“Synthesis” is the ability to combine parts of a whole in new and different ways. It requires students to think flexibly, determine alternatives, and find new ways to accomplish a given task. A more advanced level of abstract thinking is needed for synthesis. The 25 lessons in this unit encourage students to go beyond the obvious to more original thoughts. Example: An illustration of a bulb connected to a battery is presented. “Electricity is stored in a battery.” Look at the accompanying pictures of batteries, wires, and light bulbs. “Which bulbs do you think will light up?”The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Putting knowledge to work. Comprehension implies the understanding of information and the ability to see basic relationships. The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in areas that emphasize comprehension. Students are involved in interpreting verbal and visual communications (A dinosaur “size chart” is provided. “How long was the Tyrannosaurus?”), making comparisons (Using the Table of Contents provided: “Which chapter is shorter?”), and finding relationships with the “big picture” (Using the map of the Lone Star Camp: “Where does the trail from the cabin lead?”). The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Being able to determine main ideas is crucial to writing book reports, outlining, reading social studies and science materials, and general reading comprehension. That is why the lessons in this unit are so important.The 26 exercises in found here have been designed to help develop a thinking process for finding the main idea. Students begin by finding topics in sentences, then identify the main idea in a sentence. From here they move on to finding the focus of a paragraph, writing the main idea, and finally coming up with summary sentences for books. 28-page book includes an answer key. Reading Level 3-4 | Interest Level 4-8

A springboard for comprehension! The 20 cloze procedure lessons in this book will help students not only gain a greater understanding of concepts, but will assist in expanding their vocabulary.Questions follow each cloze paragraph exercise - thus insuring that students have a broad understanding of the story by incorporating thinking skills as well as recall activities. The questions involve inference, prediction, and relationship.Of course, creative content choice keeps it all interesting with subjects ranging from “dolphins” to “lightening” and “magical mold” to “the Loch Ness monster.”

Promote thinking!Analysis is the ability to break a whole into its component parts and understand how each functions as part of the whole. The ability to reason logically is a major skill at this step of the critical thinking process. The 27 lessons in this unit include a variety of analogies and puzzles. As students work the exercises they learn to examine the whole, make judgments about the pieces, and finally see how these pieces relate to each other.Example: “Hoot. Clang. Creak. Yelp. Whinny…: A door that needs oiling would ____. A hungryHorse would ____. A frightened puppy would ____.”These sequential activities are sure to improve thinking and logic skills. And, because they seem more like games than work, students will have loads of fun.

This unit is packed with 30 low readability stories about fun and unique careers. The included comprehension exercises are designed to teach students to better understand what they read, to follow directions, and to increase their critical thinking. A variety of jobs are covered in the informative articles that start-off each exercise. The eight comprehension questions that follow each reading exercise work to boost comprehension skills. Reading Level 2 | Interest Level 4-12 30 Jobs Include: - Race Car Driver - Coach - Farmer - Scientist - Dog Groomer - Banker - Clown - Teacher - and more!

Reading. Thinking. Writing! Illustrations and corresponding sentences are combined in the 25 lessons featured here to challenge discrimination and comparison abilities. Rather than multiple choice answers or underlined responses, students are asked to write complete sentences. This extra step will reinforce the thinking process as students work through each of the intriguing activities. Difficulty progresses with each exercise.

Taking on contractions! This book of five boldly illustrated game board lessons challenges students to create contractions (he will = he’ll) and break them down (they’re = they are). While playing the challenging word games, students get plenty of practice mastering formation and use of contractions. A student contract, a pre/post test, and seven practice/review exercises are included. This 40-page unit includes an answer key.

Snip. Snip! Color, cut, and paste to improve eye-hand coordination. Students will get loads of practice honing their fine motor skills with the 24 creative cutting activities in this book. Whether using a scissors to divide a picture into pieces before pasting it back together or snipping out images of fish to be pasted into a fishbowl, children are sure to have fun while learning.

Fundamental thinking skills. As students work through the 20 visual exercises in this book, they learn to classify everything from “ocean creatures” to “things that fly.” Matching and coloring activities give students further practice grouping similar and dissimilar objects. The creative illustrations featured make the learning fun.

This 20-lesson unit is designed to help teachers evaluate students’ ability to understand and appropriately respond to verbal information. The exercises may also be used to assist in the development of listening and following direction skills. “How would you feel if a bull was chasing you?” “Is a potato a fruit?” “Wink your eye!”For those students who find verbal response difficult, or to add an element of fun, picture response cards have been included.

Help your students develop important writing skills with this fun and delightfully illustrated book. Easy Sentence Writing will inspire students to develop sentence-writing skills. Four formats add variety as they write original sentences, create sentences from pictures, form sentences from a word bank and more.

Building early comprehension skills!Presented with context clues and a word list, students are challenged to complete brief stories.Example: Cleared - Good – The - Cooked… “Mrs. Rodrigues ___ dinner. Her family enjoyed the ___ food. Jose ___ the table. Juanita washed ___ dishes. Who cleared the table?”Each of the 43 exercises found in this book features four words and a delightful illustration of the story. Reading and writing skills are enhanced while students get plenty of practice with comprehension, spelling, and thinking. Coloring the accompanying picture is a fun way to hone fine motor skills.

Building early comprehension skills!Presented with context clues and a word list, students are challenged to complete brief stories. Example: “Horns. Has. Goat… Tim ___ a goat. His goat has ____. The ___ likes corn. Who has a goat?”Each of the 43 exercises found in this book features three or four words and a delightful illustration of the story. Reading and writing skills are enhanced while students get plenty of practice with comprehension, spelling, and thinking. Coloring the accompanying picture is a fun way to hone fine motor skills.

Developing observation! Packed into this unit are 22 creatively illustrated lessons. Each boasts a drawing of a real-life situation complete with familiar objects. From “a visit to the ice cream parlor” to “a busy street corner,” students are given time to absorb the visual information from each picture. After putting the image aside, 12 questions are asked about what was depicted and students are asked to draw something they remember. Plenty of observation practice will be had by all as thinking and comprehension skills are given a workout.

Reading for comprehension. Packed with informative short stories, comprehension questions, and various research activities, this 23-lesson book provides valuable practice with the reading skills needed to locate specific information in written text. Each fact-based story is followed by questions that require students to locate the information in the story and give precise answers. Subjects covered range from “The Stars in the Sky” and “Amazons,” to “Komodo Dragons” and “Going Bananas.” 28-page book includes an answer key. Reading Level 3-4 | Interest Level 4-12

Packed with informative short stories, comprehension questions, and various research activities, this 23-lesson book provides valuable practice in the specific reading skill that emphasizes inference comprehension.The stories lack some facts that the reader must infer from the text in order to detect certain details. Questions following each story test student’s ability to recognize information that is implied but not directly given. 28-page book includes an answer key. Reading Level 3-4 | Interest Level 4-12