An instructional strategy called story innovation teaches students fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and story structure. This unique strategy can be adapted for many purposes.
Using Story Innovation to Teach Fluency, Vocabulary, and Structure
Digital Word Detectives: Building Vocabulary With e-Book Readers
Students in grades 2-6 use digital dictionaries and other e-book tools to learn new vocabulary as they read e-books on digital reading devices.
Loaded Words: Vocabulary That Packs a Punch in Persuasive Writing
In this minilesson, students practice identifying and purposefully using vocabulary in persuasive writing that is intended to have an emotional impact on the reader.
Creating a Feast for the Senses With Mentor Texts
This lesson teaches intermediate students to "use the experts" to learn how to revise to create sharp, sensory-rich experiences for their readers.
What's Under the Slide? Making Inferences Using Microscopes
Students hone their critical thinking skills by learning how to make inferences from textual clues.
The Magic of Three: Techniques for the Writer's Craft
Students learn to use tricolons—a writer's technique of putting words and phrases into groups of threes—to add rhythm and power to their writing.
Engaging With Cause-and-Effect Relationships Through Creating Comic Strips
Students demonstrate their knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships by creating original comic strips and sharing their completed work in an oral presentation format.
Jazz Up Writing Workshop: Writing Biographies of African American Jazz Musicians
During writing workshop, students research, write, revise, and share their own comprehensive biographies of African American jazz musicians.
Multiple Perspectives: Building Critical Thinking Skills
Students use critical literacy skills to understand the concept of perspective and to then create a diary for an animal they research with a partner.
Going Digital: Using e-Book Readers to Enhance the Reading Experience
Students use various tools and features of digital readers to develop vocabulary, support comprehension, respond to text, improve fluency, and enhance the reading experience.
Reading Idol! Bringing Readers Theatre Center Stage in Your Classroom
Students produce a Readers Theatre performance to compete to be named the Reading Idol. Students vote on the final performances and record them as podcasts.
Using American Sign Language to Improve Comprehension and Vocabulary
American Sign Language is combined with the hilarious poetry and pictures of Sam's Sandwich, a lift-the-flap book, to engage all types of learners in acquiring key vocabulary.
Talking About Books to Improve Comprehension
This lesson is a conversation-starter! In this lesson, students learn about striking up deep-thought conversations and staying on topic in the form of a book talk.
Rain, Ice, Steam: Using Reading to Support Inquiry About the Water Cycle
Water is always moving in a continuous cycle from liquid to solid to gas and back again. Students study this never-ending cycle through shared readings, center activities, and experiments.
Using Children's Literature to Develop Classroom Community
Conversation and cooperation bring out the best in students when they hold dialogues about their individual strengths, abilities, and talents.
Lonely as a Cloud: Using Poetry to Understand Similes
Students identify similes in poetry and gain experience in using similes as a poetic device in their own work.
Integrating Literacy Into the Study of the Earth's Surface
Water covers 71% of the earth's surface—does it get the instructional time it deserves in your busy curriculum? Students wade right in to the study of bodies of water as they read and discuss science trade books and work together to develop Readers Theater scripts based on selected titles.
Shhh! Bear's Sleeping: Learning About Nonfiction and Fiction Using Read-Alouds
Students explore the distinction between the fiction story Bear Snores On and the nonfiction book Every Autumn Comes the Bear.
Descriptive Writing and the 100th Day of School
Students write descriptions of 100th day bottles they create at home, write clues about their bottles for a guessing game, practice descriptive writing, and create a class book.
Using Word Storms to Explore Vocabulary and Encourage Critical Thinking
Students learn that dogs are more than just pets in this lesson, which teaches them to use research and vocabulary-acquisition strategies to learn and write about working dogs.