Building Bridges to Others

During this lesson, which is all about making connections, learners watch a documentary about the teenage brain and connect it to Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science, their own lives, and the world.

Given a deck of cards with different words printed, pairs draw cards and work together to locate definitions for each multiple-meaning word. Learners complete a worksheet that challenges them to write the word, two of its definitions,...

Explore the multiple meanings of common homographs with this fun language arts activity. Given a series of word webs and a pile of definition cards, pupils complete each web by matching four different definitions to each target word.

Connecting meaning to a given word via image or sentence can really help learners build their vocabulary and in turn enhance their reading ability. The class constructs a chart where they define each new vocabulary word, come up with an...

A reading activity boosts scholars' level of fluency while reading connected text. Working collaboratively, pairs read a word list three times and a specific text while their partner gauges their accuracy and speed.

There are many different ways to build accuracy and fluency when reading. This exercise employs repetition and timed drills to get the job done. Learners time each other as they read a passage, recording each other's time and accuracy.

Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

What is a philanthropist? We can all be philanthropists! After assessing the needs of the school and listening to literature about how they can help others, primary learners develop a class project and maintain a journal of their...

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....

Use the Caldecott Award-winning book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (which can be found on YouTube if you don't have it) to guide budding readers through vocabulary in context. Although the...