The author, Helen Lester, traces her writing career from the age of three to adulthood. She shares her struggles with writing in elementary school and even later as a successful writer. Helens story demonstrates that even the most challenging struggles can be overcome with persistence and a good sense of humor.

This site offers 5,390+ robust, original stories based on primary sources and presented in various media formats: written, dramatized narrations, videos, images, maps, and more!
Free stories each day are available for access - see the home page and the What Matters Now tabs

This historical fiction story takes place in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression in New York City. Baseball was king and Babe Ruth was at the top of his game. In this story, a young boy and his father become a team as they both work to support their family.

This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary from the modern fable and play, The Baker's Neighbor. In this play, the neighborhood baker Manuel bakes delicious smelling pastries and puts them out for sale each morning, but his neighbor, Pablo, loves to smell the fresh bakery every morning without purchasing any pastries. This irritates Manuel to the point where he feels Pable should pay to smell his baked goods, and Manuel takes his complain to the town judge who eventually offers a ruling that allows Manuel to get the pleasure of "touching" Pablo's gold coins in return for Pable "smelling" the bakery.

When war breaks out in Mulans land and her father is drafted into the army, Mulan makes a great sacrifice when she disguises herself as a male to take her fathers place.

Diphtheria has broken out in Nome, Alaska. Teams of sled dogs carry medicine 800 miles over snow and ice to prevent an epidemic. Everyone was brave but one dog, Balto, made the difference between failure and success.

For each question you get right, beans are donated to help fight hunger!

Categories include: What is This?, Times Tables, English Vocabulary, Spanish Vocabulary, World Capitals, ASL Alphabet, Periodic Table.

A Prince must find a girl who will love him, in spite of his frightening curse.

Beginning Reading Instruction (BRI)/Advanced Reading Instruction (ARI) is a highly researched, and simple reading program that helps children learn to decode.

A teaching guide, along with the three sets of books, and the booster set (extra practice) are all you need to begin teaching a child to read. Additional materials, such as tests to make sure a child has mastered the skills after they complete each set, and ways to keep track of progress are included.

Each book set offers a drop down menu featuring the book, suggestions for looking through and discussing the book and story questions.

This site offers free Research-Based, Teacher-Approved Texts for supporting decoding and beyond.

How it works:
- Beyond Decodables aim to support young readers success in reading by allowing children the chance to decode words in a meaningful context.
- Use the "Beyond Decodables Scope and Sequence" chart to pick the right text for your student(s).
- Most texts are available in digital editions (projectable PDFs) and printer-friendly editions.

Sets of texts:
- CVC Words
- Consonant Digraphs
- Consonant Blends
- Long Vowel Patterns
- CVCe Words
- Multisyllabic Words

The skills required to read a passage are listed in the top right corner of the passage. Words to preview and differentiation suggestions are also provided for the teacher.

This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary from the text Blue Willow. Janey's father is an immigrant worker and this forces Janey and her family to move around every few months, but Janey finds a friend named Lupe and a place she would like to call home permanently. Janey has to go to Camp Miller School for immigrant children like herself and she finds once again she must learn whether the new teacher will be a friend or just another teacher like the ones before her.

Students are introduced to the circulatory system, the heart, and blood flow in the human body. Through guided pre-reading, during-reading and post-reading activities, students learn about the circulatory system's parts, functions and disorders, as well as engineering medical solutions. By cultivating literacy practices as presented in this lesson, students can improve their scientific and technological literacy.

Book Adventure is an interactive reading assessment, management and rewards program. And the NEW Book Adventure is much more than just our 15,000 book quizzes! Since not all students learn the same, Book Adventure strives to be inclusive of the different student learning styles and offers a variety of alternative assessment options for those students who might not be great test takers. This online program encourages, assesses and rewards independent reading.

Students were encouraged to use their creativity to show their understanding and report on a book given the following three choices. All students presented their book reports and gave a book talk in front of the class.

A family moves into an unpopulated area. With the ingenuity of one young girl, a town is established and grows. The idea of supply and demand is evident in this story. The businesses in town grow to include a tanner, a cooper, a miller, a blacksmith and a laundry.

This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary from the biographical text, Boss of the Plains. This biography relates the life of John Batterson Stetson as a hatting apprentice until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and decided to explore the American West. During his time with the people of the West, he invents a better hat, nicknamed "Boss of the Plains," - the first real cowboy hat.

Brain Builders is an animated video series you can share with your students to help them understand what the brain does in order to read–the first time the Science of Reading has been placed in the hands of students.

Join Minh on his journey as his babysitter, Tamara, helps him cultivate a love for reading and understanding the Science of Reading. Series includes 13 episodes you don’t want to miss!

This is a video recording of the lunch and learn session from October 21st, 2021 on how the brain learns to read. Session Description: Do you wonder how our students brains learn to read? Join this session for an overview of what the scientific field has discovered and uncovered about our brains and the process the brain goes through to learn how to read. This will have a significant impact on how we plan to teach reading, writing, and spelling in the future.

This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary using the fictional text The Bridge Dancers. In this book, two sisters, Maisie and Callie, are faced with a challenging situation. Callie gets hurt while their mother is away and Maisie must decide if she can rely on her knowledge of herbal medicine to save her sister's life.