Engaging Activities to Help Kids Learn to Read
Every teacher wants to turn their students into strong readers, but this isn’t always easy. It can be a challenge to keep the attention of kids who don’t want to stare at a page. If some of your students already feel frustrated by reading, they likely don’t want to sit still through these lessons and can start to disrupt their peers. One way to make reading exciting is to add a kinesthetic element to the assignment. It’s time to get moving and get your creative juices flowing.
Multi-Sensory Learning: The Key to Reading Success
Learning to read is a multifaceted process, involving phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. To make this process engaging and effective, especially for young learners, incorporating multi-sensory activities is crucial. These activities cater to different learning styles, making reading a fun and interactive experience.
Hands-On Activities for Letter and Word Recognition
Alphabet Scavenger Hunt
If you are teaching young students, they might still be learning different letters and the words associated with them. Along the wall, place a bag or a small box under each letter of the alphabet. For example, if a student finds a plastic dinosaur figurine, they can place the toy in the “d” box.
Body Letters
Some of the best hands-on activities don’t use hands at all. Bring your students outside (or to a wide-open space) and ask them to create different letters with their bodies. A student creating the letter “L” might sit on the ground with their legs in front of them and their arms above their head.
Creative Expression Through Reading
Collage Sentences
Keep a stack of magazines and newspapers in your classroom. Challenge students to cut out words in different publications and create sentences in collage form. Make sure each sentence has a subject, verb, and adjective - or whatever parts of speech you are currently teaching.
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Sensory Word Exploration
A big part of reading is context clues. What does it mean if a sad and lonely character is morose? Why does it matter if a backpack is too cumbersome to carry without help? As you learn new vocabulary words, ask your students to come up with sounds that might describe them. Morose as a sound might come out like a grumble. While your students might pretend to strain against lighting a weight to describe cumbersome.
Storyboarding
Movie makers and TV developers use storyboards to visualize their ideas. Your students can do the same. Use a whiteboard (or a virtual board online) in your classroom to create a guide for the story. For example, a student might draw a spaceship if they are reading a story that takes place on Mars.
Incorporating Movement and Games
Spelling Workouts
A spelling workout is a great way to get kids moving. Randomly draw a vocabulary word and ask students to complete exercises that correlate to each letter. Kimberly Grabinski at 730 Sage Street created a chart that assigned exercises to the alphabet. The word “urn” would require students to roll a ball using only their head, walk like a bear for a count of five, and pick up a ball without using their hands.
Silent Letter Shush
Words with silent letters tend to trip up students. They are more likely to pronounce the “c” in scissors when reading the word aloud or leave out the “e” in make when writing it down. When your vocabulary words include silent letters, ask your students to bring a finger to their lips to shush the letter.
Hopscotch ABCs
If your students love hopscotch then they will enjoy playing on an ABC grid. Each square has a letter (with a few blank spaces to create an extra challenge). Students have to hop from letter to letter to spell a word.
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Reading Relay Race
There are so many skills involved in reading. Kids learn how to spell out words, practice handwriting, and form letters. In this relay race, students read a sentence on a piece of paper and run back to a teammate. This teammate listens to the sentence and has to write it down. The third teammate takes the written sentence and has to read it aloud to you. If they are right, the process repeats.
Question Beach Ball
Pick up a beach ball and write different questions on each side. Each question should relate to the elements of a story. You can use this beach ball to lead a discussion of a story students are reading. Bounce the beachball around the classroom. Wherever it lands, students have to answer a question.
Real-World Reading Activities
Shopping Your Way with Words
Use your weekly shopping trip as an opportunity to help your child develop reading and writing skills.
What you’ll need: Paper and pencils, Newspaper ads, Supermarket coupons
What to do: As you make out your grocery shopping list, give your child a sheet of paper and read the items to him or her. If the child asks for spelling help, write the words correctly for him or her to copy or spell the words aloud as your child writes them.
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Ask your child to look through the newspaper ads to find the prices of as many items as possible. Your child can write these prices on the list and then look through your coupons to select the ones you can use. Take your child to the supermarket and ask him or her to read each item to you as you shop.
Cookbooking
Cooking is always a delight for children, especially when they can eat the results!
What you’ll need: Easy-to-read recipes, Cooking utensils, Paper and pencils
What to do: Show your child a recipe and go over it together. Ask your child to read the recipe to you as you work, and tell the child that each step must be done in a special order. Let your child help mix the ingredients. Allow your child to write down other recipes from the cookbook that he or she would like to help make.
Dictionary Words
A dictionary is a valuable learning tool, especially if your child makes up his or her own booklet of words that are challenging.
What you’ll need: Paper and pencils, A stapler, Old magazines, Newspaper and supplements
What to do: Encourage your child to make a dictionary by putting together several sheets of paper for a booklet. Ask your child to write at the top of each page a new word he or she has recently learned. If the word can be shown in a picture, have him or her look through magazines and newspapers to find pictures that illustrate the words and paste them on the correct pages.
