pocket chart and a set of 40 cards that make 20 rhyming sets to practice recognizing rhyming words. Peer one picks a card from a bag...

Little learners will love being able to blend sounds together to make words. This game provides eight onsets and eight rimes that can be used to mix and match to sound out words. This activity is to be completed in pairs and is a great...

Jack the Ripper terrorized London in the late 1800s. An educator's guide for the novel The Name of the Star places the historical figure in a modern context. Readers complete a pre-reading activity before answering a series of discussion...

Learners explore the life of Ernest Hemingway. They complete a KWL chart about him and then complete a webquest about his life to find out about aspects of his life they wanted to learn. They follow by reading a novel Hemingway wrote.

Find out how much your class knows about literary elements with a quick pre-assessment. Pupils work first individually to identify the instances of personification, metaphor, simile, and more, and then with group members to...

Deep down, everyone is the same. Discuss the similarities and differences between people across cultures with a series of reading activities based on the beautiful story and illustrations in Whoever You Are by Mem Fox.

To practice pre-writing techniques your class will re-read the book George vs. George and complete a T-chart along with brainstorming ideas on how to organize their essay.

Determine your class's prior knowledge about the necessities of life with this pre-assessment for a unit on living things. Learners draw pictures of themselves with all the things they need to live, grow, and survive. These drawings will...

This is a Pre-K teacher's must-have resource for pre-assessing learners at the beginning of the school year! Covering everything from alphabet recognition and sorting objects to social-emotional development and work habits, this...

In a multidisciplinary lesson plan, you will focus your instruction around the West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk while your little learners sing songs, play games, participate in a grand...

Four lessons, each following the same routine, explore the careers of a teacher, nurse, electrician, geologist, plumber, and police officer. After listening to a read-aloud and thoughtful discussion, young scholars construct puppets...

Build vocabulary, fluency and confidence in your French speakers by having them participate in some of these engaging activities. Several suggestions are given, but you will have to design the actual instructional activity yourself.

Do figures of speech enhance a play or story? In small groups, learners locate and describe figures of speech they find while reading a reader's theater play. After making predictions, they describe how the figures of speech make the...

Although the article that launches this instructional activity is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and...

Scholars take turns writing and identifying letters on a whiteboard. Learner one writes a letter; learner two finds it on the alphabet strip. If they are correct, Mr. Mouse gets to eat that letter, and if they are incorrect, Mr. Mouse...

A guided imagery exercise draws class members into a particularly intense scene in Edward Bloor's Tangerine. After listening to a reading of an excerpt from the text, participants respond to a series of questions and then share their...

Activate your pupils' thinking before reading chapter five of Ordinary People. Learners decide whether they agree or disagree with six statements and discuss their ideas in small groups. They then read chapter five and determine...

The value in this cloze reading activity packet designed for parents is in the first-page letter that explains the rationale for cloze reading exercises. This explanation of the whys and how-tos of the process goes a long way to ensure...

The AP Literature and Composition exam is all about close reading. Test takers are presented with a passage and asked to analyze how an author uses literary devices to create a desired effect. Prepare your students for the exam with a...

Delve into Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis before opening the book with a lesson on literary themes. High schoolers engage in a word association activity before reading a list of statements based on the book's...

What are the effects of a good literary cliffhanger? Using the novel study for Paula Fox's The Slave Dancer, pupils consider why the author chose to end the first chapter with suspense. They also answer text-based questions, practice new...

Here is a great little reading and vocabulary development lesson created just for learners with special needs. The lesson is constructed with both core content and necessary adaptations in mind. The group will use PECS, pointing/gesture,...

Airline mechanics must be precise, or the consequences could be deadly. Their target ranges alter with changes in temperature and pressure. When preparing an airplane for flight, you must read a maintenance graph. The second lesson of...