Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Reese to master the name of every letter. She helps Reese sing the alphabet song clearly and with no mistakes. She teaches him to look carefully at letters as he names them. Ms. Farrell also helps Reese identify every letter of the alphabet accurately, including differentiating between letters that look similar (in Reese’s case, ‘y’ and ‘v’). Learning the name of every letter is a critical pre-reading skill.

The Letter Poem Creator provides an online model for the thought process involved in creating poems based upon a letter; then, students are invited to experiment with letter poems independently.

Students explore letter poems and experiment with writing letters as poems, using the placement of line breaks to enhance rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.

This is a sample lesson with the objective that students will increase accuracy and rate in identifying known letter sounds.

This is a sample lesson with the objective that students will increase their fluency at identifying known letter sounds.

This one-pager game helps a child practice letter sounds quickly to build the letter-sound fluency necessary for proficient decoding.

Using their prior knowledge of books containing letters, students show their understanding of genre by rewriting a story and reflecting on how traditional stories differs from stories told in letters.

Dr. Louisa Moats, reading expert and consultant, illustrates the difference between a phoneme and a letter and explains why it is important to teach phonological awareness skills in addition to letter knowledge.

Two biliteracy specialists from Amplify, Ana Torres and Alestra Menendez, "discuss the importance of K-8 biliteracy instruction and how the Science of Reading helps to leverage biliteracy learning" (Amplify, 2023).

We all look forward to occasions that give us time to spend time with family and friends and to give thanks for all the blessings they bring to your life. This project will result in the creation of a Life Story video honoring a family member or someone else special to you. The following list of activities will provide you with background and information you need to complete this project.

After students have read a book about the Holocaust, such as "The Diary of Anne Frank" or "Night" by Elie Wiesel, students will view "Life is Beautiful" and complete discussion questions to challenge their ability to analyze literature using film.

Movie music and magic set the scene for this lesson in which students analyze a scene from Good Morning, Vietnam and then create a scene of their own.

The interactive explores the ways that poets choose line breaks in their writing. After viewing the demonstration, students are invited to experiment with line breaks themselves.

Richard grew up in Kenya as a Maasai boy, herding his family’s cattle, which represented their wealth and livelihood. Richard’s challenge was to protect their cattle from the lions who prowled the night just outside the barrier of acacia branches that surrounded the farm’s boma, or stockade. Though not well-educated, 12-year-old Richard loved tinkering with electronics. Using salvaged components, spending $10, he surrounded the boma with blinking lights, and the system works; it keeps lions away. His invention, Lion Lights, is now used in Africa, Asia, and South America to protect farm animals from predators. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Your challenge is to use broken or old technology and other available resources to create a prototype that can be used to protect your home. This could involve tinkering, hacking, or redesigning the components of the technology to meet your needs.

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

This video segment from Between the Lions uses a line of laughing Lions to help build vocabulary and illustrate the meaning of words that typically challenge young children.

Students will listen to a familiar story with repetitive lines that the children can remember. They will make puppets and retell the story in small groups with an adult volunteer or an older child. Main Curriculum Tie: English Language Arts Kindergarten Reading: Literature Standard 2, With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details. All children will participate in retelling a familiar story using puppets. This will help develop oral language and comprehension.

This video from REL Midwest discusses the most effective evidence-based practices for identifying and assisting struggling readers.

This guide accompanies the "Literacy Instruction Strategies for Success Multi-Tier Intervention in Primary Grades" video that can also be found in eMedia.

The PDF offers suggestions for how parents of students in grades K-2 might support their child’s reading development at home. The PDF provides suggestions for both reading literature and information text as well as foundational skills.

Students can map out the key literary elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution as prewriting for their own fiction or as analysis of a text by another author in this secondary-level interactive.