Step into the hopeful and tragic world of Anne Frank with this lesson on reading in context. After complete a variety of activities related to the first two scenes of The Diary of Anne Frank, eighth graders participate in a read...

Left-to-right, left-to-right, that's the way we read and write! Watch this short video clip and teach your young learners this chant before they start writing! 

This abstract for an instructional unit using three-minute mysteries, stories by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe includes a short history of detective fiction, sample plans, and suggestions for exercises and activities...

Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of...

Students research process necessary to add local or state law limiting such driving distractions as cell phones or other technological devices, interview city leaders or legislators, research areas that already have such legislation and...

This detailed overview of a curriculum unit suggests using travel literature to engage and stimulate your third graders’ interest in reading. The suggested reading list includes fiction and non-fiction materials and offers urban children...

Stressed? Stressed students? Check out a lesson that includes a checklist of causes of stress, suggestions for ways to deal with stress, and a role-play activity. Definitely worth a look.

Scholars of all ages can use the various tools of technology to construct and illustrate a story. Utilizing this resource, learners work with a partner to brainstorm and draft a story based on personal experience. They use computer...

Students identify the elements of a story. In this reading and writing lesson plan, pupils read the book, Tyrone the Horrible by Hans Wihelm and then identify the characters, setting, and plot of the story.This lesson plan includes...

Use this instructional activity to reinforce the importance of a strong thesis statement. After viewing samples, middle schoolers identify the three parts to a thesis. Additionally, they create their own thesis including and labeling the...

Use drawings as inspiration. Have learners doodle for 10 minutes before beginning the lesson. Then, have them use their doodles to inspire a story. Several writing activities are included here to play with writing. One of my favorites...

Students explore acrostic poems. In this interactive poetry lesson, students visit the ReadWriteThink.org website to view characteristics and samples of acrostic poems. Students develop acrostic poems by using the interactive site.

Learners practice identifying and pronouncing the short letter "u" sound. In this phonetic awareness lesson, students access the Starfall.com website and follow the directions on the screen to reinforce the short "u" sound. Learners can...

Much more than a simple reading assessment, this resource can form the basis of a review of comprehension strategies, as a worksheet that models for readers how to employ strategies to answer questions based on passages, or as a practice...

Who was Walt Whitman, and what link does he have to president Abraham Lincoln?  After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" This poem and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are the focus of...

Demonstrate the importance of evaluating and citing sources. Pupils can complete the suggested assignment provided here, or one of your choosing, while focusing on checking that the resources are credible and citing those sources...

Ensure that your kids don't even consider saying "Not me!" when it comes time to read by engaging them in this set of lesson plans based around "The Little Red Hen." The class reads the story together before starting in on additional...

Class members take center stage as groups perform scenes from Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope. Actors are encouraged to add stage directions to the script, as well as create costumes and props to...

Students discover how to read with expression. By reading and rereading decodable words in connected texts, students study the importance of expressions and how it can make a book more enjoyable.

After a review of the SQ3R strategy, readers use the provided prompts to respond to a text. The value of this worksheet is in the additional questions that move the learner into higher levels of reasoning.

Kindergarteners and first graders discover the /u/ sound! After practicing making the sound with the funny tongue twister, youngsters use their Elkonin letterboxes to divide a set of words into their phonemes. Then pairs read Bud...

Primary students will use the five "W" questions for reading comprehension as they read silently to themselves so that they can understand and remember what they have read. They then read The Velveteen Rabbit aloud, discussing the five...

Students read "The Great Kapok" and choose to agree or disagree with the main character's decision. They gather and organize details from multiple sources to defend their standpoints. They begin prewriting steps of process writing.

Learning how to interact and work cooperatively in a team is an essential skill, both in school and the world beyond the classroom. Pupils use a self-check, group skills worksheet to evaluate their behavior in a recent group situation,...