Paper bag books have been around for a long time, but the Comprehension Connection paper bag books have a specific purpose. They are used to to model and practice reading skills and strategies in small group lessons and in literacy stations. Each of the books in my collection have been used with small groups to test how they work, and they’ve always been a hit.
Kids love hands-on learning, and yet, it’s hard to find hands-on activities for language arts. That’s what makes these paper bag books a great option for modeling skills. The foldables that are included are used with mentor texts for real life application. With each project, you’ll find pages for skill introduction. Mini anchor charts are used to walk through the skill’s key points. Students use close reading marks to tag ideas such as highlighting, underlining, boxing, starring, and make notes in the margins for active learning during the process.
Takes a little time to prep, but, wow, what a fun and functional resource! My students loved using the summarizing paper bag book. It really helped them solidify this concept in a neat, creative way. Thank you for all you do!
My kids absolutely love making the paper bag books. These are great because we can just do a few of the pages on shorter lessons/weeks.
I used the Comprehension Skills Paper Bag Books toward the end of the school year as a creative way to review essential reading comprehension skills with my students. These hands-on projects offered a refreshing change from traditional review methods, keeping students engaged while reinforcing key skills like sequencing, summarizing, and identifying main ideas. The activities were perfect for helping students consolidate what they had learned throughout the year in a fun, interactive format. It also provided valuable practice for test prep without feeling repetitive or boring. … I would definitely use it again to support comprehension growth and keep students motivated.
Need a fun book report project or to hone in on specific elements of fiction? This book can be used with any text. For my example, I choseThank You Mr. Falker. Characters, setting, and plot are discussed on the opening pages followed by students applying the information to the book they’re reading. This book also allows for favorite quotes and scenes too.
One of my FAVORITE skills to teach is characterization. Characters make readers love reading, but we learn a lot about life through them too. This book includes a look at inward and outward traits, making inferences about characters using their words, behaviors, and actions, sorting traits, and of course, application to literature.
In this paper bag book, you’ll explain the difference between facts and opinion using selective highlighting and the two flipbook pages. Then, students sort facts and opinions, use a thesaurus , identify signal words, and finally apply to their reading. Click HERE to get this resource.
Main idea is a skill that comes up from grades two through five. It’s one that requires the teacher to have multiple ways to explain it and practice it. This book includes teaching pages, main idea of paragraphs, main idea of photos, main idea in two articles, and sorting details to determine the main idea.
Cause and effect relationships seems like it should be a skill students grasp easily, but it’s not. This project guides students to analyze how events connect and how to recognize those signal words associated with cause and effect. Students work at the sentence level and application level for deeper understanding.
This book includes the characteristics of nonfiction, comparing fiction and nonfiction, information on how nonfiction text features help us, and examples of text features for instruction. For practice, students sort fiction and nonfiction traits, record what they learn on text feature accordion foldables, and analyze two books for text features. There is a grading rubric and a summarizing my learning page to pull it all together.
Summarizing text is an important reading skill, and this project is just what you need for instruction and practice opportunities. The book includes summarizing both fiction and nonfiction. Students learn techniques including SWBST, Hand Summaries, 5 W’s + H, and giving their summaries the MIDAS touch. You can use it as guided practice or as an assessment tool as well.
My Author’s Purpose Paper Bag Book was just added to a free resource I used to have in my shop. I decided to expand it with this new project. It includes the five author’s purposes (PIE’ED): Persuade, Inform, Entertain, Explain, and Describe. Students learn how to detect each purpose, and then practice with an assortment of texts, with articles, and with a sorting activity. Truly, it’s lots of fun, and the feedback has been so positive.
Synonyms and Antonyms are so important to know. Not only are they essential for polishing a student’s writing, but they are always tested too. As you can see in the photo, students work on differentiating between the two, sort them, use them in context, come up with pairings, and more.
Point of view is a challenging skill. This ENGAGING and FUN point of view project will help break it down. It can be used one section at a time to build the book over a week, as a group for modeling, or individually in small group. Once complete, it will help your students review.
Drawing conclusions is one of the toughest comprehension skills we teach because it requires such deep thinking. Children need lots of practice, and this project offers multiple instructional activities for teaching and practicing drawing conclusions. It can be used one section at a time to build the book over a week. Once complete, it will help your students review.
Students learn how to use text features to learn information from nonfiction books. The first seven pages of the book are for learning about each nonfiction text structure. Then, students pull the information together, practice reading paragraphs to determine the structure, work with texts (book list provided), write a sample for each structure, and summarize their learning. Again, you can use the pages in the book as displayed or in your interactive notebooks. The books also work well in guided reading groups and as a pair/share activity.
Making and confirming predictions helps students stay engaged and comprehend. The book helps you teach, guide, and practice making predictions with your kids. Students work with pictures, text, paragraphs, and with self selected books. You can use it with your small group instruction, as practice in a workstation with parent support, or for partner work.
Making comparisons between what students know and what they are learning is a critical reading skill. This making comparisons project provides opportunities for modeling, practicing and applying the skill of comparing and contrasting literary features. Students work through the guided practice part with the teacher, and then work with pictures, with nonfiction texts, fictional texts, texts by the same author, and fairy tale versions as they complete the final project.
Teaching theme can be tricky, but with this hands-on theme project your students will be ENGAGED as you explain what theme is, how it’s different from main idea, and share common themes in literature. This project includes before, during, after activities that you can use with a variety of books. Students write in detail about the difference between theme and main idea, sort examples, work on guiding questions, explore theme in multiple texts, and explain their learning.
Making inferences is not an easy skill, and most of my students have needed additional practice. With this project, they practices in at least 3 different ways. Here’s a list of the activities I included: 1 )Making Inferences Anchor Chart and Examples 2) Making Inferences Chart Completion 3) Sorting Correct and Incorrect Inferences 4) Practice with Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse and Two Bad Ants, and 5) Sorting Inference Truths
Your favorite authors are featured in this category. I have bundles for Jan Brett, Patricia Polacco, Ezra Jack Keats, Arnold Lobel, Eve Bunting, William Steig, Tomie dePaolo, Syd Hoff, Kevin Henkes, Leo Lionni, Cynthia Rylant, Karma Wilson, Mem Fox, Lois Ehlert, and Kate Dicamillo
This section includes over 170 units to go with your favorite picture books and novels.
In this category, you’ll find:
Planning for guided reading can be quite time consuming. Check out THESE RESOURCES to take a little off your plate.
My paper bag books address comprehension skills, alphabet recognition and sounds as well as word building. Click HERE to check them out.
Partner plays are fantastic for tutoring sessions as well as in your literacy workstations. Click HERE to see them all.
Regardless of your students’ level, you’ll find poetry sets that they will love. These original poems include activities to support fluency and comprehension.
Students NEED a strong understanding of phonics and word knowledge to move along the reading continuum. Click HERE to access word building and vocabulary resources I have available.
