War affects much more than just soldiers. Lily and Albert in Lily's Crossing know that better than anyone as World War II affects both of them in different ways. Scholars use vocabulary words, answer questions, and work with literary...

Bring some music to your language arts lesson with a reading comprehension activity. Learners read an informational passage about different musical instruments before answering a series of comprehension and vocabulary questions.

Heroes appear in unexpected places. This is true about Hiccup, a character in How to Train Your Dragon. Scholars use a novel study to learn how a useless and weak dragon reveals his brilliance. The resource includes 10 new vocabulary...

An activity boosts reading comprehension by challenging scholars to answer questions about a narrative tale detailing elements—plot, characters, setting, theme, problem, and solution.

Accompany a reading of Dr. Seuss' tale, The Lorax, with a five-item learning exercise. Questions challenge scholars to list characters' names, use text details to answer inquiries, and describe the moral of the story. 

Julilly dreams of freedom after being taken from her mother by a slave trader. Will she ever be free again? A resource focuses on the first chapter of Barbara Smucker's book Underground to Canada, and includes 10 vocabulary...

The engaging story Rain School is further explored in the third lesson of a larger unit that explicitly teaches close reading skills by answering questions whose answers can only be found inside the text. Through teacher...

Third graders answer text-dependent questions of the story Nasreen's Secret School both independently and then collaboratively through using the carousel of questions strategy. This plan is the seventh instructional activity in a...

Prepare participants for a Socratic seminar by asking them to not only design questions for the discussion, but to also observe an assigned partner during the seminar. A great way to encourage student-led discussions.

Guide your class through a text with resources for before and after reading. Learners ask questions, discuss characters and plot points, point out elements of the reading that stood out, and compose brief summaries.

Looking to increase reading comprehension? Teach this lesson plan, which is flexible enough to use with either informational texts or with literature. Teams of boys and girls work together to answer a comprehension question after...

How does media convey different messages? Use this lesson to explore media by identifying and analyzing selected images. Middle schoolers analyze a poster and discuss the intended meaning of the imagery and how it makes them feel. They...

Reading and comprehending a poem is a lot different than doing the same for a piece of fiction or an informational text. As part of a sample English language arts examination, readers put their skills to the test by reading passages in...

Computer savvy kids construct a lift-the-flap poster to aid them in selecting appropriate search sites for research and information gathering. Through online observations, they record and compare the features of four children's search...

A unique writing lesson, this plan begins with learners talking about multiculturalism in small groups. Each learner will choose a picture from a newspaper, describe it to their small group, and think about how it relates to...

A video leads off this activity on fables, introducing the class to this important form of traditional storytelling. The group defines fable and hears an explanation of the origin of this type of folk tale. They summarize the story they...

Ask budding readers, "How do you make an apple pie?" You may get many answers, but Marjorie Priceman takes the cake with her idea in How to Make an Apply Pie and See the World, an adventurous tale full of wonder and new vocabulary....

Every neighborhood has its own unique cast of characters, and the crew in the novel Hello Universe is no exception. The characters in Erin Entrada Kelly's novel take center stage in a study guide based on the text....

Pictures often reveal different meanings. Scholars analyze the images in Eight Days and discuss how they add meaning to the text. Readers answers questions about how specific colors are used to create different emotions. Learners then...

Explore communication through media by analyzing different advertisements and artwork. Budding artists view videos, websites, plays, and other artistic endeavors while discussing the true meaning of the work with their classmates. They...

Teaching tools designed to support student-centered literature study. Geared toward homeschoolers reading Harper Lee's book To Kill a Mockingbird, I would use these in my classroom. The materials are applicable to any text: graphic...

Some things are better the second time around. Scholars reread an article about Hawaii's happy face spider, answering text-dependent questions as they read. Then, they use a Venn diagram to compare the text features of interviews and...

After reading about rural, urban, and suburban land use, readers respond to a series of comprehension questions using evidence from the provided passage.

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...