COURSE OVERVIEW

Discover who, what, where, when, why and so much more as you teach your child key strategies for reading comprehension and explore different forms of writing! Through fun, hands-on activities, including writing and coloring pages, creating an author’s purpose web, and assembling graphic organizers, your child will learn how to consume and use language skillfully and critically, in ways that support their unique identity and goals. 

By the end of this course’s 15 lessons, your child will have explored specific features of texts and comprehension strategies and used that knowledge to read and understand various texts.

LESSON 1: READER’S TOOLBOX

Get ready to build a reading comprehension foundation with your child as you make a Reader’s Toolbox! Your child will learn that a reading strategy is something that helps you read and understand things better, and they’ll get started on making notecards for their toolbox!

LESSON 2: AUTHOR’S PURPOSE

Introduce your child to an author’s thought process as you teach them that authors usually write because they want to entertain, inform, or persuade the reader about something. They’ll even get to create an author’s purpose web to demonstrate their learning!

LESSON 3: PLOT

The plot of your child’s learning story thickens as you help them explore the series of events that make up a story. You’ll also begin work on graphic organizers to explore how timelines work—the end!

LESSON 4: TOPIC & MAIN IDEA

In this lesson, your child will learn that a topic is the main thing that a piece of writing, a lesson, a book, a conversation, or a movie is about, and that the main idea is the important idea the writer wants the reader to know or understand.

LESSON 5: INFERENCES

Hmmm, what do you think? Help your child understand that making inferences means making guesses based on what you see, hear, read, or already know and that to infer means making an inference! They’ll get plenty of practice as you “confer to infer” on activities together.

LESSON 6: FACT, FICTION & OPINION

Help your child understand the difference between fact, fiction, and opinion in writing. In this lesson, they’ll learn that a fact is a piece of information that is true, that fiction is something that comes out of a person’s imagination, and that an opinion is something a person believes is true.

LESSON 7: FICTION & NONFICTION PAIRS

During this lesson, you and your child will explore the difference between fiction, something an author imagines, and nonfiction, which is about real people, places, events, or things. They’ll also create a Venn diagram to illustrate how these texts are alike and different.

LESSON 8: NONFICTION I

Is that a fact? Teach your child that nonfiction texts provide factual information about the world around us. They’ll also learn about different features in a book, including the table of contents, labels, captions, tables or charts, and the glossary.

LESSON 9: NONFICTION II

Reading nonfiction can help your child develop critical thinking skills, build knowledge, and understand how things work. It can also help their ability to comprehend and analyze real-world information, a foundational skill for success in school and beyond! This lesson provides practice in identifying a book’s features.

LESSON 10: FOLKTALES & TALL TALES

Once upon a time, there was a very curious child—yours! Introduce them to American and cultural folktale heroes in this fun lesson as they learn that a folktale is a story whose author and origin are unknown that is passed down from one generation to the next. They’ll also hear some pretty tall tales!

LESSON 11: POETRY

Poetry, prose, rhythm, and rhyme, there’s not a thing like learning time! Have fun with your child as you teach them about figurative language and poetry. They’ll learn that poems can be descriptive, tell stories, or be nonsensical and that some poems don’t rhyme at all!

LESSON 12: READING COLLECTION: ASTRONAUTS

Exploring topics of interest is one of the best parts of reading! In this lesson, your child will discover the world of astronauts as they use their Reader’s Toolbox and read about gravity, Sally Ride, and more. The sky is the limit on learning!

LESSON 13: READING COLLECTION: AMPHIBIANS

What Are Amphibians? Your child will find out when they use their Reader’s Toolbox and read about these interesting creatures that live on land and in water. They’ll also assess what they know, what they want to know, and what they’ve learned as a result!

LESSON 14: READING COLLECTION: SPORTS

From football to baseball to swimming to hockey, sports are everywhere! In this lesson, your child will use their Reader’s Toolbox to help them read and explore many topics, including learning about the Olympics!

LESSON 15: READING COLLECTION: ADVENTURE

It’s time to take an adventure with your child as they use their Reader’s Toolbox to read and explore! Through reading and analyzing several different adventure books in this lesson, your child will come away with some different perspectives and have a better understanding of what “adventure” means to them!

Sample Lesson Plan

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