Reading Foundational Skills

Source: Pixabay by John Hain (License: CC0/Public Domain)

 

In this activity, students use the Internet to gather information and take notes for a presentation about a civil rights leader. Students work individually or in pairs to enter information and images on a Google Slideshow (or other slideshow software) template file and make an oral presentation.

Source: Pixabay by Jim Jorstad (License: CC0/Public Domain)

Students have conversation about favorite places, learn about a United States national monument by watching a video and answering questions, and then select a place in the U.S. to research and present on.

Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/cookies-christmas-cookies-pastries-6835157/ by Geralt (License: Creative Commons 4.0)

 

Students will learn about common health problems along with symptoms. This is one unit in a 4 unit text created using the CK-12 Website.

Source: Pixabay Image (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

This chapter teaches students how to make a doctor's appointment.

Source: 21st Century Information Fluency Project Wizard Tools (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

 

Teach your students how to conduct effective Web searches with the Search Wizard tool.

Designed by educators for educators (and students), this site offers three tools that make it easy to teach the essential steps of locating, evaluating, and ethically using digital resources:

1. Search Wizard: helps students learn how to build good Web searches
2. Evaluation Wizard: helps students evaluate Web sites
3. Citation Wizard: helps students build citations (in five styles) to be used in research papers or documents.

Source: Unsplash by S'well (License: CC0/Public Domain)

Students choose a destination for a dream vacation, research a destination, transportation, what to do and see there, and lodging, and then create a simple budget. They then present their vacation in a slideshow to the class. 

Source: Pixabay by Sergei Tokmakov (License: CC0/Public Domain)

 

Students engage in conversation about the environment, practice listening comprehension by watching a video and answering questions, read an article about the harm of plastics on the environment, brainstorm ways to preserve the natural environment, write a paragraph, and create an inforgraphic based on their ideas.

Source: Unsplash by Natalie Pedigo (License: CC0/Public Domain)

 

Intermediate and advanced students learn about ancient and modern wonders of the world using the online information on the Google Arts and Culture site and other Web sites and then and share what they learn in a jigsaw reading/cooperative learning activity. As an optional follow-up, write a paragraph and/or make an oral presentation about a wonder of the world of their choosing (a museum, building, sculpture, statue, bridge, canal, dam, temple, church, cathedral, castle, or natural wonder or a UNESCO World Heritage Site) located in their native countries or elsewhere.

Source: Pixabay by Gerd Altmann (License: CC0/Public Domain)

Honing their 21st Century Skills of global awareness and teamwork, students work in teams, role-playing international business consultants. Their job is to create a presentation for a group of American business people relocating to another country (students’ native country or a country assigned to them) about business customs and etiquette in that country, especially as they differ from that of the USA.

Source: Pixabay by OpenClipart-Vectors (License: CC0/Public Domain)

 

Students watch videos and take notes to learn idioms, practice the idioms in conversation and on an online discussion forum (optionally), and then create a "quiz" for their classmates OR select a new idiom from the video channel or other sites,  create a presentation to teach the class the idiom(s) by creating a PowerPoint or Google Slideshow presentation, writing and performing a dialog, using Web sites to create digital films or comic strips based on dialogs, making an infographic, or making videos.

Source: YouTube Learn English with Speeches by Learn English with Speeches (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

 

Use the any of the video sources for student pronunciation practice. There are several speeches by famous people from around the world. Each video has large subtitles so that students can see the words and develop their vocabulary at the same time as practicing pronunciation and oral presentations.

Source: Pixabay by Scott (License: CC0/Public Domain)

 

Students will make oral presentations with visual aides to talk about their hometowns. Students practice present and past passive verb forms by talking about their hometowns or birthplaces (It is called..., It is known for..., etc.). For information that is unknown (such as what is produced there), students can use Web sites such as Wikipedia to find the information.

Source: Unsplash by Jon Tyson (License: Creative Commons 1.0)

 

Students use the Internet to find information about the meaning of their first names, write a paragraph with this information and reflect on the personal connotation of their names, and make an oral class presentation.

Source: Pixabay by PublicDomainPictures (License: Creative Commons 1.0)

 

Intermediate and advanced students or students in Citizenship classes learn about national symbols of the United States through jigsaw reading and follow up by writing a paragraph and/or making an oral presentation about national symbols of their native countries (or state/city symbols if the class is relatively homogeneous).

Source: Newsela homepage (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

 

Newsela is a personalized reading service designed to help students master non-fiction literacy by providing daily news articles at multiple reading levels. Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same article at their own reading level.

The teacher assigns an article(s) to the class. Many of the articles have quizzes available. "Write" is a feature that allows students to answer open-ended questions. The teacher can customize the prompt.

Newsela offers a free version and a premium for pay program called Newsela Pro. Pro includes many additional features including student tracking, annotation on articles, etc. June 30, 2023 Newsela offers Newsela Lite. Articles will still be available at multiple reading levels but each week four articles will be available to select from. The articles will be available for four weeks. Each week one will be replaced. When an article is selected the teacher will be able to see student actions and quiz results. It is free to any teacher. Review the new features. 

