Young readers test their comprehension skills with an interactive practice. Pupils read a brief informational text about money then answer five questions. A detailed page appears at the end to showcase participants' work.

How can learners evaluate research sources for authority, accuracy, and credibility? By completing readings, discussions, and graphic organizers, scholars learn how to properly evaluate sources to find credible information. Additionally,...

In this comprehensive unit, students launch their learning about birds by using informational texts. As students read these texts, they build background knowledge and develop their skills as readers of informational texts. Included are...

These teacher resources focuses on why it is important to teach elementary students to determine the importance and to summarize informational text. It leads an activity to help teachers experience when and how we use these strategies.

A learning module that teaches students about using text features to guide reading in three mini lessons: Engaging with Text, Literary Think-Aloud, and Informational Think-Aloud. Download a PDF with lesson plans and printable handouts...

This module provides strategies to use with informational text. Teachers will explicitly teach students about graphic organizers to use before reading informtational texts.

This lesson uses the book Explorers of North America - A True Book by Brendan January to teach students how to identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph informational text and specific paragraphs within the text. Students are guided...

This lesson focuses on using precise language in informative texts. It defines precise text and discusses how to use precise language. W.9-10.2d lang/voc, W.11-12.2d Lang/Fig/Voc

[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson uses Bats by Gail Gibbons to teach students how to identify facts learned from labeled diagrams within an informational text. Ideas for direct teaching, guided practice, and independent practice...

This strategy guide introduces an approach for making students aware of cognates (words that have a similar spelling, pronunciation, and meaning across languages) in content-area texts. This guide includes an introductory section about...

In this tutorial, you'll learn about the copyright protections that apply to work posted online, including images, text, videos, and more. You'll also learn about the rules that determine which of these resources you can use, and how you...

This lesson is a great small group reading lesson that has a social studies connection. In this lesson, students will be comparing and contrasting schools from long ago and schools of today using informational texts. Included are...

Learn how to use context clues to help you define precise vocabulary words that you may not know.

For this lesson, 6th graders use details from a nonfiction article to create a visual representation and then, from that visual, provide evidence that demonstrates their understanding of the text. Includes samples of student work and...

In this instructional activity, through guided practice, the students use two texts about Martin Luther King to compare the similarities and differences between those texts. Includes videos of the instructional activity in action,...

A short explanation of how to use explicit details in an informational text to make inferences. Click on Model at the bottom right to see a model with examples.

Here's a project where you can try your hand at being a detective with your computer. In this project you'll write a program to do some basic analysis of features of written text (for example, counting the length of each word in the...

Compare the printed page to an electronic web page and use this activity to discuss the similarities and differences. A cross-curricular tie-in with ecosystems. Could easily be adapted to another subject area.

Sequencing is an important skill for kindergarten students. This lesson uses nonfiction texts to allow students to make a real-life connection to the skill of sequencing and learn about the plant cycle at the same time! Included are...

This instructional activity uses graphic organizers to engage students in reading comprehension strategies for informational text in science. Venn Diagram, Hierarchy, Time Line, Cluster Diagram, and Flow Chart reproducible pages are...

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will expand on your ability to read texts, synthesize them, and make choices based on the information you read. Finally, you will learn how to use textual...

Knowing how to engage in signature scientific acts, such as formulating questions and using evidence in arguments is an important part of science learning. This InfoBrief from the National Center for Technology Innovation offers more...

Students identify text features in nonfiction, as they continue to study cells' function as building blocks of organisms, and summarize the requirements for cells to live.

Use this Field Guide to Birds from the PBS Kids series Molly of Denali to identify and learn more about birds in your neighborhood. Then seek out additional information and create your own pages to add to Molly's guide.