Students find examples of adjectives in a shared reading. Then students "become" major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using powerful adjectives.
Charlotte is Wise, Patient, and Caring: Adjectives and Character Traits
Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech
Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.
Seasonal Haiku: Writing Poems to Celebrate Any Season
After listening to haiku poetry, students use seasonal descriptive words to write their own haiku, following the traditional format. They then publish their poems by mounting them on illustrated backgrounds.
Playing with Prepositions through Poetry
Students play with and explore prepositions during a whole group reading of Ruth Heller's Behind the Mask, and then by composing and publishing prepositional poems based on the book's style.
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.
Help a Child Choose a Book
Help children pick books that spark their interest, leave them feeling accomplished, and ready to hunt for their next book!
K-W-L Creator
This tool allows students to create an online K-W-L chart. Saving capability makes it easy for them to start the chart before reading and then return to it to reflect on what they learned.
Word Family Sort
This online activity helps students recognize word patterns by having them sort a series of words into short-vowel word families.
Eye on Idioms
The activity includes a series of exercises, in which students view the literal representations of idioms and then examine the metaphorical meanings of the idioms.
Choral Reading
During choral reading, students read together orally. Repeated, supported reading helps students read with greater expression and read unfamiliar words with greater ease.
Readers Theatre
Readers Theatre integrates oral reading, literature, and the performing arts. This strategy can entice the most reluctant and disinterested reader to become engaged in reading.
Performing Literature to Promote Fluency and Comprehension
This study guide outlines three reading methods--Readers Theatre, choral reading, and performing poetry-- that can be used to promote fluency and comprehension.
Using Paired Reading to Increase Fluency and Peer Cooperation
In this strategy, students read aloud to each other, pairing more fluent readers with less fluent readers. This strategy can also be used to pair older students with younger students to create "reading buddies."
Performing Poetry
Performing poetry incorporates oral reading, literature, and the performing arts. This strategy can benefit content area readers, English language learners, or learners with special needs.
Grammar Alive!: A Guide for Teachers
NCTE's Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar provides this much-needed resource for teachers who wonder what to do about grammar—how to teach it, how to apply it, how to learn what they themselves were never taught.
Wondrous Words: Writers and Writing in the Elementary Classroom
Katie Wood Ray explains in practical terms the theoretical underpinnings of how elementary and middle school students learn to write from their reading.
Earth Verse: Using Science in Poetry
Students shape up their reading, writing, and listening skills in this lesson by creating original diamante, acrostic, and shape poems about science.
Thoughtshots Can Bring Your Characters to Life!
Students will walk a mile in the shoes of Solomon Singer as they learn how to use flashbacks, flash-aheads, and internal dialogue to develop realistic characters.
Solving the Math Curse: Reading and Writing Math Word Problems
Students' reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills add up as they decipher word problems and use what they've learned to solve a crossword puzzle.
To, Too, or Two: Developing an Understanding of Homophones
The classroom becomes a stage in this interactive lesson in which students sing, act, and design comic strips to learn the meanings and spellings of common homophones.