Source: Unsplash by Handiwork NYC (License: Creative Commons 1.0)

 

In this activity, students will use online classified ads to investigate job openings and find housing where they live for someone they know who is hypothetically relocating to their city. Students create a PowerPoint slideshow about the job and salary, the housing and cost, and create a monthly budget.

Source: Wakelet: Man grabbing his shoulder (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

 

Students can choose different stories to read. Each story has 4 activities plus a typing practice.

Source: Reading Skills 4 Today

Previously Marshall Reading,this site provides leveled reading selections that are appropriate for adult learners. These materials, combined with the research-proven strategies of repeated reading and guided oral reading, aid in building learners' fluency and comprehension skills. For First Timmer Users 

Source: The Free Dictionary (License: CC0/Public Domain)

Use the online dictionary, The Free Dictionary as a stepping off point for developing research skills and expanding students' vocabulary and knowledge base through exploration of word of the day, today's birthday, this day in history, today's holiday and article of the day.

TheFreeDictionary.com site has many features including Word of the Day, Daily Grammar Lesson, Article of the Day,  This Day in History, Today's Birthday, Quotation of the Day, Today's Holiday, Idiom of the Day and Grammar Quiz. Word games include Hangman, Spelling Bee, Match Up and WordHub.

Source: Vocabulary for Separate Activity on Wakelet (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

 

This activity teaches students how to separate food for safety.

Source: Simple Present Image (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

In this lesson, students will learn ow to pronounce verbs wit the third person singular and use appropriate simple verb in writing, reading, and speaking exercises.

This is a beginning literacy activity for students who are learning the alphabet. They will be able to spell and write their first name, last name and address by the end of the activity.

Source: https://pexels.com by Magda Ehlers (License: CC0/Public Domain)

 

Source: The Free Dictionary (License: CC0/Public Domain)

Using this site, students will practice vocabulary by learning and using the word of the day, playing the spelling bee, and looking up two idioms and one acronym. Students can customize their page to include as many features as they like. Other features included in the side menu include a thesaurus, medical legal and financial dictionaries, acronyms, idioms, and encyclopedias.

This Web site is rich in possibilities. Beyond vocabulary practice the site offers a variety of dictionaries in various languages (Spanish, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian, Greek, Russian and Turkish). There are games to play: Hangman, Spelling Bee, Words Within Words, Matching. There are also great sources of information: Article of the Day; In the News; This Day in History; Today's Holiday; Today's Birthday; and Quotation of the Day.

Source: MyPlate (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

In this activity, students identify foods and categorize them according to food group, discuss the MyPlate image, draw a MyPlate image showing how much of each food group they typically eat, write sentences about their eating habits and what they should change, compare their eating habits with other students, and research key consumer messages for each of the food groups on the ChooseMyPlate Web site.

This activity aims to develop student understanding of healthy, balanced eating and provides practice of basic food vocabulary, the present simple tense, comparatives (more than/less than), and the modal "should."

In this activity, students answer the VARK Learning Style online questionnaire’s 16 questions to measure their learning style preferences in these areas: Visual (V), Aural/Auditory (A), Reading/Writing (R), and Kinesthetic (K) – see descriptions at VARK Modalities page http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=categories in order to find their preferred learning styles and their weaker study habit. The inventory’s focus is on study habits and skills more than personality traits, and there are “help sheets” that explain to students how to develop their less-preferred learning modalities.

In this activity, students will use the Internet to select or are assigned to find information about a fantastic place in the USA, such as a national park or monument, take notes, and create a visual aide (a Word document or PowerPoint with images). Students will then copy/paste their assignment into an AI application for revision and edit suggestions. As a class the revisions are weighed, discussed, examined and determined it they are useful or not. Discuss the value of AI.

Source: Propaganda: What's the Message? Lesson Plan (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

 

This is a very interactive site that allows for group work (if you have a computer and projector or an interactive whiteboard) or individual work by a student. Students will learn about individual rights, court decisions, presidential responsibilities, how to become a citizen, separation of powers, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, The Judicial Branch, Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, Money Management, and Media and Influence.

For this lesson we will focus on Media and Influence: Propaganda, but if another topic meets your needs, feel free to explore and find another lesson.

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Source: Electoral Process Lesson Plan (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

 

In this activity, students learn the difference between the popular vote and the Electoral College, analyze the differences between the presidential and congressional elections, compare the various nomination processes, and learn about party conventions. This is a complete lesson with worksheets and PowerPoint presentations provided. This activity concludes with the game "Win the White House", in which students make their own decisions on issues, fundraising, and public appearances. This game can be played at various levels.

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https://otan.us/VideoPresentations/DigitalResourcesArticle/187#gsc.tab=0

Source: https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/vitamins/index.html (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])

In this activity, students learn the sources, functions, discovery history, deficiency, and excess effects of vitamins. The Molecular Expressions Vitamins Collection contains all of the known vitamins and many biochemicals that were once thought and claimed to be vitamins.