Encourage your readers to make connections between texts with this resource. After compiling notes for each text read (you choose the texts), groups craft skits in which major characters from each text meet. There is a rubric for the...

To help learners better comprehend informational texts, they work through a series of activities. They discuss strategies, make predictions, skim passages, focus on key words, and practice taking notes. This lesson focuses on what to do...

Reinforce comprehension of informational text. This is a one-on-one lesson plan intended to build an internal dialogue the reader can use to boost overall comprehension. They work independently with a tutor or teacher to read a...

Fifth graders read a book.  In this informational text features instructional activity, 5th graders define captions and their purpose.  Students view an article and discuss the graphic aides that assist comprehending the...

Based on Alex Haley's moving essay "My Furthest Back Person: The African," these 11 questions support comprehension and prepare readers for discussion of the text. Use this tool, and the essay, as a nonfiction addition to units on...

Your budding readers know what it's like to get to a word and think, "What does that mean?" Expand their vocabulary in context using Christopher Mitten's nonfiction picture book Firefighters. Get them ready by pre-teaching the new...

The loggerhead turtle is a fascinating species, and budding readers learn all about it in Nicola Davies' account One Tiny Turtle. This informational narrative offers excellent vocabulary in context, and you'll...

Show your class how to read a map and decipher all of the markings and features. Start out by connecting maps to their homework from the night before and their current reading, in this case That Book Woman, and a related informational...

Exercise phonemic awareness of the vowel /a/ to help children become successful readers. They connect spoken phonemes to written grapheme's and create a relationship between the vocal gesture of /a/ and its grapheme map in text and words.

Scholars demonstrate their learning with an end-of-unit assessment. They work independently to discuss the Golden Rule and its relationship in To Kill a Mockingbird.

A theme runs through it. Scholars analyze how a common theme runs through the myths they have read and The Lightning Thief. They complete graphic organizers and view a four paragraph model essay. They analyze the essay for structure and...

Engage conversation and explore the journey as you challenge young readers to interpret the german folktale, "The Fisherman and His Wife" written by literary brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Theodore Roosevelt's "The Man in the Arena" speech not only provides individuals with a chance to develop their reading skills but also provides much food for thought about current political situations. Cynics, fops, and...

“So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us.” Our Town is used as the text in a Common Core exemplar that examines the dramatic and...

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a comic strip combines both images and words for the ultimate narrative effect. After reading The Three Little Pigs and deciphering the plot elements, elementary readers work through four...

Focus on chapter two of Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science with a questioning activity. After teaching and modeling several types of questions, learners work with partners and then independently to answer and...

Do you like music? Have your youngsters read We Play Music, practicing select reading strategies, like using picture clues to determine new words. Then, after their first independent read, have them re-read the story to a...

Prior to reading Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members are presented with a problematic situation and to rate their responses as well as predict the responses of a character from the novel.

Muhammad Ali was the greatest, as he'd tell you himself. A set of reading comprehension worksheets walks through parts of Ali's life and promotes individuals to become good readers and writers.

Puff the Magic Dragon remains a childhood landmark for budding readers (and singers), but did you know it also makes an excellent vocabulary study? By focusing on several in-text words (in this case: billow, cease, fearless,...

If your class is reading A Day at the Apple Orchard by Megan Faulkner, be sure to use this guide for vocabulary in context. Go over the orchard-related terms (cycle, harvest, orchard, pollen, and ripen) before reading...

Ask budding readers, "How do you make an apple pie?" You may get many answers, but Marjorie Priceman takes the cake with her idea in How to Make an Apply Pie and See the World, an adventurous tale full of wonder and new vocabulary....

Though the discrete content here is a pair of New York Times articles about a 1998 military strike on Iraq and the coincident impeachment by the House of Representatives of then-President Clinton, this detailed plan for creating,...