Students participate in shared reading, choral reading, and readers theater, using books by Bill Martin, Jr. Repeated readings and literary performances help students with their reading accuracy, expression, and rate.
Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance
Designing Elements of Story in Little Blue and Little Yellow
In this series of four lessons, students will explore key elements of design in Little Blue and
Little Yellow to learn about setting, character relationships, and plot.
Read Across America Day: Celebrate a Nation of Diverse Readers
Bring the celebration of reading and literacy into your classroom, library, school, and home all year long.
Using Word Walls to Develop and Maintain Academic Vocabulary
In this guide, you will learn how to use Word Walls to support vocabulary development and retention.
Four Simple Steps to Small-Group Guided Writing
Students will go batty about the three writing strategies they learn in this lesson centered on Nicola Davies' Bat Loves the Night.
The Big Green Monster Teaches Phonics in Reading and Writing
A big green monster helps students build their reading fluency and word recognition skills through choral reading, literacy center activities, and writing stories.
Teaching Shapes Using Read-Alouds, Visualization, and Sketch to Stretch
Visual clues in winter-themed books used in this lesson encourage students to make real-world math connections.
Bingo! Using Environmental Print to Practice Reading
The game Bingo is transformed in this lesson in which students use symbols and images to make connections to environmental print through the use of personalized Bingo cards.
Blast Off! Vocabulary Instruction Using a Virtual Moon Trip
3, 2, 1... Blast off! Students learn new vocabulary by taking a virtual field trip to the moon, read-alouds, creating a picture dictionary, and completing a final writing activity.
Text Talk: Julius, the Baby of the World
Students are asked to "talk" with Kevin Henkes' Julius, the Baby of the World by using open-ended questions to help them interpret the language, plot, and characters of the story.
CD/DVD Cover Creator
The CD/DVD Cover Creator allows users to type and illustrate CD and DVD covers and related booklets for liner notes and other information. Students can use the tool to create covers for books, music, and films that they explored as well as to create covers for media they compose individually or as a class.
Postcard Creator
The Postcard Creator helps students learn to identify all the typical parts of a postcard, and then generate their own postcard messages by typing information into letter templates. After printing their texts, students can illustrate the front of their postcards in a variety of ways, including drawing, collage, and stickers.
Book Cover Creator
The Book Cover Creator is designed to allow users to type and illustrate front book covers, front and back covers, and full dust jackets. Students can use the tool to create new covers for books that they read as well as to create covers for books they write individually or as a class.
The Natural World as Inspiration: An Outdoor Art Show
Children incorporate materials from outdoors with paints or crayons to create pieces of art to display on their clotheslines, fences, or porches for a neighborhood art show.
Let's Go On A Poetry Walk!
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and you're surrounded by brilliant shades of green! Observe and collect sensory images from nature and use the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create original nature poetry.