On this page I have outlined a few ideas for activities highlighting each skill. You may want to use these, adapt them, or develop your own. For more ideas and inspiration, click the links provided to open outside websites.

 

 

Phonemic Awareness
​Segmenting:
- Elkonin Sound Boxes
- Rubber Band Stretch: simultaneously stretch a rubber band while 'stretching' out a word then bring back to normal and say the whole word.

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Blending:
- I S-P-Y: Play 'I Spy', but instead of giving a descriptive clue for the item, say each sound of the item's name and let students blend the sounds to find the object.
- Play bingo. Read short words sound-by-sound as students blend the word and place a marker on the corresponding picture.

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Additional Phonemic Awareness Resources (segmenting, blending, addition/deletion, substitution, isolation, and phonological awareness activities)
http://www.readingresource.net/phonemicawarenessactivities.html
http://phonologicalawareness.org/index.html

Phonics
- Make use of free paint color swatches from a hardware store such as Lowe's or Home Depot. Fill in some strips with different consonants, consonant blends or digraphs, and word families or rimes on others. Have students practice making different combinations by moving the strips around.
- Develop a game similar to 'Boggle', where students roll random sets of letters and use them to make as many words as possible.
- Using a craft drawer or pocket chart, mark each drawer or pocket with a letter of the alphabet or a blend/digraph etc. Have students locate objects around the room or for homework which fit the category and keep them inside the corresponding section.

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Additional Phonics Resources:
http://www.education.com/activity/phonics/
http://www.tampareads.com/phonics/phonicsindex.htm

Fluency
- Roll-an-Emotion: Choose 6 basic emotions and match each one to a number on a die. Using a short passage, students roll the die, then read the passage using expression matching the number they rolled.
- I Caught You! Partner's take turn reading to each other a relatively fast speed, making intentional mistakes. When the listener catches a mistake he or she says 'I caught you', describes the mistake, and changes roles.
- Have students practice reading silly sentences, rhymes and tongue twisters until they have mastered them. Then give the opportunity to perform for the class.

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Additional Fluency Resources:

http://www.squidoo.com/FluencyActivities
http://www.readingfirst.virginia.edu/prof_dev/fluency/section3.html

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Vocabulary
- Assign a vocabulary practice activity to each number on a die such as 'define it', 'act it out', 'say a synonym', etc. Give students a set of words to draw from, rolling the die and following the activity for each one.
- Use free paint swatches from the hardware store to create groups of words. Groups could be synonyms of a word, a graduated set of words (damp --> wet --> dripping - drenched), or words that fit inside a theme.

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Additional Vocabulary Resources:

http://nclrc.org/teachers_corner/classroom_solutions_yana/vocabulary_activities.html
http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary_games.html

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Comprehension
- Make KWL charts for stories and topics. Fill in the first section, Know, and the second section, Want to know, before reading. Afterwards, facilitate a discussion with students to help them pull out the important information and interesting points to fill in the last section, Learned.
- Use Venn diagrams to outline information from two texts, then push students to use higher order thinking to remember, analyze and compare.
- Make a Book-in-a-Box: Fill a small, chapter book-sized box with illustrations, symbols or words representing main ideas and important information from a story. Use the four side and the bottom to illustrate the plot or the most significant points.

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- QAR: QAR stands for the Question Answer Relationship. It is a comprehension strategy that helps students to better understand and evaluate different types of questions. The strategy first asks students to decide if the answer to the question will be 'in the book', or 'in my head'. If the answer will be found in the book, the student then asks him/herself if the answer is a 'right there' question, one found directly in one place, or a 'think and search' question, requiring the reader to use information from more than one place in the book to answer the question. If the answer is 'in my head', the student must then ask if it is an 'author and me', an answer using both information from the text and the student's prior knowledge, or if it is an 'on my own' question, requiring only information that the student already knows.

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- Reciprocal Teaching: Divide students into small groups. Each group reads a chapter or section of a text, then follows a 4-step procedure: clarification, questioning, summarizing, predicting. At the clarification stage, students discuss any unfamiliar words or information that was confusing. Next, students look deeper at the text and ask meaningful questions (more in depth than In the Book/Right There). Following this, students are asked to pull out the most important information and main idea, and create a summary of 10 words or less. Finally, students spend time making predictions about what will happen next using information from their previous investigations.

QAR and Reciprocal Teaching are popular and helpful strategies for classrooms of various ages. These strategies, however, require a great deal of preparation, explanation, modeling and guide practice in order to be most effective. Be familiar with the strategies and plan to implement them consistently over a long period of time for the best results.

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**QAR and Reciprocal Teaching are popular and helpful strategies for classrooms of various ages. These strategies, however, require a great deal of preparation, explanation, modeling and guide practice in order to be most effective. Be familiar with the strategies and plan to implement them consistently over a long period of time for the best results.​​​​

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Additional Comprehension Resources:

http://www.education.com/activity/comprehension/
http://www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Comprehension_Activities

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Below are several other websites with a wide variety of useful information about literacy, the Big 5, instructional practices, and useful activities.

http://www.education.com/
http://www.readingrockets.org/
http://www.fcrr.org/
http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/PRFbooklet.pdf

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