Reading activities

 Reading can too easily be a boring activity, many teachers question how to make this fun. Here I will share some ideas on how we can tackle this skill.

Chopsticks Jigsaw - Cut up the reading into sections corresponding with  the questions, number each section to match the question. Students have to race to the centre of the room to find the correct section, they then have to read through and  find the answer in the text and match each section to make the text complete.

• Skills practiced: scanning.
• Materials needed: Chopsticks, photocopies of reading texts.
• Preperation: Low
• Difficulty: Easy

Reading as guided discovery - Again cut the sections up and number each section to match each question. Place these outside of the classroom, put students into pairs one student runs and one writes the answer to the question and then they alternate.

• Skills practiced: scanning, detailed comprehension.
• Materials needed: Blue tac, photocopies of reading texts
• Preperation: Low
• Difficulty: Easy

Kahoot - Put students into pairs and get them to read each section of the text corresponding to each question. Do each question at a time, Students have to race to answer each question. (Note: You cannot go onto the next question until everyone has submitted an answer, set time limits and be careful if you have very slow readers.)Skills practiced: detailed comprehension.

• Skills practiced: scanning, detailed comprehension.
• Materials needed: https://kahoot.it/
• Preparation: Low - Medium
• Difficulty: Medium

Game - You can use many games for this including: Noughts and Crosses, Machine Gun, Connect 4 etc. Put Students into teams and use the same timings as Kahoot. Teams that answer correctly get a go and the team witht he most points win.

• Skills practiced: scanning, detailed comprehension.
• Materials needed: Whiteboard, pen, timer.
• Preparation: Medium - high
• Difficulty: Medium - hard

Dictogloss - Find a short text and place it outside of the class Students work in pairs and one person reads part of the text to their partner who writes it down. The fastest wins.

• Skills practiced: detailed comprehension.
• Materials Needed: Copy of a reading text.
• Preperation: Low
• Difficulty: Challenging