Sample Lesson Plan for Comprehension

An Example of a Lesson Plan for Comprehension
I am often asked for sample lesson plans, here is a typical K-2 lesson plan for comprehension.

The ability to tell a story is associated with reading comprehension and early literacy skills. Choose great books to hook your students on reading and instill that life long love.

Grade: K-2

Duration: 3 lessons approximately 40-50 minutes each

Lesson Overview: Reading Responses based on a story read to the class each day for three days.

Learning Goal: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the beginning, middle and ending of a story by re-telling or restating important information from the story.

Resources: Age appropriate story books. Graphic organizer story timeline (Beginning Middle Ending), writing materials.   One of my favorite books for this activity is The Incredible Book Eating Boy

Day 1:
Put a timeline on the board or chart paper with the words: Beginning, Middle and End. Read the story to the class. Show the students the timeline and review the words beginning, middle and ending. To review the meaning of beginning, middle and ending, use questions that refer to authentic situations. (What happens at the beginning of our school day? What happens during the middle of our school day? What happens at the end of our school day? )
Begin a discussion about the story. Probe the students with specific questions that will elicit the main events that happened in the story. Ask them when the events occurred by pointing to the correct word on the chart paper.

Sample questions to help probe students: What was the problem in this story? How do you know it was a problem? How did the problem start? How did the problem end? Who are the main characters in the story? How did the characters contribute to the problem? How did the characters solve the problem?

Day 2:
Prior to reading the story, ask the students what they remember about the story from the previous day. Ask the children to listen carefully for the events that happen at the beginning, middle and end of the story as they will be required to illustrate a timeline of the beginning, middle and ending.

Day 3:
Divide the students into 3 groups. Let each group know that they will be responsible for acting out one of the parts (beginning, middle or ending) of the story. Let the students know that they will have a few minutes to organize themselves and that each student will be responsible for a sentence. Read the story the third time. Provide 10 minutes for the students to prepare to retell the story orally. Call each group to the front to re-tell their part of the story.

See also - Reading Response Graphic Organizers and Worksheets

The Importance of Social Skills

Social Skills In the Classroom and Out 

Social Skills and Social Emotional Teaching are a large part of what teachers do on a daily basis.
Why is it, we take it for granted that all children know how to use appropriate social skills? The truth of the matter is that many of them need to be taught how to use appropriate social skills. Even more so with the prevalence of students with Asperger's on the increase. Social skills refers to the ability to act  and behave appropriately in a variety of social situations. It also means, reading and interpreting body language and facial expressions.

This week, I added a new category in worksheets, devoted to teaching social skills. It's just a start and I expect to add many, many more yet.

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One of my favorite activities to do is to have the students role play with a group of students to show how to behave in social situations that present some difficulty.

Social emotional learning has always been a part of classroom teaching but there has never been such a need as there is now. Children are coming from broken homes, parents are often working more than one job and the first thing to go is social skills.

The Hundreds Chart Lesson Ideas

Free 100s Chart Teaching Ideas

Ever wondered about all the math concepts that can be addressed by using a 100 chart?
Let me start with my top 10 lesson ideas for a hundreds chart.


More than and less than: we want our students to be able to quickly know what 1 more, 2 more, 1 less and 2 less than are. Play riddles, "I'm 3 less than 55, I'm 2 more than 18..."

1. Look for the patterns. Cover up all of the odd numbers with counters/coins. What pattern do you see?
2. Patterns: What can you say about the number below any number? (always 10 more)
   What can you say about the number above any number? (always 10 less)
   What can you say about the number beside any given number? (1 less, 1 more)
   What can you say about any number on the diagonal? (downward, the one's place and ten's place increase by one digit, upward the ten's place decreases and one's place increases.
3. Problem solving/Deductive and Inductive Reasoning: Look at image 1.
   For a piece of the 100 chart, a child only needs one number to complete the rest. To solve these types of problems, the child says, I know the number beside/on top or below must be___, therefore, the missing number must be and so on and so forth.
4. Growing and Shrinking Patterns: Identify as many of these types of patterns as you can.
5. Adding and Subtracting: The hundreds chart provides an excellent visual to see subtraction and addition.

There's much, much more that can be done, but for a great start, check out my hundreds chart worksheets and lesson ideas here.

Break a Leg, I'd Give My Right Arm, Big as a Whale...

Figurative Language and Teaching Activities

I love using figures of speech when I'm working with children who have  difficulty 'reading between the lines.' And, in the classroom today, there are many children who are on the spectrum who will benefit from 'reading between the lines' or determining the hidden meaning.

The worksheets here are for just that purpose! Use them on the presentation device you have or simply print out the worksheets for your students and see how they make out determining what the meaning is for each of the figures of speech.

You'll find great activities from illustrating figurative language to matching the term to the definition and inferring meaning from the statement. It's also a great opportunity to have students role play and guess the hidden meaning. You'll find idioms, personification, metaphors and similes all free!

Enjoy the free figures of speech worksheets here.

As always, please share your thoughts, ideas and strategies for everyone to benefit from.