Students use illustrations from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick as a guide to write mysteries
and then present their stories to the class for students to discuss to which illustration each
story corresponds.
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick: Using Illustrations to Guide Writing
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.
Magazine Redux: An Exercise in Critical Literacy
Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.
Fact or Fiction: Learning About Worms Using Diary of a Worm
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.
Q is for Duck: Using Alphabet Books With Struggling Writers
A is for zoo? Q is for duck? The alphabet as students know it is transformed when students create a class book that contains clever associations for each letter of the alphabet.
Shared Poetry Reading: Teaching Print Concepts, Rhyme, and Vocabulary
The rhyme and reason behind this lesson is that students will need to develop important reading skills to increase their reading fluency.
Word Study with Henry and Mudge
Henry and Mudge is used in this lesson to build students' word recognition through rereading, high-frequency word banks, word studies, and writing.
Collaborating, Writing, Linking: Using Wikis to Tell Stories Online
Students become online authors in this lesson in which they write and post a short story using wiki technology.
Let's Read It Again: Comprehension Strategies for English-Language Learners
Help Spanish-speaking English-language learners unlock the mysteries of their new language by using a bilingual book to recognize unfamiliar words and construct meaning from the text.
Using a Predictable Text to Teach High-Frequency Words
After reading an engaging yet predictable text about a child looking for his cat, students use a similar format and high-frequency words to craft tales about their own lost pets.
Gingerbread Phonics
"Run, run, as fast as you can." Students use this refrain from The Gingerbread Man to learn letter-sound correspondence. Students use their new skills to write an online story.