National Center for Families Learning
The Summer Fun Summer Learning Dramatic and Story Reading Unit
What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...
Curated OER
Beginning Daily Activities Unit
Begin each day with a warm-up that has ELLs focusing their minds on a skill that will be taught that day. Focusing on verbs, each daily lesson reinforces study and self-management skills, helps learners become proficient in working with...
ReadWriteThink
Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising
Commercial advertising—we can't get away from it, but do we realize just how often we are being advertised to? With this lesson, scholars analyze mass media to identify how its techniques influence our daily lives. Learners browse...
Museum of Tolerance
Influence of Media
We are bombarded with media images expressly designed to influence viewers. Learning how to analyze the intended effects of these images is essential and the focus of an activity that asks viewers to use the provided questions to guide...
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Rocks
A Reading Adventure Pack focuses on rocks. Scholars participate in three activities after reading a fiction and nonfiction text—The Jade Stone, a Chinese folktale adapted by Caryn Yacowitz, and Rocks in His Head by Carol Otis Hurst....
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: The Snowy Day
Scholars listen to a read-aloud of fiction and nonfiction books, The Snowy Day, written and illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats, and Snow Is Falling, written by Franklyn Branley and illustrated by Holly Keller, then take part in four creative...
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Farms
A Reading Adventure Pack features a fiction and nonfiction text—The Oxcart Man by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney and Farming by Gail Gibbons. Following the readings, scholars make a collage showcasing foods farmed from...
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: The Lorax
Accompany a reading of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and Tell Me, Tree by Gail Gibbons with an activity packet designed to bring awareness to nature, specifically trees. Scholars take to the outside, draw lines to create trees reminiscent of...
Read Write Think
Poetry Portfolios: Using Poetry to Teach Reading
Over the course of five periods, scholars create a poetry portfolio. They begin with a reading of the poem, Firefly. With a focus on vocabulary, learners reread the poem then look for sight words and other skills.
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Bees
A Reading Adventure pack explores the busy life of bees. After reading a fiction and nonfiction text, scholars complete three hands-on activities. Participants invent a robot that can do the work of bees, cheers to hardworking bees with...
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Environment
A fiction and nonfiction text, The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry and I See a Kookaburra! Discovering Animal Habitats Around the World by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page begins a learning experience in...
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Time
An activity packet explores the concept of time. First, scholars read two stories—The Very Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle and Telling Time: How to Tell Time on Digital and Analog Clocks! by Jules Older, illustrated by Megan Halsey....
Curated OER
Student Opinion: What Do You Read, and How Do You Read It?
Stimulate discussion with this brief article and series of questions related to reading habits. This resource, from the New York Times' The Learning Network, asks learners to comment on their own reading habits. You could have your class...
Curated OER
Nutrition and the Media: Cereal Box Consumerism
How many treats do you buy each week? Learners investigate diets and how the media tricks consumers into purchasing unhealthy snacks. They will investigate the designs and logos affiliated with cereal boxes and identify specific phrases...
Social Media Toolbox
Social Media Usage
Is there a difference in the way organizations present news via social media and in print? The third in a series of 16 lessons from The Social Media Toolbox explores news outlets and their delivery methods. Groups follow a story for a...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Fluency: Connected Text, Recorded Reading
Scholars listens to a story on headphones while he reads along with a visual text using intonation, correct pacing, and fluency.
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 1
Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...
Nemours KidsHealth
Media Literacy and Health: Grades 6-8
Internet suffers could drown in the volume of information available on line. Here's an activity that can be a lifeline and buoy confidence in middle schoolers' ability to find reliable information and credible sources. After reading...
Arizona Department of Education
Be Independent / Life Management Skills
Living independently is about more than managing money. Learn how to manage time, balance responsibilities, and calculate overtime and income with a set of activities about life management skills.
Florida Center for Reading Research
Fluency: Words, Word Relay
Peers take turns timing each other for one minute and reading as many high-frequency cards as possible.
Florida Center for Reading Research
Fluency: Words, Fast Match
Here is an interesting take on the old timed-fluency activity. In pairs, learners work together to see how fast they can read two sets of high-frequency words. Peer one reads a word from his list; peer two works fast to find that word in...
K5 Learning
George Washington and His Hatchet
America has a long history of presidents with an affinity for the truth, from Honest Abe to George Washington and his cherry tree. A short passage features Washington's infamous hatchet and confession, and includes four comprehension...
Curriculum Corner
Sports of All Sorts
Do your students love sports? Do they love math and reading? If the first answer is yes and the second is no, a resource with sports-themed math and literacy games may change their minds! Learners move through stations to practice...
Texas Center for Learning Disabilities
Second-Grade Comprehension-Based Intervention
Help your youngsters find meaning in the text they read with this series of five intervention lessons. Offering explicit, step-by-step instructions for walking children through shared readings of leveled books, these...