reading activities for high school special education students

10 More Functional Reading Activities In Special Education

Functional reading activities are a must in special education programs. We need to focus on various activities that students will need lifelong. These skills will help our students be more independent and improve their communication skills. Here are 10 MORE reading activities to use in your classroom to build functional literacy skills. Click HERE to read the first list.

FUNCTIONAL READING ACTIVITIES FOR LIFE SKILLS

• Reading and understanding community signs : It’s not enough for students to be able to read the signs… they also need to know what they mean. Students need to practice this in a variety of ways because signs don’t always look exactly the same. We work on this with clip art versions in file folders and clip cards . We also work on it with real photos and graphics in our community sign of the week sets . 
• Directional signs and posters: For example, when a person walks into the doctor’s office, there is a sign telling the person where to go, where to sign in, etc. Students need to be able to not only read these signs but also understand and act on what they say to do. We use these directional signs interactive books to work on reading these types of signs. 
• Recipes: A great functional reading activity is to teach students how to follow recipes in order to cook or complete a dish. Depending on your students, you could use visual recipes and build up to a more traditional recipe. We practice both food and nonedible visual recipes. A class favorite is the Cloud Dough Visual Recipe.
• Directions for set-up: For example, follow directions on how to build a toy, Lego set, furniture, etc. You could start with directions with visual supports like this interactive book on setting the table and then build to following directions without visual supports as students progress. 
• Schedules : Students need to be able to read and understand a variety of schedules— for example, bus schedules, work schedules, movie schedules, etc. Click here to read about using schedules in your classroom.  
• Coupons: While reading the newspaper may never be a thrill for your students, there are functional reading activities that include the flyers that come in newspapers. Students need to be able to read coupons and know what products they apply to, when it expires, how much it is worth, etc. We start with activities like this Boom Deck with coupons.
• Forms : Students need to be able to read forms and know which information the form is looking for. You can create a mock form that targets this skill while also generalizing other skills. For example, if a student is working on knowing and sharing personal info, create a form that asks for that information in a variety of ways. 
• Medical labels: Students need to be able to read medicine bottles (prescription and over-the-counter) in order to know how and when to take the medicine. Use worksheet based labels or empty bottles students find in the store or pharmacy. The goal would be for students to be able to read and understand both versions. 
• Menus: Students need to be able to read a variety of menus. For example, the menu board at a fast food restaurant looks different than a hand help menu you get at a fancier restaurant. Students need to know how to read menus and how to find the info they need on the menu. Practice reading menus in a variety of settings: school cafes, ice cream shops, fast food restaurants, a sit down restaurant menu, a drive-thru menu, etc. Exposing and teaching about a variety of menus will help students be able to read and understand menus wherever they are. 
• General labels : when you look around your house and community, you find there are a variety of labels. Students need to be able to read and follow the label on their clothes to clean and care for them. They also need to know how to use the household cleaners and the parking meter. They all look different, but students need to be able to read and understand all of them.

Don’t forget, reading and writing often go hand in hand and both are needed for functional life skills. Click here or the button below to read 10 activities that target functional writing skills. 

resources to target reading comprehension

Reading comprehension books with visuals

Read and Do Playdough set

Following directions: build a house set

Identifying Feelings In Pictures To Support Reading Comprehension

Reading Comprehension Worksheets Bundle

Context clues clip cards

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23 Fun and Easy Guided Reading Activity Ideas

Boost reading skills in small groups.

Guided reading is small-group instruction that supports each reader’s progress with mini-lessons, practice, and feedback. Students read books at their level and engage in activities before and after that help them build core reading skills. Read on to learn how to teach a guided reading lesson, plus see our favorite guided reading activity ideas.

What is included in a guided reading lesson?

You’ll use the same text across multiple guided reading lessons. Depending on the skills you’re teaching and the text, you may plan guided reading lessons that span a few days or a week. The point is to really get into the text and practice reading skills with your feedback and guidance.

Each guided reading lesson is broken into parts:

Mini lesson

A mini lesson that focuses on phonemic awareness, phonics, word reading, fluency, or vocabulary. You can’t hit all of those in one mini lesson, so choose a skill that students will be using in the text they’re reading right after the mini lesson.

