What fun! As part of a vocabulary exercise designed for Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida readers create word trees with the trunk representing the root word and the branches representing prefixes that can be added to the...

Students read books with younger children, incorporating context clues and vocabulary aids as reading strategies to help the younger children learn to read. They discuss the concept of community capital and how this activity relates.

Fifth graders use context clues to help them understand unknown words. In this context clues lesson, 5th graders practice identifying context clues on a worksheet, then work with a peer to write their own story. Stories are peer edited...

Third graders increase reading strategies while learning about Abigail Adams and her role in history. In this Abigail Adams lesson, 3rd graders read about the American Revolution and Abigail Adams using all the balanced literacy...

Students view the AMERICAN MASTERS film "Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied" and research him using the Guided Reading strategy. They examine the influential musician's childhood and trace his journey from the Mississippi Delta to...

Students watch the Lon Chaney episode of American Masters, read chapters from three original books on which Chaney's films were based, and use a reading strategy called Reader's Theater to adapt each chapter into a script. After...

High schoolers develop reading strategies: inferring meaning from context. They work together in order to negotiate the meaning of the various vocabulary items. Students predict the personality of the main character in each of the books.

Students analyze how successful job seekers got their jobs and consider which strategies they might use. They access stories about young adults who have successfully mainstreamed into the world of work.

Young scholars read The Tell Tale Heart and practice critical analysis while reflecting on its underlying meanings. In this reading lesson, students make predictions, monitor their own comprehension and adjust their reading accordingly....

Readers need to understand how their personal view point may differ or change how they see the view point found in a written text. Third graders read two informational pieces and fill out a graphic organizer to help them differentiate...

Students will create a fictional narrative based on the cover of a picture book provided by the teacher. In this narrative writing lesson students incorporate all story elements and use strategies to engage the reader.

Students participate in several activities using a reading partner. They plan and organize reading meetings with their partner, and then review story elements by retelling the stories orally. The partners question each other and make...

Fourth graders read THe Secret School. In this language arts lesson plan, 4th graders make predictions prior to reading and discussing the story. Students write a summary of the chapter.

Students practice reading for the gist of a text, improving reading speed, and fostering interest in reading authentic texts. They explore the use of figurative language.

Students read and take notes from Notes from the Trail. In this reading fluency lesson, students read back and share their notes finding 7-10 new words. Students define, write an unrelated sentence and present.

Introduce the themes of Fever 1793 and determine your class members’ level of background knowledge with an anticipation guide for Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel about the yellow fever epidemic that swept Philadelphia. For each prompt,...

As part of their study of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie, class groups examine passages from the story and respond to a series of QAR questions.

To launch a reading of The Dark is Rising, the second novel in Susan Cooper's award winning contemporary fantasy novel sequence for young adults, class members engage in a guided imagery exercise that asks them to visualize the...

Discuss the reading comprehension strategy of summarization with your elementary schoolers! They read a chapter from their social studies textbook, Regions Near and Far, and create a map, or word web, for the chapter. They identify...

Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage provides the text for a reading comprehension activity that asks class members to develop questions based on the novel.

Encourage close reading of the text and a focus on how Sandra Cisneros' develops her characters with an activity that asks teams to sort, group, and label character descriptions from The House on Mango Street.

To set the stage for reading Paradise Lost, class members compete an anticipation guide containing statements that connect to themes in Milton's epic poem.

Should companies be able to build wherever they want? Are animals worth protecting? Explore the literary themes from Carl Hiaasen's Hoot with an anticipation guide. Kids read ten statements and decide if they agree or disagree, then...

Cover Freytag's Triangle and examine Anton Chekhov's "The Bet" in this third lesson plan in a series of fourteen based around short stories. Learners take a quiz and discuss Freytag's triangle. They apply the triangle to "The Bet" and...