Tired of those blank stares after your class reads a particularly complex passage from a Shakespearean play? Help high schoolers untangle that prose with a literature circle activity. Ten different roles prompt class members to focus on...

Teach your class about Helen Keller and her accomplishments with a reading comprehension lesson based on A Picture Book of Helen Keller by David A. Adler. As individuals read, they answer discussion questions about Helen Keller...

Prior to reading Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members are presented with a problematic situation and to rate their responses as well as predict the responses of a character from the novel.

Teach your class about the ways they can befriend and understand people who are different from them with a reading comprehension lesson. As youngsters read Taking Down Syndrome to School by Jenna Glatzer, they answer a...

Before beginning The Grapes of Wrath, readers create a KWHL chart recording what they already know about the Dust Bowl, the author, and the book, what they want to know, and where they might find answers to these questions. After reading...

Inspire scholars to do their part for planet Earth with a read-aloud of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, and variety of activities designed to boost the environmental activist in us all. Activities include writing poems about the Earth,...

West of the West's documentary Arlington Springs Man and a two-page scientific article about the same topic provide the text for a reading comprehension exercise that asks individuals to craft a one page summary of information gathered...

Every time you make a choice, it prevents another option from taking shape. Spend some time analyzing "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost with a reading activity that includes four discussion questions that recall evidence from the text.

This worksheet calls for young scientists to create a diagram of a butterfly's life cycle and then answer a series of short-answer and fill-in -the-blank questions. The questions are broken down by the stages of a butterfly's life cycle:...

Prepare class members for formative assessments of student thinking in reading (FAST-R) with a resource that compares Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Sympathy" and Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird." Readers respond to 10 multiple choice questions and...

What is Labor Day, and why do we celebrate it? Find out using an online scavenger hunt in which pupils search one website to locate information and answer a series of five short-answer questions. 

Reinforce reading comprehension with a instructional activity about The Archer and the Sun, a Chinese folktale. Kids learn some background information about Chinese culture before reading the story, and answer literacy...

Why do authors write? Practice determining the author's purpose with a categorizing activity. Learners sort twelve short passages into three categories: persuade, inform, and entertain.

It's no masquerade! If Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera is part of your curriculum, check out this three-page packet loaded with suggestions for before, during, and after reading activities.

Honor Dr. Seuss on his birthday with a read aloud of the story Oh! the Places You'll Go! and a variety of activities that inspire scholars to dream of their future endeavors. Readers take part in conversations, research the...

After reading an informational text detailing the ins and outs of snowflakes, scholars draw their own special design then work cooperatively to role play a snowman building scenario. 

Take a journey to India with a read aloud of The Drum: A Folktale from India by Rob Cleveland. Make connections to the story's theme by building and practicing drums, role playing story characters, and practicing skills in phonics, math,...

The Little Red Hen is a wonderful story to teach youngsters about the value of teamwork and sharing responsibilities. As you read through the story, ask comprehension questions to check for and enhance understanding in your class. Kids...

Why did they say that? What did they mean? How did they feel? Using the six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, challenge your young readers to answer the comprehension questions about chapters 41 and 42 of Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Each...

Whether you realize it or not, reading an image and reading a text require similar skills, including the ability to make inferences. For this simple worksheet, children look at a picture of a snowy winter day and answer a series of...

Through a careful reading and examination of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, scholars take part in grand conversations about the novel's contents, slavery, and the impact the book had on it. Furthermore,...

3D printers, selfie sticks, smart watches. GPS, self-driving cars, YouTube. Imagine life without inventions. Believe it or not, these items were all invented in the last 10 years. Inventions, and the inventors responsible for them,...

Here is a lesson plan that invites learners to engage in a kinesthetic activity that allows them to physically move and manipulate words in order to think about ways to understand vocabulary in context. After that activity is complete,...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...