Read the book

Students read the decodable book independently. They may whisper-read while you listen, or they may read on their own and read aloud when you ask them to. During this time, you check in with students to make sure they are able to read and understand the text.

Comprehension activities

After students have finished reading, it’s time to talk about what they read. They’ll retell, answer questions, and engage in other comprehension-based activities.

The last part of a guided reading lesson is applying the skills they learned in writing. This could mean practicing writing words from the story, or writing sentences or responses to the story.

Preparing for Guided Reading

Guided reading takes planning—lots of planning. Doing this work on the front end will make guided reading an effective, fun time in your reading block. Here are the three steps you can take to make guided reading work:

Get students into groups

Ashleigh’s Education Journey/guided reading groups via Ashleigh-educationjourney.com

Use data from your school’s universal screening and other assessments to identify which students are working on the same thing for guided reading groups. Maybe you have a group of students who are working on long vowel patterns, while another group is working on reading multi-syllabic words. The text they read will give them a chance to practice what they’re learning, so it’s important to have the right groups. ADVERTISEMENT

Choose an appropriate text

Text selection is key during guided reading. Students should be working in text that they can just reach with support since they’re spending their reading time being closely monitored. Look for decodable texts, or texts that have words that students have learned. So, a short-“a” decodable reader would have words that only have the short “a” sound—it won’t include long “a” words or other vowels.

As students get older, finding books that they’re interested in reading continues to be important, but you’ll look for books that have features you want to teach, like text features or text structure.

Set the schedule

Ashleigh’s Education Journey/guided reading schedule

Set a schedule that ensures that each student gets what they need—students who are able to read and work more independently may need a different schedule than students who struggle to work on their own and need additional help with reading. A weekly schedule lets you make sure you’re hitting all the right skills and practice.

A guided reading schedule may also include intervention or Tier 2 groups. Read more about reading intervention .

Mini-Lesson Activities

Each guided reading lesson will start with a mini-lesson. You don’t have a lot of time, so focus on one aspect of reading that students are going to apply in the book that day.

Build and Write Words

Ashleigh’s Education Journey/guided reading activity via Ashleigh-educationjourney.com

Give students practice forming words with letter tiles or cut-out letter squares. Students choose the letters they need to sound out words that they’ll read in the book. Then, with the model they’ve created, they can write the word in the next column.

Pop and Write

Mrs. Winter’s Bliss/word mapping activity via mrswintersbliss.com

In this guided reading activity, have students use a Pop-It to break a word into sounds. Then, students use a whiteboard marker to write the word. (Could you include more fun things in one activity?!) Combining the Pop-It for phonemic awareness and writing to practice encoding letter sounds is a great way to reinforce two skills at once.

CVC Word Reading

Miss Kindergarten/CVC word reading via misskindergarten.com

Use cards like these from Miss Kindergarten to practice pointing to and blending each sound in a word. Choose words that will be in the book students are reading and point out when they use the same strategy they use during the practice in their actual book reading.

Pre-Teach Vocabulary

The Science Penguin/vocabulary concept building via thesciencepenguin.com

Help students start to organize and remember new vocabulary by having them work with words. In this example from The Science Penguin , students sort new words according to parts of speech to help commit them to memory.

Sight Word Sticker Book

First Grader … at Last/sight word sticker book via Firstgraderatlast.blogspot.com

As students master sight words, have them put stickers by each word. Then, as a warm-up in guided reading, they can review the words they know and practice words they don’t. Set a day as sticker day, when they can prove that they’ve mastered a new word and add more stickers to their book.

Learn more: First Grader … at Last

Fluency Strips

Mrs. Richardson’s Class/fluency Strips via mrsrichardsonsclass.com

In this guided reading activity, have students practice reading fluency with short, manageable strips of a phrase or a sentence or two. You can also print out sentences or short paragraphs from books they’re reading so you can build repeated reading practice into guided reading.

Learn more: Mrs. Richardson’s Class

Read more: Fluency Activities

Word Family Fluency

Miss Kindergarten/word family fluency via misskindergarten.com

Another way to work in some quick fluency practice is with word family sentence strips. Give students the strips for the word family they are working on and have them practice reading through the strips. If you organize them by color like Miss Kindergarten , you can also have a rainbow-sentence option with sentences from all the different word families.

