Free for Teachers / English
The English Shelf
16 resources · print-ready, answer keys included
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the Five Pillars of Reading
Phonemic awareness — teacher-led, all ears, no letters3
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Sound Drills
Teacher scripts for pure sound work — count the sounds, catch the first and last, swap one sound for another, blend and segment. Students work entirely by ear; the sheet is for you. Script generator2 units6 drillsAnswer keys Open it LiveRhyme Rounds
Rhyme judged entirely by ear — do these two rhyme, which of three does not, and clap-the-syllables rounds. Grown-up delivery, no picture cards. Script generator3 drillsAnswer keys Open it LiveBlending & Segmenting Lists
Four teacher lists from two sounds to five, every word broken into its spoken parts — run blending drills forward and segmenting drills back from the same page. 4 lists44 wordsSound breakdowns Open itWord study & decoding — sounds, syllables, word parts, meaning3
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Decoding Pack
The rungs Word Work doesn't cover — closed and open syllables, silent-e, r-controlled vowels, vowel teams, splitting and counting big words, soft and hard c/g, silent letters. Pick a skill, print a fresh front-and-back set. Worksheet generator4 units9 skillsAnswer keys Open it LiveDecodable Passages
Six short passages with grown-up interest and tightly controlled patterns — short vowels through two-syllable words — each with a pattern-word list and a quick check. 6 passagesPattern-word listsQuick checksTeacher key Open it LiveWord Work Pack
One ladder from decoding to meaning — short vowels, blends and digraphs, syllables, prefixes, suffixes, roots, then synonyms, homophones, and context clues. Pick a skill, print a fresh front-and-back set. Worksheet generator4 groups19 skillsAnswer keys Open itFluency — smooth, accurate, expressive3
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Sentence Lab
Sentences that work — capitals and end marks, choosing the right mark, complete vs fragment vs run-on, combining short sentences, rebuilding scrambled ones. Pick a skill, print a fresh front-and-back set. Worksheet generator2 units5 skillsAnswer keys Open it LiveRepeated Reading
Four high-interest passages with running word counts by line and a three-read words-correct-per-minute chart. Students race their own last read — the passage never changes, and neither does the yardstick. 4 passagesLine word counts3-read WCPM chart Open it LivePhrase-Cued Passages
Openings of four Read & Think articles marked into meaningful phrases — a breath at each slash, a stop at each double slash — then handed back unmarked. Honestly recycled from the series. 4 passagesAdapted from Read & ThinkPrint-ready Open it
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Built for Ninety Days
Built to last ninety days, the rover Opportunity drove across Mars for fifteen years — the story of a machine that refused to quit. Article + photoCrosswordTeacher key~310 words Open it
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The Mountain Lets Go
Nine out of ten avalanches are triggered by the victim or someone in their own group. What happens in the seconds after the slab breaks — and why the first fifteen minutes decide everything. SurvivalSequenceTwo reading versionsCrosswordTeacher key Open it
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The Marks You Leave
Identical twins share DNA but not fingerprints. How the ridges form, how a print you cannot see is made to appear, and what that evidence can and cannot prove. ForensicsInferenceTwo reading versionsCrosswordTeacher key Open it LiveThe Number That Follows You
A three-digit number nobody asked your permission to keep — and one day it decides what a car costs you. What builds it, and what it quietly changes. MoneyMain idea & detailsTwo reading versionsCrosswordTeacher key Open it
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The Bruise You Cannot See
You do not have to be knocked out, and most of the time nobody is. What a hit actually does inside the skull, and why coaches now say sit them out. The bodyCause & effectTwo reading versionsCrosswordTeacher key Open it
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It Started on a Lab Bench
The first video game was never sold. A physicist built it so lab visitors would not be bored, then took it apart for the parts. Then and now, side by side. TechCompare & contrastTwo reading versionsCrosswordTeacher key Open itEvery morning — five minutes, mixed on purpose1
Organized by the Five Pillars of Reading (National Reading Panel) — plain-words definitions after fcrr.org, improvingliteracy.org, reallygreatreading.com, and readnaturally.com.
Shelf photo: compositors setting type, Hampton Institute, c. 1900 — Frances Benjamin Johnston, Library of Congress (public domain).
Everything on this shelf was built for our own students first — then cleaned up and shared with everyone.
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