Curated OER
Seeing Words in a New Way
What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...
Curated OER
Reciprocal Reading
The strategies associated with Reciprocal Reading are outlined in this language arts presentation. Pupils discover what it means to be the questioner, the summarizer, the predictor, and the clarifier. All four strategies lead to...
Curated OER
Build Masters: Identifying Details
Find key details in books using this note card strategy. Each reader gets six cards with the classic who, what, where, when, why, and how detail prompts. After they read the book, they choose a card and locate a key detail...
Curated OER
Homer's The Odyssey
Whether or not you are new to using The Odyssey with your classes, this publisher-produced teaching guide deserves a place in your curriculum library. The packet includes background information, chapter by-chapter summaries, study...
Curated OER
Happy Birthday!: Internet Research and Historic Events
Talk about intrinsic motivation! Begin where your learners' natural interests lie -- with themselves -- and launch a variety of projects with this activity. Class members research important events that took place on their...
Curated OER
Introducing Biographies - Getting to Know You
Students explore several different types of biographies to determine their area of interest, choose one notable person they would like to explore, complete online tutorial on biographies, and use written and Internet resources to...
Curated OER
Arkansas Photographs as Research Tools
Middle and high schoolers look at historical photos and written materials, and they develop questions which they use to interview an elder in their community. Learners are divided into groups and given sets of historical family photos...
Curated OER
Biographical Poems
Learners write a biographical poem about themselves. They observe a teacher-led demonstration, write an autobiographical poem and a biographical poem about a famous person using a template form, and display the poems side-by-side.
Curated OER
What Kind of Ladybug Are You?
As a class, read different sentences prepared by the teacher, identifying the punctuation that is needed for the appropriate expression. In small groups, have each child assume the role of one or more character in The Grouchy Ladybug by...
Curated OER
Mondrian - Primary/Secondary Color Study
Utilizing computer software, learners demonstrate the color spectrum. They investigate the life of the artist Piet Mondrian and define his style of artwork. Then they use Photoshop to recreate some of his designs while discovering the...
Curated OER
What's My Point: Persuasive Writing
Why do readers need to know an author’s purpose? How do you figure out what that purpose is? Guide your pupils through a series of activities that show them how to identify various techniques and structures used in persuasive writing....
Curated OER
American Flag History
Young historians explore US culture by investigating the US flag. They will use their textbooks, prior knowledge, and sources provided by the teacher to research the history of the American flag. They will design and create a trading...
Curated OER
Resources
Students are introduced to different context clues. In this context clues lesson, students analyze sentences to find the meaning of a word using context clues.
Curated OER
George's Place
Here is another in the interesting series of lessons that uses money as a learning tool. This one is especially clever! During the lesson, pupils pretend they are eating at "George's Place" diner. Small groups are given one bag of play...
Curated OER
What Makes a Novel a Novel?
They always say to write what you know. This approach is used to get middle schoolers prepared to write novels of their own. Using a favorite book as a model, potential novelists respond to prompts that ask about characters, plot, main...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Some Birthday! (Polacco)
Patricia Polacco weaves an engaging tale for budding readers in her book Some Birthday!, an excellent resource for vocabulary in context. You can use this text to introduce the following words: investigate, snarl, and squawk....
Curated OER
Semicolon vs. Colon...And What is a Comma Splice?
Designed originally for higher education, this PowerPoint could also be used to introduce your high schoolers to the semicolon, colon, and comma splice. The texts do not contain pictures or graphics; instead, they present information in...
Scholastic
Frindle Lesson Plan
"Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle?" Inspired by this quote from the award-winning novel written by Andrew Celements, this lesson allows children to invent their own...
Kathryn J. Davis
Abridged Short Vowel Spelling Workbook
Find 50 pages of worksheets to help emerging readers practice short vowel sounds using pictures, simple sentences, and word matching. They focus on CVC and two-letter words with short vowels.
Florida Center for Reading Research
Multiple Meaning Words in Context
Multiple meaning words is the focus of a lesson designed to reinforce the use of context clues. Scholars listen carefully to a variety of sentences using the words pool and cast to decide which definition best fits the...
University of North Carolina
Oral History
There's no better way to learn something than to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. A handout on oral history, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, explains how to conduct interviews and use the information...
Curated OER
Child Safety
Explore reading comprehension and child safety in this young adult literacy lesson. High schoolers practice using context clues to figure out word meanings after observing a teacher model this process. They read an article about child...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 5: Level 8
Why is an atlas called an atlas? Because it is named for the Greek Titan, Atlas, of course. Young readers learn all about Atlas and atlases in a short passage used as the basis of a reading comprehension exercise. After responding to...
Curated OER
Sentence Completion 11: Low-Advanced SAT Level
Context clues can be used to determine the meaning of unfamiliar works; likewise, they can be used to determine the correct answer on a sentence completion exercise. Using context clues is just one of the many strategies detailed in the...