Reading for Gist: “Middle Ages” Excerpt 1

Middle schoolers develop strategies for what to do when they come upon words in a text that they don't know. After a class discussion, pupils are given a selection of text that contains some very difficult words. They are instructed to...

Help learners find the most important information in a text with a lesson on summarizing. As kids read through a passage about Johannes Gutenberg, they summarize small excerpts, put events in sequential order, and respond to two longer...

Encourage the development of proactive readers with this graphic organizer, which prompts pupils to identify words they do not recognize as they are reading a textbook or literary piece.

From A to Z, learners define, draw, and find examples of specific reading focus skills in an alphabetized reading vocabulary packet. Words include dialogue, theme, text structure, genre, paraphrase, and many more.

Signal words are one way that authors make the relationships between their ideas clear. Allow your learners the chance to investigate cause and effect in texts by identifying signal words. They locate and analyze cause-and-effect...

Abraham Lincoln's face may only be worth one cent, but the online reading passage and questions about his life are an invaluable resource. Pupils read a passage about Lincoln's experience with the Illinois Legislature, earning his law...

Who wants to learn about Honest Abe? The reading passage highlights the early life of Abraham Lincoln, detailing his experience as a young boy growing up in Kentucky. Readers read the brief passage and then answer 10 comprehension...

Explore connections within and between informational texts with this lesson about encyclopedia articles. Middle schoolers write encyclopedia articles focusing on topics in American history. They discuss how to determine credibility...

Study the importance of word choice in informational text. Middle and high schoolers locate unfamiliar words and phrases in newspaper articles of their choosing, and use online word sites to explore the definitions and histories of each....

Use the Visual Thesaurus to predict the subject matter of Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief. A pre-reading activity encourages middle schoolers to use context clues and word meaning to discover what the book is about. After...