Students discover basic concepts of print. In this early literacy lesson plan, students discover basic high frequency words. Students make predictions as they read. Cross-curricular activities provided.

Students improve their reading skills by completing at home reading assignments. In this reading skills lesson, students participate in a bulletin board competition to help them track and progress with their daily reading. Students...

Ease your class into reading Running Out of Time by first reading The Boy Who Stopped Time, a picture book with some similar concepts and themes. After a reading of the story, learners participate in a discussion and journaling exercise.

Chief Seatle's "Letter to President Pierce, 1855" provides the text for a skills exercise that asks readers to consider how writers use metaphors to contribute to the meaning and impact of a work. Participants then apply what they have...

Singing is a great way to reinforce memorization and reading skills. Read the song while showing the associated images, talk about each picture, show the image while the song is playing to reinforce the word to sound connection. This...

Connect poetry to a naturally kid-friendly topic: ghosts! Draw on your class's prior knowledge of the paranormal to help them access the classic poem "Haunted House" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. After a fun warm-up activity describing...

This reading guide poses questions at the beginning, middle, and end of the reading of Ethan Frome. Readers focus on the setting, conflict, and resolution presented in the novel. 

Listening is a skill, and with the help of the communication activities in this packet, class members improve their active listening skills. 

Eighth grades can master the ELA Common Core standards! Show your learners the connection between classroom activities and assignments and the standards with this set of "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been rewritten as an...

Readers of Orson Scott Card's award-winning science fiction novel, Ender's Game use the provided KWL worksheet to list what they already know about war, what they think they will learn in reading the book, the new information they...

Tired of those blank stares after your class reads a particularly complex passage from a Shakespearean play? Help high schoolers untangle that prose with a literature circle activity. Ten different roles prompt class members to focus on...

What is a white elephant, and what does it have to do with Ernest Hemingway? Study "Hills Like White Elephants" in-depth by following the procedures outlined in this lesson, the fifth in a series of fourteen. Learners start the day with...

A lot of secrecy shrouded the creation of the atomic bomb. Readers uncover some of that secrecy using an educator's guide for the novel The Green Glass Sea. Three weeks of lesson plans feature discussion questions and reading...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

Chapter nine of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath provides the text for an exercise that asks readers to think deeply about the items the Joads left behind and what these items might represent.

The Grapes of Wrath. The Jungle. Native Son. The Things They Carried. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. To address a current social, political, economic, or environmental issue, class groups pair the reading of a...

"Eneke the bird says since men have learnt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without perching." As part of their study of Things Fall Apart, class members read Paul Hernadi and Francis Steen's essay, "The Tropical Landscapes...

Prior to reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, spark engagement, and step into the shoes of Charlotte Doyle through this guided imagery activity focusing on adventure and the emotions that may be felt along...

If you were stranded on a desert island, what items would be the most important to have with you? Decide whether you'd want a five gallon can of water, a radio, shark repellent, or any other item with an activity designed to prepare kids...

Class members conclude their reading of The House on Mango Street with an assignment that asks them to compose letters to characters using their own voices or that of another character in Cisneros' story.

What are the three most important items for survival? Readers of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, ponder this question individually and share their list with a group, that must then reach consensus on the three most...

Readers of Paradise Lost draw parallels between Milton's tale and Gene Zion's Harry the Dirty Dog, an illustrated children's book.

A reader's journal can help pupils comprehend, connect to, and remember a text. Have them follow the prompts here to write journal entries for any literary text.

Get in touch with the emotional side of writing by reading Words By Heart. The writing assignment helps learners make personal connections with the text and hone their writing skills by exploring a time that they had to forgive...