Mrs. Richardson’s Class/phonics practice example via mrsrichardsonsclass.com

Practice making words that have the same spelling pattern—for example, writing all the words that end in -igh. Choose spelling patterns students will see in the book you’re going to read so students can get maximum practice with the spelling patterns.

Read more: Phonics Activities

Preview the Text

Previewing the text, or looking at the main features, is a habit that you’ll want students to have as they read on their own. Use time during guided reading to preview each text before you read it.

Here’s how to preview a text with students:

During reading activities

Teaching With Jennifer Findley/guided reading data tracker via jenniferfindley.com

During guided reading, the most important activity is reading. The teacher’s role is to listen as students read and then give them feedback on their reading. Correct a word here. Prompt them to use a strategy there.

Take notes on how students are reading each session so you have the data to track their progress.

Get it: Free printable guided reading note taker from Jennifer Findley

After reading activities

After students have read the text, it’s time to talk comprehension. They can practice retelling, answering questions, and discussing text with their small group. Their responses will show you how they’re doing in terms of understanding questions and pulling information out of the text.

Retelling Gloves

Buzzing With Ms. B/retelling gloves via buzzingwithmsb.com

Create a retelling glove and have students refer to each of the five fingers for each part of the story they should include in a retelling. This helps students who get lost in telling you all the details. You can have them put each finger down as they tell you that part of the story.

Learn more: Buzzing With Ms. B

Comprehension Fans

Runde’s Room/Comprehension Fans via rundesroom.com

Organize questions onto strips or cards, and put a collection of these questions on a ring to create a “fan” for this guided reading activity. Then have students select a question from the fan to ask a group, or write a response.

Learn more: Runde’s Room

Check out this list of printable questions for book discussions .

Fill In the Graphic Organizer

Courtney Schermerhorn/graphic organizer via teacherspayteachers.com

A graphic organizer is a great way to help students organize information they pull from a text. As students learn how to complete graphic organizers and use text structure to understand text, provide graphic organizers with some parts filled in to model a correct response (read: full sentences) and give students a scaffold to complete the entire organizer.

Buy it: Graphic organizer at Teachers Pay Teachers

Reading Dice

A Love 4 Teaching/reading dice via alove4teaching.blogspot.com

Write open-ended literature response questions on dice. Then, students roll the dice and answer the question that lands on top.

Learn more: A Love 4 Teaching

Comprehension Jenga

Counselor Clique/Questions on a Jenga game via counselorclique.com

Counselor Clique wrote questions for post-career goals in this example, but for guided reading, write questions on Jenga blocks that apply to your students’ age and reading goals. Then, play a game of Jenga—students pull a block from the stacked tower and answer the question they get.

Summarize Together

This Reading Mama/Summarizing Activity via thisreadingmama.com

Students practice summarizing using signal words by using sticky notes and papers that have the key features of a summary: who, what, when, where, why. After students write their signal words, they create a group summary by sticking them onto the paper. Over time, students can do this activity on their own or in a small group without direct supervision.

Read more: This Reading Mama

Bloom Balls

Coffee Cups & Lesson Plans/Bloom Ball activity via coffeecupslessonplans.com

Have older students create a Bloom Ball, a 12-sided ball with space to write on each side. Students write questions they can ask about any text, or projects they can do with any text, on each side. Then, they roll the ball to see which question they answer or which project they do.

Learn more at Coffee Cups & Lesson Plans .

Buy it: Bloom Ball template at Teachers Pay Teachers

Prediction Practice

Raise the Bar Reading/making predictions activity via teacherspayteachers.com

Making predictions using information from the text is an important skill students use to maintain comprehension. Use a template, like this one from Raise the Bar Reading , to help students identify the information from the text, then use that information to make predictions.

Buy it: Making Predictions printable at Teachers Pay Teachers

Student-Led Groups

The Mountain Teacher/student-led reading groups via themountainteacher.com

As students get older and learn how to discuss text on their own, put them into groups to discuss. Having roles in the group can help some students stay on task, and ensures that everyone has something to be accountable for.

Learn more: The Mountain Teacher

Guided Writing

The last part of guided reading is writing! This is when students are able to consolidate everything they learned, put it into their own words, and maybe add some more ideas.

