Guided comprehension moves your students beyond decoding to become independent readers. Generating questions to guide reading helps readers make connections with the text and supports independent comprehension of new texts.
Guided Comprehension: Self-Questioning Using Question-Answer Relationships
Grades
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Guided Comprehension: Previewing Using an Anticipation Guide
3 - 6
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the comprehension strategy of previewing.
Grades
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Weather: A Journey in Nonfiction
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Questions about weather clear up when students use what they learned from their books to create a presentation to share with the rest of the class.
Grades
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Using Writing and Role-Play to Engage the Reluctant Writer
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
What does the world look like through a javelina's eyes? Students become javelinas in this lesson when they analyze a character and write from his or her perspective.
Grades
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Exploring Cross-Age Tutoring Activities With Lewis and Clark
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Interaction and adventure draws high school and elementary school students together as they analyze stories about the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Grades
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Magazine Redux: An Exercise in Critical Literacy
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.
Grades
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Mind Pictures: Strategies That Enhance Mental Imagery While Reading
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students create mental images while reading using a three-pronged approach: developing schemata and visual awareness; Watch-Read-Watch-Read (W-R-W-R), using video clips; and a strategy similar to the think-aloud approach.
Grades
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Teaching Point of View With Two Bad Ants
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students will be crawling all over this assignment when they use illustrations and text to learn about life from a bug's point of view.
Grades
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Diagram It! Identifying, Comparing, and Writing About Nonfiction Texts
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students compare the traits fact and fiction by using a Venn diagram to compare fiction and nonfiction books about Native Americans.
Grades
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Using Historical Fiction to Learn About the Civil War
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students in grades 4 and 5 discuss inferential comprehension and visualization as they use a think-aloud questioning strategy to develop a deeper understanding of a historical novel.
Grades
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Fact or Fiction: Learning About Worms Using Diary of a Worm
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research worms its way into entertaining writing. In this lesson, students read Diary of a Worm to find out how fact merges with fiction.
Grades
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Word Maps: Developing Critical and Analytical Thinking About Literary Characters
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students read "After Twenty Years" by O. Henry, use a word map to identify characters' qualities or traits, discuss the characters' feelings and actions, and reflect upon these in journals.
Grades
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Readers Theatre With Jan Brett
1 - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students in grades 1-2 use Jan Brett's Hedgie's Surprise for a Readers Theatre experience.
Grades
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Astronomy Poetry: Combining Poetry With the Content Areas
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students' responses to this lesson will be out of this world after they've researched astronomy to write poetry and compile a poetry book.
Grades
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Questioning: A Comprehension Strategy for Small-Group Guided Reading
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students learn about the process of questioning and using webs to organize information during reading and then practice writing factual and inferential questions.
Grades
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Junie B. Jones Introduces Literacy Mystery Boxes
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Like Junie B. Jones, students will be saying "Wait till you hear this" after listening to a Junie B. story and creating mystery boxes to help retell the story.
Grades
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You Can't Spell the Word Prefix Without a Prefix
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students explore the role of prefixes, as well as their origins and meanings, and examine how the understanding of prefixes can improve comprehension, decoding, and spelling.
Grades
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A High-Interest Novel Helps Struggling Readers Confront Bullying in Schools
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students read a work of realistic fiction about bullying and gain understanding through writing, Readers Theatre, and discussion.
Grades
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Applying Question-Answer Relationships to Pictures
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
A picture is worth a thousand words as students are guided in viewing wordless picture books and responding to four different types of questions about the images they see.
Grades
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Thundering Tall Tales: Using Read-Aloud as a Springboard to Writing
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Imagination and application are key to this tall tale lesson in which students take what they know about tall tales to spin a yarn of their own.