Reading & writing Guided Lessons

Spelling is a core language arts skill in the year four curriculum. You can support kids' spelling skills with this guided lesson that features targeted instruction in common spelling patterns, as well as plenty of chances to practise. The content of this lesson was created by our team of teachers and curriculum experts. For even more spelling practise, consider downloading and printing our recommended spelling worksheets.

This year, third graders will be taking their vocabulary to new heights and exploring such concepts as metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and personification. This guided lesson in vocabulary and figurative language offers clear and practical definitions of new words and expressions, along with plenty of practise opportunities. Understanding vocabulary and figurative language deepens reading comprehension skills and enriches the writing process.

Learning common constructions for words is one way that third graders can get traction on their spelling and reading comprehension skills. This guided lesson in word structure introduces kids to the idea that most words are made up of smaller words, and provides opportunities to apply this learning with practical examples. For more printable practise with word structure, check out our recommended worksheets.

Consonant-vowel-consonant or CVC words include examples such as paw, cow and pop. Identifying these words and understanding the sound that they make is crucial to building reading fluency. This guided lesson provides practise with CVC words by focusing on their intial, medial and ending sounds. You can boost learning with our supplemental worksheets that offer more practise with CVC words.

Knowing how to read short O words like hot, pot, and top takes practise. This guided lesson can help kids master the short O sound. Kids will be taught to identify the short O within common sight words, which will boost reading fluency. Don't forget to check out the short O printables at the end of the lesson to continue the learning.

This guided lesson focuses on short U, as in jump, sun, and duck. Kids learn how to recognise and read this sound, then practise with short U words. Breaking up lessons based on vowel sounds helps kids chunk concepts together, easing retention and boosting phonics skills. Once you are through with the lesson, consider downloading some of the accompanying short U printables for extended learning.

Sight words are commonly founds words that are not easy to decode because they don't follow set phonics rules (and must be learned by sight). Examples of sight words commonly found in year two texts are would, thank, rain, and should. This guided lesson introduces first grader readers to even more sight words to help boost their comprehension and fluency.

This introduction to measurement offers guided lessons in measurement vocabulary, including more, less, small, big, short, tall, empty, full, light, and heavy. Kids will learn how to use objects, such as hands or paper clips, to measure something. They will also learn to measure two people or objects, and compare them with a third person or object. These exercises build preschoolers' foundational understanding of measurement and data.

"Anansi and the Turtle", a popular story for boys and girls, gives kids a chance to practise the letters A, T, Y and O in this guided lesson. Kids will practise both alphabet and phonics skills, as they work on identifying these letters in the story and understanding the sounds they represent. Targeted practise such as this helps with retention of these skills, as preschoolers begin their journey towards reading mastery.

Understanding the function of nouns is a crucial part of reading and writing fluency. This guided lesson focuses on the types of nouns kids are most likely to come across in year four texts. Designed by our curriculum experts, the lesson provides grammar instruction and examples to support learning. For more practise, see the nouns worksheets recommended to go along with this lesson.

As students begin to read more sophisticated texts, understanding how authors use figurative language becomes critical. In this unit, students will revisit some of the figurative language they learned in year five and also study some new ones too, including onomatopoeia, hyperbole, puns and oxymorons. Analyzing how figurative language is used in texts will help readers apply what they have learned.

Verbs and adverbs are the action heros of the language arts world. Third graders will be learning how to use these parts of speech this year, and you can support them with this guided lesson. Written by curriculum experts, this lesson provides kids with grammar instruction and plenty of examples of verbs and adverbs. For more printable practise with verbs and adverbs, check out the accompanying worksheets.

Having a strong understanding of short A words like bag, hand and bat can help first graders with reading fluency. This guided lesson helps to support first graders as they expand their comprehension of short A words. With targeted exercises and familiar examples, the lesson will take kids through the short A words they will most commonly come acrsoos in year two texts.

Some words are easily pronounced, such as cat, while others do not follow common rules of pronouciation and are more difficult for early readers to decipher. These are called sight words. This guided lesson provides kids with lots of examples of sight words, plus opportunities to practise what they have learned. When the lesson is finished, check out our accompanying sight words worksheets.

This guided lesson in sight words can help boost year two reading fluency. Sight words are common words that are not easily pronounced by early readers, such as people and great, which is what makes practising these words so crucial. Kids will get the exposure to sight words that they need to take their reading comprehension to the next level.

Learning parts of speech will help third graders to develop a deeper understanding of written language. This guided lesson teaches about adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections, which is the glue holding most sentences together. Designed by our team of teachers and curriculum experts, the content in this lesson provides instruction and examples that will support kids as they learn these important words.

Words work together in a sentence, each one performing a different task. By year six, students have become more adept readers and writers and they are familiar with the basic parts of speech. The activities in this unit revisit some of the basics and also add depth to their existing understanding. Students will engage in such topics as superlative adjectives, correlative conjunctions and prepositional phrases, to name a few.

In year two phonics, it's important to reinforce kids' understanding of short O words like dolphin, dog, sock and doll. By learning short vowels, kids can decode and decipher these sounds in words they don't already know. This guided lesson takes first graders through exercises and examples that will help them practise identifying short O sounds within a text.

This guided lesson builds upon kindergarteners' understanding of consonant-vowel-consonant or CVC words. Exercises teach kids how to spell CVC words, in addition to understanding how to pronounce each segment of the word. As children learn to swap out individual letters within words, they will build important phonemic fluency. Don't forget to check out our CVC word printables for further practise.

When students learn the patterns and structures of words they become word wizards! They are able to more fluently convert a word from one part of speech to another, adjust the meaning, or translate a word from singular to plural (or vice versa). In this set of activities students will build on their knowledge of word structure and practise adding prefixes and suffixes, changing tenses and using contractions.

This unit not only builds students' vocabulary, it also enables students to explore how words are related, in meaning, sound and construction. Learners will also discover some of the ways words are constructed using derivational root words, prefixes, suffixes, and compound words. Students will also learn strategies we use to shorten words and phrases like acronyms and abbreviations.

Knowing the patterns for pronouncing short U words, such as jump, mug and sun, can help kids decipher and decode new texts. This lesson provides guided instruction to teach kids how to say the short U sound, and gives lots of examples of short U words first graders will commonly encounter. For more practise with short U words, be sure to check out the accompanying worksheets.

Writing reports and other kinds of informational pieces is a skill unto itself. It requires an understanding of organizing and sequencing thoughts, tying them together in a way that makes sense to the reader and sometimes a bit of research. It is recommended that students participate in writing their own informational essay on a topic of their choice. This will allow them to apply all that they are learning through the exercises in this unit.

Words are like legos - they can have interchangeable parts. In this unit students will study the construction of words including roots, prefixes and suffixes. Students will also explore how to modify words to make them possessive, a different part of speech and adjust to signify singular and plural. Understanding the basic building blocks of words, will increase students’ vocabulary, improve their spelling and add strategies for decoding unfamiliar words.

Understanding how to pronounce the short I sound, such as in pill and film, is important for first graders encountering words they don't know. This guided lesson teaches kids all about the Short I sound, and provides lots of examples of short I words. Targeted practise like this helps to reinforce kids' understanding of short vowel sounds and boosts phonemic awareness, upon which lifelong reading skills are based.