Letter Writing

Whimsy Workshop Teaching/letter-writing examples via whimsyworkshopteaching.com

Letter writing is a great way to have students retell and engage with text. You can have students write a letter to a character (like the example from Whimsy Workshop Teaching ). Or have students put themselves in the mind of one character and write a letter to another character in the book from that point of view. This activity is good for after students read an especially dramatic part in the story and one character has a secret or new information they can’t wait to share.

Newspaper Article

Kirsten’s Kaboodle/newspaper template via kirstenskaboodle.com

Newspaper writing is retelling for older students. This activity has students retell what happened in the day’s or week’s reading in a newspaper article format. Use a graphic organizer to make sure that students include all the relevant sections.

Buy it: Kirsten’s Kaboodle newspaper template

Pitch a Sequel

In this guided reading activity, have students write an idea for a sequel to the book or story they just read. Where would they take the characters next? What conflict would these characters get into next?

Comic Strip Retell

Mrs. RM/comic strip retelling via Pinterest

Another way to retell for older students: Use a comic strip format to show the beginning, middle, and end of a story or scene. For longer texts, you could have students build out a comic strip across multiple guided reading lessons, or have students work collaboratively to turn the entire story into a comic.

Graph Character Arc

This one will really engage students’ creativity. Students choose a type of graph (pie graph, chart, etc.) and track the character’s emotions or level of conflict in a scene or book. Label the graph with information from the story.

What are your favorite guided reading activity ideas? Share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group  on Facebook.

Check it out: 49 anchor charts all about reading comprehension ..

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Best Reading Strategies for Special Education Students

In the 2020–2021 school year, 15% of public school students were reported to be receiving special education services. Within that percentage, 33% of those students had a specific learning disability like dyslexia. As we all collectively recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that these students get the support they need during their literacy acquisition journey.

Many students have experienced some level of learning loss due to the pandemic, and accelerated learning is being prioritized now more than ever. This can be particularly hard on teachers, especially when there is a national shortage of teachers and content-area specialists. So, how can educators go about supporting special education students without stretching themselves too thin? It all comes down to implementing evidence-backed reading strategies supported by the science of reading.

What Is a Learning Disability?

Learning disabilities are defined as “a group of brain disorders that affect a broad range of academic and functional skills including the ability to read, write, listen, speak, reason, or complete mathematical tasks.” While there are certain parameters for different learning disabilities, one student’s experience is going to look completely different from the next.

In this blog, we’ll be covering some of the best evidence-based strategies to help students with disabilities strengthen their reading comprehension skills.

Reading Comprehension Strategies for Students With Disabilities

So, what exactly is reading comprehension? Gough and Tumner (1986) described reading comprehension as the product of decoding and language comprehension. This was known as The Simple View of Reading. For students with learning disabilities, comprehension can be particularly difficult. One reason for this is the difference between automatic thinking and cognitive thinking.

For example, let's say you ask two students to spell the word “car.” Student A writes down the word in two seconds and is ready to move on immediately. This is automatic thinking. Student B’s thought process might include questions like, “Does car start with a c or a k? Is the second letter an a? The last letter is an r. How do I write an r?” This is cognitive thinking, which involves actively thinking about every step in the process before acting.

According to this article from the Michigan Reading Journal, students with learning disabilities typically have to use a tremendous amount of effort to actively think about learning. They also tend to need more modeling and practice than other students. Because these students might lack the cognitive processing skills it takes to read and write, they tend to avoid doing those activities—which puts them even further behind their peers.

Provide Explicit Instruction

Explicit instruction is a key component of a Structured Literacy approach to reading, which is a term coined by the International Dyslexia Association . Students with learning disabilities greatly benefit from explicit, step-by-step instructions for every part of the literacy acquisition process—especially reading comprehension. “Explicit instruction” just means that teachers are stating exactly what is expected, defining terms, modeling, giving examples, and including step-by-step directions on the board for students to follow.

Build on Students’ Prior Knowledge

Good readers create meaning from texts by connecting new information with topics and concepts they already understand. Developing prior knowledge should occur in all stages of reading, not just comprehension, and it can be especially helpful for students with learning disabilities. Having students connect texts to their real-life experiences before, during, and after reading will help strengthen their comprehension abilities.

Have Students Identify Themes

Theme identification is a key component of early reading comprehension. For younger students, this just means asking them to determine the lesson or moral of the story they just read. As students become stronger in their reading comprehension abilities, theme identification can branch out into more complex topics. In many cases, theme identification for elementary-aged students helps build their background knowledge, which can then be applied to other texts in the future.

