What makes a poem difficult? Explore that topic and more with your class as you work through the lesson detailed here. Using materials from Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest, individuals or small groups examine poems and...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass provides the text for a study of how writers bring characters to life. Using the provided character mapping worksheets, readers respond to questions and then write a short character sketch.

Practice reading strategies using Elizabeti's Doll by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. Readers utilize decoding and comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading the story. A detailed list of text features, high frequency words,...

Young readers use this book review worksheet to evaluate a book they have read. After recording the title and author of a book, reviewers color in the appropriate bubble rating the book as exciting, boring, funny, or scary. They then...

It can be difficult to find the theme of a book or story if you don't know the questions to ask. Teach your kids to discern the universal theme in works of literature with a set of activities that promote critical thinking and...

Students use wordless picture books to examine elements regarding a story, the plot, and characters. In this wordless picture books lesson, students select a book to creatively discuss. Students then listen to the teacher read the story...

Third through fifth graders discover the importance of reading and plan a service project to provide books to children. First, they read the book The Important Book and then they brainstorm about the importance of reading. Afterward,...

Construct words using root words, prefixes, and suffixes. They listen to Chapters 8 & 9 of Bunnicula being read aloud and write down any words they hear that have a prefix or suffix. Young scholars infer the definition of new words...

Do you have a lot of different reading levels in your class? Pair kids up by level and have them choose a book to read independently. They will make predictions, ask questions, make connections, etc. Consider creating a general reading...

Who would have thought to explore the concept of race through children's literature?  After reading Bell Hooks' picture book, Skin Again, and chapter sixteen of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, class members...

Have your older students assist young children with writing in this community service and literacy lesson plan. Middle schoolers become partners with a local elementary school. They assist the grade school children in writing a pattern...

Young scholars learn about experiences and feelings through books. In this lesson, students read a variety of books to aid in their understanding of life. Through a listing and brief synopsis of twelve books, young scholars explore...

Ribbit ribbit! Hop through a series of activities based on A Tale of Two Frogs. Kids read the Russian folktale and answer reading comprehension questions before working on phonics exercises, tracing dotting lines to make a path...

Susan VanHecke's Under the Freedom Tree is transformed into a 12-part readers theatre script appropriate for a performance by upper-elementary classes.

After completing Juliet Marillier's young adult novel Wildwood Dancing, class members rewrite a traditional fairy tale, making three significant changes to illustrate a theme of their choosing.

Fourth graders work independently or in a small group to (1) read a poem, (2) identify unfamiliar words, (3) connect text to real-life situations, and (4) respond to poetry. Reading passage, comprehension questions, and teacher script...

Second graders examine the life and times of mid-1800s England in Dicken's time. They compare/contrast Christmas today and during Dicken's day, discuss the book's characters, play a game from the 1800s, and read a Reader's Theater...

Here is a wonderful lesson designed for students with special needs. This well-thought-out lesson uses Big Books, familiar stories, and has a lot of review learning built into it. The book, The Keeping Quilt is used in the main part of...

"God bless us...every one!" The touching tale of A Christmas Carol is the subject of this quiz. Ten mostly multiple-choice questions are structured as fairly simple reading comprehension.

See how carefully your pupils are doing their assigned reading. This challenging 15-question quiz on Charles Dickens' classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, tests the reader's ability to recall important information about the plot and...

Are you working on a Charles Dickens unit? Ten multiple-choice questions from A Tale of Two Cities will do the job checking reading comprehension. Use this resource as a quick diagnostic tool after reading the novel as a class.

Explore the concept of make believe stories. In this genres of literature instructional activity, students discover the difference between realistic fiction and fantasy. They are asked questions during and after the reading of a book to...

Unlock the mystery behind seasonal change with a collection of worksheets and activities. Whether they are drawing pictures of Earth's orbit around the sun or graphing the temperature and daylight hours of different locations...

Which option would most children choose: One marshmallow now, or two marshmallows in 10 minutes? Learners watch the social experiment on video and discuss their observations. They then read articles and work in small groups to analyze...