Curated OER
Picturing America: Images and Words of Hope from Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
A carefully crafted three-day instructional activity integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The...
Council for Economic Education
Out of Africa: Why Early Humans Settled around the World
Why would someone want to leave home? The age-old question is at the center of a thought-provoking activity. Scholars consider why humans move around the world both during pre-historical times and today using a PowerPoint, reading on...
August House
When Turtle Grew Feathers
Friendship is a valuable part of growing up. Learn about the importance of friendship with a variety of activities based on When Turtle Grew Feathers by Tim Tingle. Kids practice making musical instruments, discussing plot points,...
Positively Autism
Activities for "Decreasing Supermarket Tantrums"
Priming and shaping, two teaching strategies used to prepare kids for upcoming activities, are detailed in this resource that models how to prepare kids for a trip to the supermarket. Activities include creating a shopping list,...
Scholastic
Reading Success Mini Books: Word Families
Engage children in learning about rhyming words with this printable book on the -ing word family. Including six words with supporting pictures, young learners practice reading and writing the words before adding their own word...
Curated OER
Responding Syllables: Reading and Music
Shell Silverstein’s “Sick” provides an opportunity for kids to demonstrate their understanding of syllables and phonemes. The class creates a list of descriptive words used in the poem that have more than one syllable, and brainstorm how...
Curated OER
Reading Contract
In this reading contract worksheet, students write the title of a book they will read, how many pages they will read each day and how they will share what they've read. Both the teacher and student sign this agreement. Two reading...
Curated OER
Post-Reading Strategies
Students practice post-reading strategies. In this reading comprehension lesson, students review pre-reading strategies, then read a handout entitled "Thirteen Reasons Our Ancestors Migrated." Students complete a post-reading worksheet...
Curated OER
Active and Passive Listening
Eighth graders practice passive and active listening skills. They discover listening skills help them communicate more effectively. Students analyze the benefits of having someone to listen to them actively and the benefits of being an...
Curated OER
Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie
In this reading comprehension worksheet, students use a short story for several activities. Students write a short story of their own about the characters. Students answer questions while reading the story. Students create a pantomime of...
Curated OER
Passage to Freedom Teacher's Guide
Students explore the main elements of the book Passage to Freedom. In this reading response lesson, students participate in pre-reading activities that focus on the idea of courage. Students conduct a book walk-through and are introduced...
Curated OER
Predictions: A Pre-Reading Strategy
Learners read and complete an article filling in the blanks to make predictions before reading the full article. In this predictions lesson, students compare predictions to the actual parts of the article. Learners discuss the main idea...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Segmenting, The Sound Game
Pre-readers get a better understanding of phoneme segmenting and counting by playing a board game. They pick an image card from the stack, say the name of the object, break the word down into segments, then move their piece that number...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Blending, What's My Word?
At a listening station, learners listen to a pre-recorded script; they follow the directions and number each picture on their picture chart corresponding to the segmented phonemes they hear.
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Matching, Vowel Picture Sort
Sound sorting can be a fun way to get little ones phonologically prepared for a life of reading. In this activity, learners sort picture cards based on the long or short vowel sound they make when said aloud.
Reed Novel Studies
The One and Only Ivan: Novel Study
A new friend, a new perspective, and a new light are all found in Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan. Ivan, a gorilla, was content with his life until a baby elephant befriended him. Readers find synonyms, answer...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Isolating, Phoneme Quest
In this phonics activity, little learners glue picture cards under the initial, medial, and final phonemes represented by the lead sound cards. An image of a shark broken into three parts represents the initial phoneme /sh/, the medial...
Newspaper in Education
The Iliad: A Young Reader Adventure
Is The Iliad part of your curriculum? Check out a resource that offers something for those new to teaching the classic and those with lots of experience using Homer's epic. Plot summaries, discussion questions, activities abound in...
Curated OER
Connect the Rhymes
Pre-readers benefit from visual context clues like the ones in this rhyme learning exercise. There are two sets of objects here, and scholars connect objects on the left with their rhyming counterparts on the right. Each word has the...
Curated OER
Connect the Rhymes
Introduce your pre-readers to rhyming using this matching exercise! They examine two sets of images, connecting rhyming pictures with a line. All 10 words use the vowel sound i. Note that some of these images may be difficult for...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of Beowulf
Beowulf, the Old English epic hero, comes alive again in the activities found in a teacher's guide designed to accompany a reading of the classic poem.
Curated OER
Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!
The Apaches: People of the Southwest offers readers a chance to employ the “Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!” strategy (an adaptation of the KWL) to test what they know and summarize what they learn as they read Jennifer Fleischner’s nonfiction...
Curated OER
Connect the Rhymes
As your pre-readers begin to understand phonemes and rhyming, give them this practice worksheet which has them matching rhyming pictures. For each of six images, they identify the corresponding image which has the same vowel sound (or...
Curated OER
Draw it Yourself
Here are four familiar pictures and words for emerging readers: dog, mouse, cat, and hen. After examining the image and spelling, they draw something that rhymes with each in the space provided. Encourage pre-readers to sound...