Use Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers serve as visual representations that assist students with identifying, organizing, and remembering important concepts from what they read. Graphic organizers come in many forms—Venn diagrams, flow charts, checklists, or mind maps—and, when used effectively, they can be great tools for students with learning disabilities. These tools highlight the most important parts of the text while eliminating extra details that students might get caught up in.

Incorporate Literature Circles

Literature circles and other forms of peer-to-peer reading activities are great ways to get students involved and excited about reading. Within these groups, students are supporting each other’s learning with teacher guidance, and each student gets assigned a role: discussion leader, vocabulary enricher, illustrator, and connector. Each group should have around four to six students, which allows those who tend to stay on the sidelines of classroom discussions to get directly involved with what they’re learning.

Before, During, and After Reading a Text

The Council for Learning Disabilities outlines what educators should do before, during, and after introducing a new text to students with learning disabilities.

Before reading , one of the best things to do is to activate students’ background knowledge. As mentioned before, students better understand and retain information when they’re familiar with it. The CLD's tips include:

• Use specific strategies to activate prior knowledge, such as previewing headings or key concepts and making a prediction and confirmation chart.
• Prepare and guide previewing activities to support and focus the connections students make.
• Use graphic organizers to introduce important information, solicit prior knowledge from students, and make predictions.
• Avoid soliciting guesses from students without guidance or feedback.
• Keep it short. Previewing should not take longer than five minutes, especially if a teacher has limited time with students.
• Revisit after reading to assist in reviewing, confirming, or refuting predictions, summarizing, and making connections.

Along with activating prior knowledge, explicitly teach specialized vocabulary terms for the text and ask students to predict what will happen next to get them thinking.

During reading , make sure to teach students what types of questions they should be asking, as well as how to ask them. This includes questions that have answers directly in the text, as well as questions whose answers must be inferred. It is also important to show students how to evaluate questions posed by the teacher to determine if the answer can be found in the text or if it is something they have to infer.

Along with asking questions, bringing in graphic organizers to visually show what is happening in the text is extremely helpful for students—especially those with learning disabilities.

After reading , show students how to summarize the text they just read. This should be taught in an explicit and systematic way, as teachers shouldn’t assume that students will understand how to summarize texts automatically. The CLD outlines how to do this:

• Selecting a topic sentence or inventing a topic sentence if one is not explicitly stated
• Using one word to replace a list of related items
• Deleting trivial and redundant information
• Rereading to make sure your summary makes sense
• Teach students how to use graphic organizers to write summaries.
• Provide examples and non-examples of summaries to help students recognize and produce summaries that contain only key ideas.

Making Reading Possible for Everyone

The vast majority (95%) of students have the ability to learn how to read, even those who have learning disabilities. The best way to ensure students find success (and even joy!) in the reading process is to lead with evidence-based strategies. This means making sure instruction is based on the science of reading.

One of the most common learning disabilities is dyslexia, which can be tricky to spot in students. Potentially 1 in every 5 students in a given classroom has dyslexia, which is why it’s so important to know what to look out for and how to best support these students. This Lexia® white paper explains how to identify the early warning signs of dyslexia, as well as how to provide effective interventions that allow for student success.

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Promoting Reading Comprehension in Secondary Students with LD

Prepared by Marcia Kosanovich,Ph.D. Network of Educators, LLC (Revised August 2013)

Reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (Snow, 2002, p.11). Extracting meaning from text is to understand what the author has explicitly or implicitly stated. Constructing meaning is to interpret what the author has written based on the reader’s background knowledge, experiences, capabilities, and abilities.

Why is reading comprehension important for secondary struggling readers?

Students in Grades 4-12 spend the majority of their days in content-area classes. As students advance in school, researchers suggest reading instruction should become more disciplinary (tied to content areas), reinforcing and supporting students’ academic performance (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). All content-area instruction (e.g., English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) utilizes literary or informational text in some manner, so students must comprehend specific texts and grasp the concepts being communicated in them. This is a particular concern as the texts students are asked to read become increasingly complex with unique linguistic and cognitive features that are not necessarily shared across disciplines.

What is the goal of reading comprehension instruction for secondary students with learning disabilities?

