When assembling lesson plans for reading, a few basic things must be kept in mind. You must construct them knowing who your students are – their grade level, their interests, any difficulties that they might have. You must also understand the goal of your lesson plans. Lesson plans for reading comprehension, for example, stress challenging reading where the point is to let the student learn how to decipher more difficult material. lesson plans for reading fluency, on the other hand, employ a comfort level book – that is, a book a few steps below where the student can be pushed to read, at the level at which he or she is comfortable reading.

This will allow the student to develop speed and natural phrasing, and also to build confidence in his or her reading ability, by reading a book which is not a struggle. Remember, it's bad to make students struggle with something beyond their level all the time. They will begin to think that, if it doesn't get easier, it means that they are stupid, and will become discouraged from even trying.

When constructing lesson plans for reading comprehension, the more interesting the material is to the students, the greater their success will be. The key is to find something that they like, and that is a little bit above their comfort level, but not so hard that they won't be able to figure out. The teacher then uses the text to test and improve their ability to understand and assimilate what they read. So, for example, the teacher can read a page and quiz the student on what it means, then have the student read a page and try to think of questions to ask the teacher.

An even more useful tool for lesson plans for reading comprehension, is to make the student take notes on the characters and plot as they go along. Character notes can be taken on three by five cards, while plot synopsis can be kept on regular loose leaf paper. At the end of each lesson plans for reading, there can be a set of questions which the students have to answer, either alone or in groups. This will insure that the students take care to pay attention while they read, and that they really understand what it is that they have read. Classroom discussion is also a valuable tool for lesson plans for reading, to get the more verbally oriented students involved