Have your child write the meaning of each word and a sentence using each new word. Your child can then use some or all of these sentences as the basis for a creative story. Have your child read this story to you and other family members.
Journals
Keeping a journal is a way for your child to write down daily events and record his or her thoughts.
What you’ll need: Two notebooks - one for your child and one for you!
What to do: Help your child start a journal. Say what it is and discuss topics that can be written about, such as making a new friend, an interesting school or home activity just completed, or how your child felt on the first day of school. Encourage your child to come up with other ideas. Keep a journal yourself and compare notes at the end of the week. Show your child some store-bought birthday cards with funny, serious, or thought-provoking messages. Your child can then create his or her own birthday card by using a folded piece of paper, making an attractive cover, and writing a short verse inside. On one side of the bookmark, have your child draw a picture of a scene from a book he or she has read. On the other side, ask your child to write the name of the book, its author, publisher, publication date, and a few sentences about the book. After making several of these bookmarks, you might ask the child to send them to friends and relatives as gifts accompanied by a short note.
Let Your Fingers Do the Walking
The telephone book contains a wealth of information and is a good tool for reading and writing.
What you’ll need: A telephone book, including the yellow pages, Paper and pencils
What to do: Have your child look through the yellow pages of the telephone directory, select a particular service, and write a clever or funny ad for it. Have your child read this ad to you. Help your child to find your own or a friend’s listing in the white pages of the telephone book. Explain the different entries (for example, last name and address), along with the abbreviations commonly used.
Map Your Way to Success
Children love to read road maps and this activity actually helps them with geography.
What you’ll need: A road map or atlas, Paper and pencil, Stamps and envelopes
What to do: When planning a vacation, let your child see the road map and help you plan where you will drive. Talk about where you will start and where you will end up. Let your child follow the route between these two points. Encourage your child to write to the Chamber of Commerce for brochures about places you will see on your trip.
What’s in the News?
Newspapers are a form of daily communication with the outside world, and provide lots of learning activities for children.
What you’ll need: Newspapers, Scissors, Colored pencils
What to do: Clip out an interesting news story and cut the paragraphs apart. Ask your child to read the paragraphs and put them in order.
Ask your child to read a short editorial printed in your local newspaper and to underline all the facts with a green pencil and all the opinions with an orange pencil.
Pictures fascinate children of all ages. Clip pictures in the newspaper. Ask your child to tell you about the picture or list adjectives to describe the picture.
Do you take your child to the movies? Have your child first look up the movie page by using the index in the newspaper. After a movie has been chosen, have your child study the picture or text in the ad and tell you what he or she thinks the movie is about.
Have your child pick a headline and turn it into a question. Then the child can read the article to see if the question is answered.
Ask your child to clip food coupons from the newspaper for your grocery shopping trips. First, talk about which products you use and which you do not. Then the child can cut out the right coupons and putt hem into categories such as drinks and breakfast items. You can then cash in the coupons at the store.
Pick out an interesting article from the newspaper. As you are preparing lunch or dinner, tell your child that you are busy and ask him or her to read the article to you.
Many newspapers publish materials especially written for children, such as the syndicated “Mini Page,” “Pennywhistle Press,” and “Dynamite Kids.” In addition, some newspapers publish weekly columns for children, as well as tabloids and summer supplements written by educators.
Using Television to Stimulate Reading
What child doesn’t enjoy watching TV? Capitalize on this form of entertainment and use TV to help rather than hinder your child’s learning.
Some important ideas to consider before turning on the TV: Limit in some way the amount of TV your child watches so as to leave time for reading and other activities. Decide how much time should be set aside for watching TV each day.
Serve as an example by limiting the amount of TV you yourself watch. Have time when the TV set is off and the entire family reads something. You may want to watch TV only for special shows. Before the TV set is turned on, encourage your child to select the programs he or she wishes to watch. Ask your child to give you the reason for the choices made.
In addition, watch some of the same TV programs your child watches. This helps you as a parent share in some of your child’s daily activities.
What you’ll need: A TVA TV selection guide, Colored highlighters, A calendar page for each month, Paper and pencils
What to do: Ask your child to tell you about favorite TV characters using different kinds of words.
As your child watches commercials on television, ask him or her to invent a product and write slogans or an ad for it.
Encourage your child to watch such programs as Reading Rainbow. Urge older children to watch such programs as 60 Minutes and selected documentaries. These programs are informative. Discuss interesting ideas covered in the programs and direct your child to maps, encyclopedias, fiction, or popular children’s magazines for more information.
Have your child name 10 of his or her favorite shows. Ask your child to put them into categories according to the type of show they are, such as family shows, cartoons, situation comedies, sports, science fiction, or news and information. If you find the selection is not varied enough, you might suggest a few others that would broaden experiences.
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