The goal of reading comprehension instruction is to help students understand written language. Students who comprehend well monitor their understanding as they read and use fix-up strategies, such as re-reading or summarizing, when understanding breaks down. Self-monitoring also helps students relate new information to their prior knowledge, fostering better understanding. However, many adolescents struggle to comprehend text due to a lack of background knowledge, an inability to relate content to prior knowledge, an inability to read text fluently, difficulty decoding words, an inability to attend to meaning while reading, an inability to use comprehension strategies, deficits in metacognition (often not aware they are not comprehending), or difficulty understanding the meanings of words (Boardman et al., 2008; Pressley, 2006; Reed & Vaughn, 2010).

We teach comprehension so that all students “can read a variety of materials with ease and interest, can read for varying purposes, and can read with comprehension even when the material is neither easy to understand nor intrinsically interesting” (Snow, 2002, p. xiii). This is particularly true for adolescent readers who increasingly need to gain meaning from conceptually dense texts, as well as to remember and use the information (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004; Perfetti, Landi, & Oakhill, 2005).

What are comprehension research-based guidelines and strategies to implement with secondary students with learning disabilities?

In Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices (Kamil et al., 2008), the panel describes elements important for those adolescents who need more support in reading comprehension. Students’ learning needs should be identified through the use of an initial screening test or a threshold score on a required reading test and subsequent use of a diagnostic reading test administered, scored, and interpreted by a specialist. Then, the selection of a supplemental, intensive, and individualized reading intervention needs to be made. The intervention program or approach should provide an explicit instructional focus targeted to meet the learners’ needs. The intervention should be provided by a reading specialist or teacher who has participated in thorough training in the use of the program or approach. Teachers or reading specialists should also have professional development to increase their understanding of adolescent struggling readers. Other elements for effective interventions noted by the panel include:

• Word level interventions (e.g., systematic training in metacognitive decoding skills, such as subsyllabic segmentation)
• Explicit instruction, with scaffolding and feedback, of approaches that help students become more active, strategic readers
• Student collaboration in comprehension strategies (relies on teacher guidance)
• Reciprocal Teaching
• Graphic organizers to assist in understanding relationships among key concepts represented in texts
• Specific instruction on text structures, organizational patterns, and linguistic conventions commonly found in expository text
• Work in small groups or individually to increase intensity.
• An increased amount of time and frequency working with students who are struggling.
• Progress monitoring to determine if interventions are effective and to make instructional adjustments.

Most students demonstrate improved reading achievement when their teachers incorporate the following components of effective comprehension instruction before, during, and after reading (Edmonds et al., 2009; Snow, 2002):

• purposeful and explicit teaching,
• classroom interactions that support the understanding of content area texts,
• instruction in the skills and strategies used by expert readers, and
• content-area texts that are appropriately matched to students’ abilities and the specific strategy being implemented.

These instructional practices usually can be implemented class-wide in any content area. In fact, comprehension strategies work best when taught and practiced in meaningful contexts, so using authentic material in core academic classes makes sense.

Before Reading

• Use specific strategies to activate prior knowledge, such as previewing headings or key concepts, or making a prediction and confirmation chart.
• Prepare and guide previewing activities to support and focus the connections students make.
• Use graphic organizers to introduce important information, solicit prior knowledge from students, and make predictions.
• Avoid soliciting guesses from students without guidance or feedback.
• Keep it short. Previewing should not take longer than 5 minutes, especially if a teacher has limited time with students.
• Revisit after reading to assist in reviewing, confirming, or refuting predictions, summarizing, and making connections.
• Explicitly teach key specialized vocabulary related to the topic.
• Teach and have students practice how to set a purpose for reading.
• Use an anticipation-reaction guide to help students link new and prior knowledge and activate students’ interest and curiosity for the topic, promoting motivation and engagement.

