Should schools continue to teach cursive writing? After reading and considering the merits of a series of arguments on both sides of this proposition, class members choose a side of the issue and craft their own argument, drawing support...

Using chapter 1 of Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed, middle schoolers write a personal memoir based on Spinelli's style and a Six Trait writing activity. The activity suggests several ways to activate prior knowledge, including a picture book...

Read to understand! Sounds great and your third graders will read to understand several interesting facts about Great Britain. They read, identify key details in the text, and write to answer five comprehension questions. Learning to...

Explore vocabulary by participating in a word fluency game! Utilize a deck of flash cards with irregular words printed on them to play a game. As they show each other the cards, they collect points for each word they sound out correctly.

There are 10 classroom words located at the top of this instructional activity. Kindergartners match the word to the object in the picture, they write that word on the line near that object. This is a great way for them to recognize...

Boris is the smartest baby around! Beginning readers can use this short story excerpt to practice reading comprehension and fiction elements. They read the story and then discuss what they think he will do next. Scholars create an...

Do you wish you could write poetry that makes people laugh? Now you can! Check out the first chapter in a poetry writing series that emphasizes the importance of connecting subject matter to a light, bouncy meter.

Fifth graders analyze a poem. In this poetry analysis lesson students read a poem, analyze it, and write a response. They write about their own thoughts on the poem's meaning and any feelings they have about the poem.

Help your young writers recognize the importance of composing formal letters. Middle schoolers read letters written by Thomas Jefferson and analyze the components that make it a formal letter.  They will then compose their own...

Whether you're preparing your class for upcoming state testing, or you're giving them opportunities to practice different reading strategies, this packet is useful. High schoolers read the passage (one page in length) and complete the 10...

Charles Dickens offers an excellent example of sensory writing in this reading comprehension learning exercise. Learners read excerpts from the novel Hard Times in which he describes the New England industrial city of Coketown....

Why don't dinosaurs wander the earth any longer? Answer this fascinating question with young readers as they examine a brief informational text. There are bolded words to separate text sections which are an excellent example of...

The beauty in this resource is the lengthy list of highly charged, controversial-issue research topics. Categories include issues of race, politics, law, environment, education, athletics, gender, and technology. After selecting a topic,...

Choose a side! Pupils watch and read several nonfiction resources about zoos. After gathering their research, they choose a side either for or against closing zoos. Scholars complete KWL charts, anticipation guides, flow charts, and...

After reading on the topic of their paper, high schoolers work in pairs to assess how to write powerful, precise thesis statements. The introduction contains three statements: a universal statement, a bridge statement, and a thesis...

Help your middle-schoolers expand their writing skills with this lesson on episodic writing, which focuses on story details, idea development, and organization. After reading "The Eighth Picture: End of Summer" from Patricia Reilly...

Fluency is crucial to reading success. This lesson provides a great technique for increasing fluency. Using Inspiration or Garage Band, learners record themselves reading a passage at their reading level and repeat the process to monitor...

Increased reading comprehension begins with decoding and automatically recognizing words, which is the focus of this instruction. Using their choice of six different Winnie the Pooh stories, partners practice a variety of strategies...

Review the narrative writing process with your emerging story writers. They read a sample narrative and identify five vague verbs that could be replaced with a more exact, exciting verb. Then they write a personal narrative making sure...

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...

Learning to read is not a simple task, but there are methods for assisting pupils as they develop literacy skills. The first four pages of this resource include information about language development and reading development, as well as...

From A to Z, learners define, draw, and find examples of specific reading focus skills in an alphabetized reading vocabulary packet. Words include dialogue, theme, text structure, genre, paraphrase, and many more.

Why do readers need to know an author’s purpose? How do you figure out what that purpose is? Guide your pupils through a series of activities that show them how to identify various techniques and structures used in persuasive writing....

Scholars take a popular song or nursery rhyme and make it their own as they write a fractured nursery rhyme. Writers seek out a nursery rhyme's rhyming words and change them to create an original poem.