Model for young readers how to make the shift from passive to active reading by making text-to-self and text-to-text connections. After a series of activities that provide guided practice, the focus shifts to making text-to-words...

There are so many different ways to help learners make text-to-self connections. Here, fifth graders will create tableaus that show an event from a chapter in the class reader. They'll discuss why they chose that event to dramatize and...

Readers draw connections between Bud, Not Buddy and Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford University commencement address and cite evidence from the two texts to support their analysis.

Readers learn how to choose specific details drawn from a primary source (Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford University commencement address) to support an analysis of informative text.

As the saying goes, you are what you eat. A useful set of lesson plans encourage young readers to take a second look at their eating habits. Pre- and post-reading questions bring in reflective writing and discussion while extension...

As part of a unit study of Bud, Not Buddy, readers compare Buddy's list of rules to live by with those that Steve Jobs enumerates in his commencement address to Stanford's 2005 graduating class.

In preparation for the unit exam, groups employ the strategies they have been practicing to formulate an interpretative claim about the connections between Christopher Paul Curtis's " Bud, Not Buddy, and Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford...

Scholars refer to a British Dialect/Slang anchor chart as they answer text-dependent questions over section eight of Pygmalion. While learners work on the questions, the teacher conducts check-ins on the progress of their independent...

Expert groups discuss the theme of their myths and the life lessons people learn from it. They then regroup their triads so that there is a pupil from each expert myth group and share details about their myths. The class also talks about...

Get your scholars ready to read their first story...with a little assistance, of course. Projecting the short story (included) for all readers to see, point to each word so they can sound it out together. The strategy here is not to have...

Help your class transition as the setting in the novel Esperanza Rising, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, moves from Mexico to California. Beginning with prior knowledge, and moving into jigsaw research groups, class members add to and create posters...

Readers complete a mid-unit assessment by reading the text How Do Hurricanes Form? They answer text-dependent questions about hurricanes with short answer and sequencing. Learners then participate in a read aloud and text chunking...

Let's make connections! Using the resource, class members make connections between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and their readers theater scripts. To finish, they complete a worksheet to evaluate the role of narration in...

Teach young readers how to compare two texts and select passages that exemplify a specific theme with Lesson 6 from Unit 3. Begin by modeling how an expert reader selects examples from a text, performing a think aloud on how Article 2 of...

Groups use a Venn diagram to compare the theme of love and loss in Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address to Stanford University students and Christopher Paul Curtis' Bud, Not Buddy.

Mentor texts are a great way to demonstrate how to write with purpose. Pupils will be reintroduced to two well-known books and then asked to think about them from the writer's point of view. They will see that the author had to use basic...

Do young scholars really need to be taught how to read cartoons, comic books, and comic strips? Yes. Just as they need to learn how to read other forms of graphic text such as diagrams, photos, timetables, maps, charts, and tables....

How does poetry help people better understand societal issues? Pupils participate in a jigsaw activity to analyze poems from the novel Inside Out & Back Again. Next, they connect the poems to real-life refugee experiences from the...

Readers identify main ideas and supporting details using informational texts. In this literacy instructional activity, they make predictions and read the text to find the main ideas. They use a table diagram to define the main idea and...

How do you interpret that? Scholars work on their mid-unit assessments by interpreting resources pertaining to the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fires. Readers use the text in their research folders and complete graphic organizers,...

Decoding words in connected text can make emergent readers really feel like they are great readers. They work as a class to sound out simple cvc words located in super short sentences. Tip: Extend this activity by having a variety of...

Practice makes perfect when it comes to reading fluency! Walk your emerging readers through a familiar passage, slowly pointing to each word to keep every learner with you. While looking at a projected passage, scholars read one word at...

Help kindergartners learn to identify the main events in fiction. They will review elements of fiction, retell information found in the text, and discuss their real-life daily experiences. All the while, they will be asking themselves...

Use some of these 80-word passages to practice reading fluency with your beginners. Project the text so all learners can see it, pointing to each word as scholars recite them one at a time. Warn readers of irregularly spelled words by...