During Reading

• Teach students to ask and answer specific types of questions, such as questions whose answers are explicitly stated in the text and those that require students to make inferences based on what they have read (e.g., Question-Answer Relationship).
• Use question generation on its own or as part of multi-strategy (e.g., Reciprocal Teaching) instruction.
• Provide students with strategies to evaluate teacher-generated questions. For example, it is important to know if the answer will be found in the text or if it should be inferred.
• represent and discuss connections,
• confirm or refute predictions, and
• record important information.
• Re-reading,
• Asking someone questions about the text,
• Considering relevant background knowledge, and
• Examining the graphics more carefully

After Reading

• Teach students how to use self-questioning strategies to reflect on what they have read.
• Teach students to summarize small amounts of text such as a short paragraph before summarizing longer sections.
• Selecting a topic sentence or inventing a topic sentence if one is not explicitly stated;
• Using one word to replace a list of related items;
• Deleting trivial and redundant information; and
• Re-reading to make sure your summary makes sense.
• Teach students how to use graphic organizers to write summaries.
• Provide examples and non-examples of summaries to help students recognize and produce summaries that contain only key ideas.
• write summaries,
• review information, and
• make connections

What are some guidelines for English-language learners (ELL)?

Francis et al., (2007) outline recommendations to guide the planning and implementation of any instructional approach or academic intervention to promote ELLs’ reading ability:

• ELLs need early, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonological awareness and phonics in order to build decoding skills.
• K-12 classrooms across the nation must increase opportunities for ELLs to develop sophisticated vocabulary knowledge.
• Reading instruction in K-12 classrooms must equip ELLs with strategies and knowledge to comprehend and analyze challenging narrative and expository texts.
• Instruction and intervention to promote ELLs’ reading fluency must focus on vocabulary and increased exposure to print.
• In all K-12 classrooms across the U.S., ELLs need significant opportunities to engage in structured, academic talk.
• Independent reading is only beneficial when it is structured and purposeful, and there is a good reader-text match.

What materials can be used to teach reading comprehension to struggling secondary students?

• Any other text such as magazines, newspaper articles, Internet sources, library books, all of which can supplement content area learning. These sources need to be of high interest to and appropriate for secondary students.
• Ways for students to monitor their reading such as graphic organizers, study guides, note-taking charts, reading logs, timelines, checklists, cloze activities, journals.
• Sticky notes, index cards, or any type of paper for students to write summaries, predictions, questions, and unknown words as they read sections of text.
• Informative posters, definitions, charts, maps, and graphs on the walls in the classroom to reinforce concepts and vocabulary.

Biancarosa, G., & Snow, C. E. (2004). Reading next—A vision for action and research in middle and high school literacy: A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York . Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Boardman, A. G., Roberts, G., Vaughn, S., Wexler, J., Murray, C. S., & Kosanovich, M. (2008). Effective instruction for adolescent struggling readers: A practice brief . Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. http://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/Practice%20Brief%2DStruggling%20Readers%2Epdf

Edmonds, M. S., Vaughn, S., Wexler, J., Reutebuch, C., Cable, A., Tackett, K. K., & Schnakenberg, J. W. (2009). A synthesis of reading interventions and effects on reading comprehension outcomes for older struggling readers . Review of Educational Research, 79, 262–300.doi: 10.3102/0034654308325998

Francis, D. J., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academic interventions . Portsmouth, NH: Center on Instruction, RMC Research Cooperation.

Kamil, M. L., Borman, G. D., Dole, J., Kral, C. C., Salinger, T., and Torgesen, J. (2008). Improving adolescent literacy: Effective classroom and intervention practices: A Practice Guide (NCEE #2008-4027). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc.

Perfetti, C. A., Landi, N., & Oakhill, J. (2005). The acquisition of reading comprehension skill. In M. J. Snowling& C. Hulme (Eds.), The science of reading: A handbook (pp. 227–247). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Pressley, M. (2006). Reading instruction that works: The case for balanced teaching (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford.

Reed, D. K., & Vaughn, S. (2010). Reading interventions for older students. In T. A.Glover & S. Vaughn (Eds.), Response to intervention: Empowering all students to learn, a critical account of the science and practice (pp. 143–186). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Adolescent Literacy , 78(1), 40-59.

Snow, C. E. (2002). Reading for understanding: Toward an R & D program in reading comprehension . Santa Monica, CA: Rand.

Recommend Readings

Alfassi, M. (2004). Reading to learn: Effects of combined strategy instruction on high school students. The Journal of Educational Research , 97(4), 171–184.doi: 10.3200/JOER.97.4.171-185

Almasi, J. F. (2003). Teaching strategic processes in reading . New York, NY:Guilford.

Armbruster, B. B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (2001). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read . Jessup, MD: National Institute forLiteracy.

