Learners read given information and identify the main ideas and specific detail of the story. In groups, they read a historical title and create a "book talk" for each one, summarizing the story. In addition, students create a...

Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...

Apply reading standards to your science curriculum by asking pupils to complete this guide. Individuals note down important vocabulary as well as two ideas they learned and two supporting facts for each idea. They then take this...

If you are reading works by Walter Dean Myers in your class, this resource might be worth a look. Included here are activities and discussion questions for Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary, Somewhere in the Darkness, Scorpions, Fallen...

If readers don't understand key portions of a text, it may seem more like a foe than a friend. The second resource in a series of three ESL lessons designed to accompany the texts in Nature: Friend or Foe makes the texts easier to...

Scholars watch Developing a Vital Resource for Canadians and the World to learn about the supplement potash that helps plants grow. They watch the video several times, completing a note catcher to record key ideas along the way....

John Knowles' A Separate Peace provides readers with an opportunity to develop their close reading and analytical skills as they look for what Knowles feels are the factors that shape our identity.

Scholars examine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and analyze the ideas in the preamble. Readers define new vocabulary words, listen to a Masterful Reading, answer questions in pairs, participate in a jigsaw discussion, and...

Yes. Make up your mind to use this reading comprehension resource with your readers. You need not be nervous, not even a little nervous. An answer sheet is provided.

It's time for scholars to be on their own. Individuals work independently reviewing sources to answer their research questions. Learners read "Are Your Clothes Made in Sweatshops?" to help complete the mid-unit assessment. After...

It's all in the details. Scholars read acts two and three of The Hero's Journey and collect important details from the text. They share their notes with their peers and listen for key words from the story. They then turn their attention...

Learn how to summarize by identifying main ideas and supporting details. Readers cross out unimportant information as they read through a text. Is it a random detail? Cross it out! They then draw a concept map, placing the main idea in...

Whether or not your class is reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, you can use this exercise as the basis of a mini-lesson on how to determine the main idea of a passage or as a pre-test to assess mastery of the skill. A graphic...

Practice the strategy of summarizing to gain meaning and knowledge from an informational text. Young readers highlight supporting details and main ideas, and then they use this to summarize two articles: "The Great Quake" and "What...

Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the...

A mid-unit assessment challenges scholars to use their close reading skills to identify the main idea and key details. After reading a brief excerpt, learners answer a series of questions—multiple-choice, short answer—complete a graphic...

Encourage your students to interact with the text as they read. While reading "Three Skeleton Key," class members note predictions, define words and study their meanings, take notes on how the suspense builds, and jot down ideas...

Readers are asked to identify the main idea and two supporting ideas in a brief passage about the Louisiana Purchase.

Help scholars comprehend a challenging text. Using the resource, pupils read excerpts from an article about the digital revolution and adolescent brain development. As they read, they answer text-dependent questions and complete a close...

Class members consider how technology affects social interactions as they continue reading an article about the digital revolution and adolescent brain development. Then, working in pairs, scholars answer text-dependent questions and...

It's time to level up and discover how video games affect the brain. Pupils explore the topic as they continue reading excerpts from an article about adolescent brain development and the digital revolution. Scholars also participate in a...

Spots the barn cat is the subject of this colorful learning exercise. Young learners demonstrate their ability to identify the main idea in a written passage by reading a short passage about Spots and responding to the prompt asking them...

Reading is fantastic, especially when it's reading about bullfrogs. Kids get cozy with predator/prey relationships as they hone their information-reading skills. They start out as they read a portion of the text aloud, then they...

Acquaint your class with informational text through a close reading. First, examine a couple of pages together, looking at text features and content. The whole class focuses on marking down a brief summary of each paragraph before...