There are so many components of literacy instruction, it can feel daunting to fit it all into the school day! This is why I love to use readalouds as a springboard for literacy practice! Students are able to enjoy the story while developing important reading skills. In this post, I’m going to share engaging Tops and Bottoms activities that you can use for comprehension practice as you share this fun story with your class.
The Importance of Comprehension Activities
It’s so important to include comprehension practice throughout your daily literacy routine. As illustrated in Hollis Scarborough’s popular infographic, the “Reading Rope” (2001), all of the reading sub-skills combine and intertwine as students learn to read. It takes development of all of these strands in order for our students to become confident and fluent readers.
As you can see in the Reading Rope, language comprehension is an essential strand. One of my favorite ways to help students develop their comprehension skills is through engaging readaloud lessons. Brain research reveals that reading comprehension starts with listening comprehension.
Tops and Bottoms Activities for Comprehension Practice
If you’ve never read Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens, you’re in for a treat! This is fun story that opens the door to many different comprehension activities.
In this story, a lazy land-owning Bear spends all of his time sleeping in a chair on his porch. His clever neighbor, Hare, hatches a plan to help feed his hungry family by going into business with Bear. He offers to do all the work of planting the crops in Bear’s garden as long as they split the harvest 50/50. He even lets Bear choose which half of the crops he will keep: Tops or bottoms. Bear agrees to this arrangement and chooses the tops of the crops. As you can probably guess, the clever Hare plants root vegetables to take advantage of the arrangement.
The rest of the story passes in a similar fashion, with Hare outsmarting Bear each growing season and Bear growing more frustrated each year. Students absolutely love this story! This is why it’s such a perfect readaloud for comprehension practice. Here are some of my favorite activities that give students a chance to stretch those comprehension muscles:
1. Predicting
Making predictions is an important comprehension skill that will help students develop as readers. This story invites students to make many different predictions as you read it together as a class.
You can pause the story after the first time Hare tricks Bear and ask your students what they think will happen next. After seeing Hare play such a big trick on Bear, students will definitely have some thoughts about what will happen next. It’s so fun when the students realize that Hare tricks the bear a second AND a third time!
2. Inferring
As Bear gets tricked again and again, it can raise some questions about how he doesn’t realize what is happening right in front of his house! This gives students a chance to make inferences, another important comprehension strategy.
Students can write about why they think Bear didn’t realize what was happening in his garden each time he was tricked. They can also illustrate their responses. As students take time to formulate their thoughts and put them in writing, they develop important comprehension skills that will help them become confident readers.
3. Retelling
It is said that the person doing the most talking is the person who is doing the most learning. You can get your students talking about the story with retelling activities!
Students can use these retelling cards to help them remember key points from the story. They can also cut out the retelling cards and put them in order, which is helpful sequencing practice! Retelling and sequencing are important for both speaking and writing, which means these are essential skills for our young learners to practice.
4. Character Analysis
Another important part of reading comprehension is understanding the characters in the story. Readers take note of character traits as they read, which can help them better understand the events in the story.
A fun way to analyze the characters from Tops and Bottoms is with a character traits anchor chart. As students describe the characteristics of Bear and Hare, you can talk about why those traits are important to the story plot. For example, Bear’s laziness made it possible for Hare to trick him over and over again. Hare’s bravery made it possible for him to approach Bear with his plan in the first place!
5. Opinion Writing
Once you’ve had plenty of time to discuss the story together as a class, it’s helpful to give students a chance to put together all of their thoughts in writing. You can do this by inviting students to complete an opinion writing activity. Be sure to review with your students that there is no right or wrong answer when they share an opinion. However, it’s important for them to explain why they feel the way they do.
After reading Tops and Bottoms, students can write about whether or not they think it was okay for Hare to trick Bear. They can cite evidence from the story to support their opinions. It is always so interesting to read their opinions and reasoning! It really showcases all of the learning and comprehension practice that has taken place during the readaloud unit.
Printable Tops and Bottoms Activities
All of the activities pictured in this post (and much more!) are included in one easy-to-download resource. This set of readaloud activities includes print-and-go resources and lesson plans for four different books that are perfect for spring!
You can head over to my TPT store to take a closer look at everything included in this time-saving resource!
Save These Activities for Tops and Bottoms
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these Tops and Bottoms activities when you’re looking for a fun way to practice reading comprehension strategies.
FREE Guided Reading Lesson Plan Template
Subscribe to get our latest content by email and this FREE resource.
