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."

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!

Second grade students will step into the author’s shoes as they hunt for evidence to determine what a nonfiction author’s purpose might be.

This lesson focuses on how punctuation affects reading fluency and comprehension using graphic organizers and sentence stems. Use this lesson as a stand-alone activity or a support for the Punctuation and Prosody lesson plan.

Use this lesson to teach your students about Frederick Douglass and the impact that words had on his life. First, they will read a picture book that shares facts and beautiful illustrations to teach about his life. Then, they'll complete a graphic organizer with peers to record important details and events in his life. Students will then demonstrate understanding by creating a poster with images and key words that stand out when they think about Frederick Douglass.

In this literary lesson, students use fairy tales to practice identifying character traits. Students are challenged to justify their reasoning using text based support.

This lesson will help your students summarize short stories and describe how characters respond to challenges using a story map. Use this lesson as a stand-alone activity or a support lesson for the Story Mapping Group Work lesson plan.

This engaging lesson teaches students about the famous author Faith Ringgold. Students will explore two pieces of literature, comparing and contrasting story elements, then write opinion pieces to illustrate which book they liked best.

Teach your students about picture walks as a strategy to understand the author's purpose in a fictional text. This lesson can be used as a stand-alone lesson or as support for the Examining Author's Purpose in a Fictional Text lesson.

Students will learn about the holiday El Día de los Muertos through engaging activities and connecting to their own traditions.

Use this lesson to help students identify the elements of a fictional text while gaining more knowledge about parts of speech. Use as a stand alone activity or a support lesson for Fairy Tales: Identifying Story Elements.

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

Ask an important question this month: What does an activist do? This engaging lesson can be used leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day (and year-round). It supports students in understanding what it means to be an activist and how Martin Luther King Jr. used collaborative action to change the world and speak out against oppression. Perfect for first graders and second graders, this activity explores word meaning and other reading and writing skills.

Use this lesson to teach students about the importance of reading fluently to support comprehension. Use as a stand alone activity or a support for the Increasing Reading Stamina and Comprehension lesson plan.