Great Public Schools for Every Student

More NEA Websites

Our Members

• NEA Today
• NEA Today
• NEA Today
• Join NEA
• NEA Today

• Issues And Action
  • No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) | ESEA
  • Professional Pay
  • Education Funding
  • Minority Community Outreach
  • NEA’s Bully Free: It Starts With Me – Resources to Prevent Bullying
  • Legislative Action Center
  • Achievement Gaps
  • Reference Center
  • More Issues...
• Tools And Ideas
  • Lesson Plans
  • Classroom Management
  • School Life
  • Teaching Strategies
  • Advice & Support
• Grants And Events
  • Grants & Awards
  • Read Across America
  • National Teacher Day
  • Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly (RA)
  • Meetings & Events
  • American Education Week

Resources for Learning and Practicing Language Arts Skills

Lesson Plans

Crossword Puzzles (Student Interactive)
Students in grades K-12 study content area vocabulary, practice grammar or parts of speech, or demonstrate what they have learned by creating crossword puzzles.

French Author Guy de Maupassant Was Born on this Day in 1850
Students in grades 9-12 read and then rewrite a de Maupassant short story, updating its vocabulary and setting to that of the 21st Century.

Brave New Words: Novice Lexicography and the Oxford English Dictionary
Students in grades 9-12 explore recent new entries to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), learn the process of writing entries for the OED, and write a new entry themselves.

The Lexicon Challenge
Students in grades 7-12 play Lexicon Challenge to master their weekly vocabulary words with the goal of improving their SAT scores.

Additional Lesson Plans

• ReadWriteThink: Spelling (K-12)
• ReadWriteThink: Vocabulary (K-12)

Background Resources

• Just Read Now!: Vocabulary Strategies (K-12)
• Doing it Differently: Tips for Teaching Vocabulary (for K-12 Teachers)
• English Spelling: Making Sense of a Seemingly Chaotic Writing System (PDF, 89 KB, 3 pgs.) (for K-12 Teachers)
• Guide to English Spelling Rules (for K-12 Teachers)
• Teaching Vocabulary: Two Dozen Tips & Techniques ( PDF, 94 KB, 8 pgs.) (grades 6-8)
• English spelling today - a summary ( PDF, 188 KB, 13 pgs.) (grades 6-12)
• The development of present-day English spelling - a summary (14 pages, 1.87 MB) (grades 6-12)
• Visualizing Vocabulary (Grades 9-12)
• The History of English: Spelling and Standardization (Grades 9-12)
• A.Word.A.Day Home Page (Grades 9-12)

Activities & Games

• English Vocabulary Building Games (K-12)

Quizzes

• Quizzes – Spelling Bee (grades 6-12)
• Vocabulary.com – tool/quiz (grades 6-12)
  6-12 tool/quiz

Tools

• Spelling & Vocabulary Website: SpellingCity (K-12)
  Make games, flash cards, and tests
• Visuwords: Online Graphical Dictionary and Thesaurus (grades 6-12)

Books

• Vocabulary Games for the Classroom
  By Lindsey Carlton and Robert J. Marzano
  Marzano Research Laboratory (March 15, 2010
• Teaching Basic and Advanced Vocabulary: A Framework for Direct Instruction
  By Robert J. Marzano
  Heinle (Cengage Learning) and Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (June 8, 2009)
• Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples
  By Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan
  The Guilford Press (April 28, 2008)
• Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction
  By Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan
  The Guilford Press (March 20, 2002)
• Teaching English Spelling: A Practical Guide
  By Ruth Shemesh and Sheila Waller
  Cambridge University Press (March 13, 2000)
• Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12
  By Janet Allen
  Stenhouse Publishers (January 1, 1999)