In this lesson, students read Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night as a whole group as the teacher models a questioning strategy. In subsequent sessions, students practice the questioning strategy and reread for fluency.
Guided Reading Strategies with Henry and Mudge
Literacy Centers: Getting Started
This lesson gives teachers resources and guidance to create reading, listening, computer, and poetry Literacy Centers in their own classrooms.
Digging Up Details on Worms: Using the Language of Science in an Inquiry Study
This lesson, in which students research worms in order to create a classroom habitat, incorporates reading and writing across content areas as well as math and science activities.
Choosing One Word: Summarizing Shel Silverstein's "Sick"
Students select what they believe to be the most important word in a text that they have read and justify their choice using examples from the text.
Comparing Fiction and Nonfiction with "Little Red Riding Hood Text" Sets
Students discuss and compare differing versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" and other tales about wolves in cumulative read-aloud sessions and text set explorations.
A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry
Children find favorite words, phrases, and sentences from familiar stories. Working together, they combine their words and phrases to create a poem. The poem is then shared as performance poetry.
Ferocious Fighting Fish: An Ocean Unit Exploring Beginning Word Sounds
Focus students' attention on alliteration in this ocean-themed unit. Students explore alliteration in framing texts then compose their own class book to explore figurative language in their own writing.
Completing the Circle: The Craft of Circular Plot Structure
Students identify, explore and apply the elements of circle plot structures to their own stories by using graphic organizers, reading and writing stories, and using checklists to assess their work.
Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance
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.
Acrostic Poems: All About Me and My Favorite Things
Students create acrostic poems using their names and the names of things that are important to them.
Animal Study: From Fiction to Facts
Students listen to fiction and nonfiction read-alouds and explore selected Websites to identify factual information about animals. This lesson focuses on ants, but can be adapted to any animal.
Writing Poetry with Rebus and Rhyme
This lesson encourages students to use rhyming words to write rebus poetry modeled on rebus books, which substitute pictures for the words that young students cannot yet identify or decode.
Building a Matrix for Leo Lionni Books: An Author Study
In this author study, students listen to and discuss four books by Leo Lionni. They identify similarities and differences in the stories and then compare two stories of their choice.
Collaborative Stories 1: Prewriting and Drafting
Students hone their teamwork skills and play off each other's writing strengths as they participate in prewriting activities for a story to be written collaboratively by the whole class.
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.
A Recipe for Writing: Fairy Tale Feasts
After examining recipes written based on students' favorite fairy tales, students research a recipe related to their favorite story, book, or fairy tale and include it in a classroom recipe book.
Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
Students read thematically related texts, scaffolded from simple to complex, to help them gather necessary concept vocabulary and background knowledge in a content area. They then write acrostic poems to organize and present their learning in a creative way.
Dr. Seuss's Sound Words: Playing with Phonics and Spelling
Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!Everywhere you turn, you find exciting sounds. Students use these sounds to write their own poems based on Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?
It Doesn't Have to End That Way: Using Prediction Strategies with Literature
After listening to the beginning of a story, students use details in the text, personal experience, and prior knowledge to predict the way the story will end.
Composing Cinquain Poems: A Quick-Writing Activity
Students use themed graphic organizers to compose cinquain poems on topics common in the early elementary classroom.