Curated OER
6th Grade: Express Yourself, Lesson 2: Close Read
The second instructional activity of a pair about Paul Laurence Dunbar, this plan focuses in particular on his poem, "We Wear the Masks." After a short historical introduction, class members conduct a series or readings, marking up the...
Odell Education
Reading Closely For Textual Details: Grade 8
Only a thorough understanding of history can save us from repeating it. Practice close reading skills with an eighth grade unit that focuses on 19th century America, including European immigration into Ellis Island and Frederick...
Curated OER
Setting Goals Project
For this goal-setting worksheet, teachers communicate with parents an effective strategy for achieving success. Teachers, parents and learners work together to set personal goals and discuss how they will be accomplished.
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Purpose for Reading
Do you agree? Set up three stations in your room for this reading comprehension activity: I agree, I disagree, and I'm not sure. Learners listen to statements and walk to the sign that best describes their response. Model this with an...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: Grade 7
Enhance the reading experience with a set of lessons designed to improve textual analysis. Seventh graders use guiding questions to read both informational text and literature closely in the first part of the unit. Next, they work on...
Novelinks
Touching Spirit Bear: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
What experiences lead people to change and how do they do it? After reading about Cole's encounter with Touching Spirit Bear, readers complete the second out of a series of five activities to predict future events in the text. The...
Novelinks
Tuck Everlasting: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
Encourage close reading for young learners with a lesson based on Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting. The first part of the resource guides readers through a Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA), prompting them to make predictions...
Curated OER
Author's Purpose Lesson Plans
Why do we practice identifying the author's purpose? Read this article to gain a better understanding of this reading strategy, and then peruse the attached lesson plans!
Ideas From Suzi
Guided Reading: Beyond the Basics
Elevate children's reading comprehension skills with this collection of guided reading resources. From paper dice with basic comprehension questions printed on them to a system for using sticky notes to identify key parts of a story,...
University of Texas
Essential Reading Strategies for the Struggling Reader
Beneficial for beginning readers, struggling readers, and those in need of review, a set of language arts activities is a great addition to any foundational reading unit. Focusing on phonological awareness, fluency, instructional...
Curated OER
Reading For Information
To help learners better comprehend informational texts, they work through a series of activities. They discuss strategies, make predictions, skim passages, focus on key words, and practice taking notes. This lesson focuses on what to do...
Federal Reserve Bank
Beatrice’s Goat: A Lesson on Savings Goals
Youngsters learn the meaning of saving and how to reach savings goals by first reading a story of a young Ugandan girl who is gifted a goat, and then discovering the opportunity costs of savings decisions made by her and her family.
Curated OER
Reading For Meaning
Select an article that explores people of another culture. After reading it as a class, distribute copies of this worksheet. It asks for a brief summary, encourages readers to make text-to-self connections, and asks learners to identify...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: Grade 6
Close reading doesn't mean to literally read text close to your face, but rather to pay attention to particular details in order to develop a deep and purposeful understanding of text. The first part of a five-part resource provides an...
Curated OER
Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!
The Apaches: People of the Southwest offers readers a chance to employ the “Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!” strategy (an adaptation of the KWL) to test what they know and summarize what they learn as they read Jennifer Fleischner’s nonfiction...
Curated OER
Author's Purpose
Find the author's purpose in this review worksheet. Fourth graders read each of the three following paragraphs and decide whether the author's purpose is to persuade, inform, or entertain. You could use this activity as a class...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 11: Setting
Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...
Polk Bros Foundation
Comprehensive Nonfiction Reading Questions
Analyze any nonfiction text with the set of questions on this sheet. Class members practice inferring by noting the main idea and purpose of a passage. They also analyze an opinion in the passage and write a brief summary. See the...
Curated OER
Poetry Connection: After Reading Strategy for Fever 1793
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/And treat those two impostors just the same. . .” After concluding Fever 1793 class members engage in a reading strategy that asks them to connect their thoughts about the self-reliance theme in...
Illustrative Mathematics
Setting Goals
Setting financial goals is a common occurrence in middle school that your learners can practice using this activity. They will be able to solve for how many hours Seth needs to work to save up for a skateboard, helmet, and trip. The...
National Math + Science Initative
Reading an Informational Text: "It All Started with Sputnik"
Sputnik was one of the greatest scientific advancements of the 1950s, and this reading lesson does it justice. Pupils start off with pre-reading questions and a video. They then read an excerpt from an article, which is accompanied by...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 6 Close Reading
Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...
Have Fun Teaching
Identifying Author's Purpose
The multi-lesson, 47-page packet contains everything you need to ensure kids can recognize the clues provided to identify the type of text, the intended audience, and the author's purpose in writing the passage.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Grade 4 Reading Item Specifications
Is it the end of the school year and you're in need of test practice? Use a set of reading passages to challenge fourth graders to answer questions based on what they read. Some of the questions require readers to compare and contrast a...