Understanding the big idea of a nonfiction text and being able to write a succinct summary are key fourth grade skills. This lesson focuses on summarizing a nonfiction passage in three to four sentences.

Use this fun theatrical lesson plan to review or teach all about retelling a story with your ELs. This can be used as a stand-alone lesson or as support to the lesson Goldilocks and the Beginning, Middle, and End.

Anansi invites his friend Turtle to dinner at his house ... but does he treat him like a friend? In this reading comprehension lesson, your class practices questioning, retelling, and identifying the moral in "Anansi and the Turtle."

Through this lesson, your students will use academic vocabulary to discuss character traits, author's purpose, and the sequence of events in a story.

Put your students' imaginations to the test with this lesson on storytelling and creative writing. After reading some classic fairy tales, students will create their own using printed figures.

Combine letter recognition and movement with this reading-focused lesson! In this lesson, students will reenact the story "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" while learning to recognize lowercase letters.

This comprehensive overview of story elements will definitely leave students with a better understanding of author's purpose, character traits, sequence, and main idea. It features the acclaimed Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus.

Sugar skulls and fancy dress aren't all there is to the Day of the Dead. In this lesson students will learn about several societies that celebrate their dead, as well as some of the history behind the traditions of the Día de los Muertos.

Bram Stoker's Dracula has inspired feelings of fear and morbid curiosity for over a century. With this lesson plan, your students will get a taste of the literary work while learning about the myth behind vampires.

In this lesson, students will practice listening comprehension skills after reading “The Paper Bag Princess” together as a class. Afterward, students will role-play, make inferences, and use summarization to strengthen literacy skills.

This literature-based lesson teaches students about answering key questions and understanding a character's point of view. It'll have young readers roaring, thumping, and having tons of fun as they imitate story characters.

In this lesson, your students will practice writing about places important to them through poetry. By the time they are done, students will have become better writers and taken a walk down memory lane!

Teach your second graders how to write a prediction and summarize book chapters in this exciting lesson!

Take your students to a magical place by having them read stories such as "The Ugly Duckling" and "Rumpelstiltskin." They can read these magical stories and figure out the main idea and details in them!

Keep it simple! Teach your students to write a summary using the Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then frame for analyzing a story.

Frederick Douglass was an influential black man in U.S. history. In this lesson, the historical context is set for students so that they can conduct their own research on Frederick Douglass, using a graphic organizer and multiple sources, before writing an informational essay on him. Ideal for fourth and fifth grade students, this lesson plan not only gives students practice in research and essay-writing skills, it also has them exploring a fascinating part of our country's history.