Engaging Reading Activities (With a FREE File)

Around last November I had a conversation with Deanna Jump about wanting to do more responding to literature with my class.  I felt we had a great foundation with writer’s workshop but I wanted deeper connections and interactions with the texts we were reading.  So we created Guiding Readers.

Engaging Readers started out as a “responding to literature” unit in our heads, but then we realized we needed to integrate phonics, interactive writing, reading comprehension, phonemic awareness and vocabulary in as well.  So needless to say, it turned into a complete reading curriculum.

Each week we pull a few words from our text to explore them deeper.  We explore the meaning of the word and contextualize it.  Remember, the skill we want students to practice when learning vocabulary from the books they read is to glean the meaning of the word based on the context of the sentence.  This is not a flash-card-dictionary-type activity AT ALL!  In the images below, we are exploring “heaping” as in “a heaping pile of snow.”

Engaging Reading Activities:  Reading Comprehension

I use these lessons Engaging Readers in a whole group setting.   In my kindergarten classroom, I do the reading work (decoding the words) and my students do the thinking work.

Everyone participates.   Working with a partner engages all of the students.

Engaging Reading Activities:  Interactive Writing

Students are able to focus on the mechanics of writing during our interactive writing time.

Engaging Reading Activities: Responding to the text

Each day, students respond to the text we are reading.  As you know, we stay with the text for 5 days.  Each day examining a different comprehension strategy.  Here are a few from various books.

We sometimes responded with a full sheet of paper and sometimes we responded in our notebooks.  Each response activity offers both options.   When I am short on time, I optfor the notebook responses

Sometimes the students respond by drawing pictures.

Engaging Reading Activities: Rubrics

Sometimes we assess the heck out of our students without any purpose.  We like to assess students using a rubric.  This informs our teaching and it informs the students.

Engaging Reading Activities: Phonics and Word Work

We also include word work activities that is suitable for kindergarten and first-grade students.

Engaging Reading Activities: Phonemic Awareness

We also include some suggested phonemic awareness activities.

Here is what I know…my class soared when I started these activities.  Their level of engagement went through the roof!  Their ability to discuss text grew exponentially.  When it was time to assess my students’ reading comprehension it was so apparent that they were able to retell a story with great detail in a sequential order, they made connections and were able to discuss the text at a deeper level. Not only did I experience great student success, but Deanna and I heard from countless teachers saying how these units have changed their classroom.   {This is where I get uncomfortable… I don’t want to sound like I am full of myself.}   BUT SERIOUSLY… the feedback we received made our hearts happy.   I loved hearing from teachers who were using our units when administrators and superintendents observed them and they were blown away.

You can read the feedback for yourself HERE.