"I Like Plants" is a one page, realistic fiction, reading passage about a person who loves plants and became a botanist; now she teaches her college students about plants and ecology. It is followed by constructed-response questions...

Improve understanding of expository materials by getting the main ideas through paraphrasing. The paraphrasing strategy helps students recall the main ideas and specific facts of materials they read. There are three steps for teaching...

[Free Registration/Login Required] A set of two lesson plans designed to teach young scholars to use story elements to identify theme and to match a given theme to a story. Lessons are based on the book Aesop's Fables by Jerry Pinkney....

Research and ideas about using music, literature, and film to teach the theme of Faust selling his soul for knowledge and power.

[Free Registration/Login Required] A series of three lesson plans designed to teach students to identify author's purpose including to entertain, to inform, and to persuade. Lessons are based on the books The Adventures of Taxi Dog by...

[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about a program called Marathon Kids that is designed to teach children to be physically active. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.

A printable pyramid for use with nonfiction texts while students identify the main ideas and supporting details within a text. Students also determine author's purpose and key vocabulary words. Directions on how to use this type of...

Looking for an alternative to formal outline instruction? Power Thinking teaches the concept of outlining but on a somewhat simplified level. The site is good for basic note-taking from a text.

[Free Registration/Login Required] Use this read aloud lesson to teach concepts such as main idea, using pictures to gain information, and recount key details from an informational text. This lesson plan aligns with Common Core standards...

Pre-reading activities can engage student interest, activate prior knowledge, or pre-teach potentially difficult concepts and vocabulary. They also offer a great opportunity to introduce comprehension components such as cause and effect,...

Students will synthesize information from multiple historical fiction books to find common themes and support them with evidence from the text. Working with a partner who has read a different book, they will share their theme from their...

"I Like Plants" is a one page, realistic fiction, reading passage about a person who loves plants and became a botanist; now she teaches her college students about plants and ecology. It is followed by constructed-response questions...

"I Like Plants" is a one page, realistic fiction, reading passage about a person who loves plants and became a botanist; now she teaches her college students about plants and ecology. It is followed by constructed-response questions...

Tutorial on how to skim and scan text and the difference between them. For adult learners.

A fillable essay map in PDF format with boxes for an introduction, main ideas, supporting details, and a conclusion. Directions on how to use this type of graphic organizer as well as lists of teaching ideas and related resources are...

A Seed Discussion is a two-part strategy used to teach students how to engage in discussions about assigned readings. In the first part, students read selected text and identify "seeds" or key concepts of a passage which may need...

Teachers will engage young learners to understand how one story can be shared more than one way. This lesson demonstrates an historical interpretation of the story about Pocahontas and John Smith with the Disney movie. Several resources...

A printable narrative pyramid where students can record information about a story including the character, setting, problem, main events, and solution. Directions on how to use this type of graphic organize as well as lists of teaching...

Power Notes is a strategy that teaches students an efficient form of organizing information from assigned text. This technique provides students a systematic way to look for relationships within material they are reading. Power Notes...

Summarizing teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for a more concise understanding. Upon reading a passage, summarizing helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart helps to teach students how to retell main events from a story and sequence events.

Story Maps are used for teaching students to work with story structure for better comprehension. This technique uses visual representations to help students organize important elements of a story. Students learn to summarize the main...