As part of a study of Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing, class members create vocabulary squares for words drawn from the story.

Considering including Juliet Marillier's young adult novel, Wildwood Dancing as part of your language arts curriculum? Check out an overview that examines some of the themes and issues presented by the novel. 

If you could pick characteristics you would want your child to possess, what would they be? To better understand Okonkwo, one of the key characters in Things Fall Apart, class groups engage in an activity that asks them to consider this...

Promote critical thinking and literary analysis with a short activity. Readers of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart respond to a series of questions modeled on Bloom's Taxonomy.    

After finishing The Red Badge of Courage, readers complete a grammar worksheet  to identify the chain of events in the plot, the enduring issues, and major themes of Stephen Crane's novel.

As an introduction to the major themes of Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance to, class members complete an anticipation guide and share their responses in groups.

Identifying nonfiction text features is a skill students can take to any subject. A packet of posters demonstrate different text features that learners would encounter in a textbook or informational article, encouraging pupils to think...

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...

Practice making inferences about fiction with a language arts slide show presentation. After kids read a few tips about ways to predict the next event in a story, they read several passages and try to find out what will happen next based...

Show young readers how to use evidence from the text in an activity about making predictions. After reading five short passages, kids note what they think will happen next based on what they have read, and include the evidence that...

Sometimes it's helpful for kids to predict what is coming next when reading a story. Show your learners how to use evidence from the text they are reading to predict what happens next in five short passages.

How can you tell what is going to happen next in a story? Learn to make predictions with five sections of stories. Kids read the beginning, and then write what they believe will happen next. Additionally, they provide evidence for their...

As part of a study of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, class members respond to, and craft, higher-level comprehension questions based on passages from the text. 

Explore the theme of release and death in Lois Lowry's The Giver with a K-W-H-L chart. After noting what they already know, kids come up with a list of questions about topics that they would like to know about, as well as how they...

Combine math and vocabulary in a fun activity based on Lois Lowry's The Giver. Before kids begin the book, they look up the definitions of 16 vocabulary words and complete a puzzle that will give them the same number.

How did Theodore Roosevelt stress the importance of conservation during his time as president of the United States? Take a closer look at the language Roosevelt used himself in a 1907 address to Congress, and have your young...

Analyze a seminal speech from the 20th century with an activity focused on President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address. After reading an excerpt from the address, pupils use a worksheet to practice their reading...

Prompt your young historians to hone in their reading comprehension skills by considering the fascinating perspective that Rudyard Kipling offers in his poem, "The American Rebellion", which provides an alternative...

Inntroduce primary learners to essential critical reading strategies with an activity based on James Reeves' poem, "The Wind."  Learners listen as the poem is read, first as a riddle, and then re-read with the title visible. The...

Model for young readers how to make the shift from passive to active reading by making text-to-self and text-to-text connections. After a series of activities that provide guided practice, the focus shifts to making text-to-words...

Consider using this worksheet, another in a series of sentence completion exercises, as the basis of a lesson on test taking or comprehension strategies, as a critical thinking exercise, or as extra practice for up-coming standardized...

Desiccate, despoil, devise, descry! You would be remiss if you did not use this sentence completion worksheet to challenge even your best pundits. The SAT level words and the beautifully detailed explanations key would help to ameliorate...

It's an erroneous assumption that vocabulary practice must be tedious. Rather than a draconian approach, tantalize your learners with a sentence completion exercise that will enthrall them. A detailed answer key makes the seemingly...

Learners can practice their reading strategies and comprehension skills with a sentence completion worksheet that comes with a detailed answer key. Whether you use the worksheet as an assessment or as a group or individual practice...