When teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, there are so many writing skills to cover. They range from creating a sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end) to more difficult skills like building strong characterization. With a class full of students at such varying levels of writing, it can be overwhelming to think of where ...
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Teaching the Steps of the Writing Process to Elementary Students
As adult writers, we have a clear idea of how we each personally attack a piece of writing. For me, I know that I tend to spend a lot of time collecting information, using sticky notes on texts, and taking notes in a notebook (prewriting). Then, I take a short amount of time mostly drafting just from my brain. After I have the bare bones and ...
TEACHING STUDENTS TO FIND THE MAIN IDEA IN NONFICTION TEXTS
WHY TEACH STUDENTS TO FIND THE MAIN IDEA? Being able to find the main idea of a text is a complex and important nonfiction reading skill for upper elementary students (3rd-5th grade). “Learning how to understand what a section of a text or whole text is mostly about is critical to comprehension” (Serravello 2015). Teaching students to find ...
Using Genre Crafts as Activities for Teaching Genres to Elementary Students
Exposing students to a wide variety of genres is so important to creating lifelong readers. It helps students begin to identify who they are as readers, including their likes and dislikes. By building genre background knowledge they are able to make connections, and ultimately comprehend, a new book of the same genre. This is why it is so ...
Back to School: 5 Tips & Activities to Get Your Classroom Ready for Reading
From the moment students enter the classroom, they should feel excited to dig into books and reading instruction. There are ways we make our classroom visually inviting to new readers, as well as back to school reading activities we can have prepared. Beyond giving reading assessments, it is important for students to self-reflect and express ...
5 PRINTABLE AND DIGITAL END OF YEAR ACTIVITIES FOR ELEMENTARY STUDENTS
The end of the year brings testing, finishing up grades, field days, assemblies, and more! Between all of this (plus exhaustion!) it can get hard to continually create engaging lesson plans. Having low-prep, meaningful end of year activities for elementary students to work on independently is SO key! Whether you are distance learning, hybrid ...
5 PRINTABLE AND DIGITAL SPRING ACTIVITIES FOR ELEMENTARY STUDENTS
With spring’s arrival finally brings back some warmth and sunshine, so spring activities are a great way to bring this into the elementary classroom! Seasonal activities can be so engaging for students since they tie activities to what they are currently experiencing in the world around them. I love having a bunch of no prep, purposeful ...
5 PRINTABLE AND DIGITAL ST. PATRICK’S DAY ACTIVITIES FOR THE ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM
St Patrick’s Day activities are such a fun way to celebrate this holiday in the classroom! I love using holidays to have students get creative while working on engaging and meaningful activities. St. Patrick’s Day activities are perfect for getting students to reflect on all of the “treasures” in their lives. Having a bunch of purposeful ...
Nonfiction Text Features Scavenger Hunt (FREE Activity)
A nonfiction text features scavenger hunt is such a fun, hands on, and authentic activity for students to see text features in real texts or reading passages! Using nonfiction text features is such a an important skill when reading informational texts. They can be the key for growing readers in comprehending the main body of text. ...
5 Ways to Teach Making Predictions in Reading with Elementary Students
Making predictions is a critical reading comprehension strategy to teach and practice with students. It requires students to use what they have read and know about a topic in order to anticipate what will happen in a text, or what a text will be about. Making predictions before, during, and after reading comes very naturally to skilled readers, ...
