Explore the life inside trees as scholars learn vocabulary through Debbie Miller's informational text Are Trees Alive? Familiarize pupils with the new words they will hear like anchor, disease, awaken,...

Learn new words as you read Marc Brown's story, Arthur's New Puppy. This is focused as a vocabulary-in-context activity (though this strategy could be used with any book and set of words). Introduce the new words you will focus on:...

Take your budding readers on a literary trip to pick blueberries as they learn vocabulary from Robert McClosky's book, Blueberries for Sal. By pre-teaching the words pupils are prepared to raise their hands when they hear...

Clifford the Big Red Dog is here to introduce some new vocabulary terms in context to young readers. Although this activity is designed around Norman Bridwell's picture book, the strategies are applicable for any text. Introduce the new...

Build reading fluency and classroom community with a Reader’s Theater activity. Class groups select a myth, or if part of a myth writing unit, select a group member’s myth, craft a script, and perform for the class. Directions for...

It's no masquerade! If Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera is part of your curriculum, check out this three-page packet loaded with suggestions for before, during, and after reading activities.

Pre-readers need to build a foundation of word recognition using visual worksheets like this one. They examine six simple words accompanied by pictures, circling each word. See if pupils know what each word is, using the pictures as...

How can people better understand the human rights that are guaranteed to children around the world? Pupils attempt to answer the question with the second of two lessons explaining the Introduction to the Convention on the Rights of the...

Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act II, Scenes I and II) lacks explicit details of the murder of King Duncan, yet the author creates an atmosphere that allows us to visualize the event. Readers interpret the "Dagger Speech" by writing stage...

Present your class with an overview of poetry-related information. The slides are clearly organized by topic, starting with reading poetry, ending with myths, and touching on everything from the five senses to open and closed forms of...

Fourth graders listen to The Bear's Toothache and illustrate the story in their minds.  In this visualization lesson, 4th graders draw pictures of what they hear in a read aloud.  Students discuss their pictures and...

Learners explore reading. In this visualization instructional activity, students practice, creating images in their minds while listening to the story The Vegetables Go To Bed, by Christopher King. They listen to the story and then draw...

Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...

Celebrate Opposite Day by using a Visual Thesaurus to match words to their antonyms. They match a list of vocabulary words to their antonym counterparts using the Visual Thesaurus, and then they play Antonym Bingo with the words from...

"Plot the plot" of "The Adventures of the Speckled Band" with your young readers. Take a few days to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story as a class or in pairs, having learners write down what they consider to be the most important...

Learners focus on plot and sequence as they read the story Sheila Rae, The Brave by Kevin Henkes. The entire class will follow along with the teacher as she reads and models her thinking about the plot of the story. When instruction...

Pre-readers benefit from visual context clues like the ones in this rhyme worksheet. There are two sets of objects here, and scholars connect objects on the left with their rhyming counterparts on the right. Each word has the vowel...

Sorting big and small objects builds spacial reasoning classification, and visual discrimination skills. Your class will read a story about big and small bubbles, practice identifying big and small objects, then sort big and small balls...

After examining a piece of art, scholars discuss what they see, paying close attention to details and space. A read-aloud introduces the topic of family traditions. Pupils interview their family members about a tradition in preparation...

What do the words van, man, and pan have in common? The /an/ sound! Reinforce this target sound with this resource, intended for an audience with autism or other special needs. Your learners will see an image and the corresponding word,...

Here is a great learning task that focuses on the development of areas in computational fluency including strategies in mental math. Young learners are guided through a list of addition expressions that help them visually understand the...

I survived! Scholars read a firsthand account from a natural disaster survivor in the text Save Bella! They record the gist of the text in their journals and answer text-dependent questions. They then take notes to more deeply analyze...

Elementary and middle schoolers research animal facts and use them in a fable. First, they pair-share to find animal traits to use in writing a fable. They then complete a prewriting worksheet. After going through the writing process,...

What rhymes with fox? Get learners engaged with rhyming words through this drawing worksheet featuring four single-syllable words for beginning readers. For each, they draw something that rhymes with the word. Challenge learners who need...