1st and 2nd Grade Reading Comprehension Lesson Plans

Students will learn how to identify story elements and create a short and sweet summary. They will fill out a graphic organizer and solidify their understanding by creating illustrations to show major plot points that they find themselves!

Mae Jemison was the first African American female astronaut to enter space! Use the Who Is Mae Jemison? lesson plan to get to know this prominent scientist and entrepreneur. Students will read about Mae and then answer questions about her.

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.

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

Stories can change a lot depending on the point of view they are told from. In this lesson, students explore point of view by comparing and contrasting two versions of "The Three Little Pigs."

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

Introduce students to fictional story elements with a book by first grade favorite, Mo Willems! This lesson plan can be used alone or with the Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Key Details lesson plan.

Explore a day in the life of a pencil! Your students will practice different points of view by thinking outside the box and writing as though they are something else.

Story elements help to bring beloved fairy tales to life in this literacy lesson. Your students will learn to identify the title, author, setting, characters, problem, and solution in a fiction text.

From labeled pictures to glossaries, there are lots of different nonfiction text features for students to learn about. In this lesson, students hunt for text features while learning how they provide meaning and present information.

Teach your class about the genre of traditional literature, made up of stories from around the world that have been told for generations. In this lesson, students will read fairy tales and compare story elements in each piece of literature.

Engage students in analysis by examining archetypes in fairy tales. Teach students to identify heroes and villains in fairy tales, examine patterns, and create their own fairy tales to express their knowledge of archetypes.

What adventures can a reindeer, candy cane, and a snowman embark on? Let’s find out! In this writing lesson, students will write a Christmas-themed narrative incorporating characters, setting, problem, and solution.

Every storyteller needs to understand beginning, middle, and end. The same goes for young readers. Help your students grasp the concept of story sections with this hands-on sequencing lesson.

What better way to represent what you’ve learned than through an infographic? In this lesson, students read nonfiction texts then create infographics to share the main topics, key ideas, evidence, and more!

This exciting lesson plan will introduce your second grade students to two different versions of the well-loved Cinderella story while also teaching them about making inferences and comparing and contrasting stories.

Gabi Garcia's "Listening With My Heart" provides students with an opportunity to reflect on ways to extend themselves compassion all year long. This engaging lesson supports students in understanding what kindness is, as well as how to be kind to themselves and others in their daily lives.

In this lesson, your students will explore reading with technology with "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Students will use a graphic organizer to reflect on this story.

Increase student comprehension by teaching your students strategies to figure out the meaning of unknown words. This lesson can be used as a stand alone activity or a support lesson for the Be a Nonfiction Detective lesson.

This lesson will provide your ELs with support as they learn about nouns and practice retelling a story with a 5 W's graphic organizer. This lesson can be used as a stand alone activity or a support lesson.

This lesson will help your students use sentence level context clues to decode challenging words in a nonfiction text. Students will enjoy learning about maps and figuring out tricky words along the way!

Students will read a short fictional story and discuss why the author included certain details and words. Use this lesson to help your students navigate parts of fictional text to determine the author's purpose!

This lesson will help students identify the author's point of view and purpose for writing an informational text.

Use this story map and your choice of short fiction passages to develop your students’ reading comprehension skills with this group reading lesson.

Are your students hooking their readers? Use this creative and imaginative writing exercise that will bring student beginnings to life.

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."

In this lesson, your students will learn all about the perfect recipe for a story! Your students will practice their knowledge by rolling a story element die and sharing with the class.

What’s the deal with all of those text features? Use this handy lesson plan to help your second graders answer that very question.

Do you have students who are constantly asking what, who, where, why, how, and when? It's your turn to ask now! Have them read various stories and ask them to answer these questions in this lesson.

Your kids will love learning about setting, characters and events as they listen to a classic tale and play a simple game. This lesson helps students improve their reading comprehension skills while they have fun.