Blanchowicz, C., & Ogle, D. (2001). Reading comprehension: Strategies for independent learners . New York, NY: Guilford.

Brown, A. L., & Palinscar, A. S. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension: Fostering and monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction , 1, 117–175.

Bryant, D. P., Vaughn, S., Linan-Thompson, S., Ugel, N., Hamff, A., & Hougen, M. (2000). Reading outcomes for students with and without reading disabilities in general education middle school content area classes. Learning Disability Quarterly , 23, 24-38.doi: 10.2307/1511347

Chin, C. (2007). Teacher questioning in science classrooms: Approaches that stimulate productive thinking. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 44(6),815–843.doi: 10.1002/tea.20171

DiCecco, V.M.,& Gleason, M.M. (2002). Using graphic organizers to attain relational knowledge from expository text. Journal of Learning Disabilities , 35(4), 306-320.doi:10.1177/00222194020350040201

Flick, L. B., & Lederman, N. G. (2002).The value of teaching reading in the context of science and mathematics. School Science and Mathematics , 102(3),105–106.

Gersten, R., Fuchs, L. S., Williams, J. P., & Baker, S. (2001). Teaching reading comprehension strategies to students with learning disabilities. Review of Educational Research , 71, 279–320.doi: 10.3102/00346543071002279

Gersten, R., & Jimenez, R. (1998). Promoting learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Jitendra, A. K., Hoppes, M. K., & Xin, Y. P. (2000). Enhancing main idea comprehension for students with learning problems: The role of a summarization strategy and self-monitoring instruction. The Journal of Special Education , 34(3), 127–139.doi: 10.1177/002246690003400302

Kosanovich, M. L., Reed, D. K., & Miller, D. H. (2010). Bringing literacy strategies into content instruction: Professional learning for secondary-level teachers . Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. Retrieved from http://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/Bringing%20Literacy%20Strategies%20into%20Content%20Instruction%2Epdf

Klingner, J. K., Vaughn, S., & Boardman, A. (2007). Teaching reading comprehension to students with learning difficulties . New York, NY: Guilford.doi: 10.1177/002246690003400302

Lovett, M.,& Steinbach, K. (1997). The effectiveness of remedial programs for reading disabled children of different ages: Does the benefit decrease for older children? Learning Disability Quarterly , 20(3), 189-210.doi: 10.2307/1511308

Mastropieri, M. A., Scruggs, T. E., Spencer, V., & Fontana, J. (2003). Promoting success in high school world history: Peer tutoring versus guided notes. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice , 18(1), 52–65.doi: 10.1111/1540-5826.00057

McKeown, M.B., Beck,I.L., & Blake, R.G.K. (2009). Rethinking reading comprehension instruction: A comparison of instruction for strategies and content approaches. Reading Research Quarterly , 44(3) pp. 218-253. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.44.3.1

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reports of the subgroups. (NIH Publication No. 00–4754).Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Raphael, T. E., & Au, K. H. (2005). QAR: Enhancing comprehension and test taking across grades and content areas. Reading Teacher , 59, 206–221.doi: 10.1598/RT.59.3.1

Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J. (2010). Improving reading comprehension in kindergarten through 3rd grade: A practice guide (NCEE 2010-4038). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from whatworks.ed.gov/publications/practiceguides.

Spencer, V. G., Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2003). Content area learning in middle school social studies classrooms and student with emotional orbehavioral disorders: A comparison of strategies. Behavioral Disorders , 28(2),77–93.

Taylor, B. M., Pearson, P. D., Peterson, D. S., & Rodriguez, M. C. (2005). The CIERA school change framework: An evidence-based approach to professional development and school reading improvement. Reading Research Quarterly ,40(1), 40–69.doi: 10.1598/RRQ.40.1.3

Taboada, A., & Guthrie, J. (2006). Contributions of student questioning and prior knowledge to construction of knowledge from reading information text. Journal of Literacy Research , 38(1), 1–35.doi: 10.1207/s15548430jlr3801_1

Torgesen, J. K., Houston, D. D., Rissman, L. M., Decker, S. M., Roberts, G.,Vaughn, S., & Lesaux, N. (2007). Academic literacy instruction for adolescents: A guidance document from the Center on Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: RMCCorporation, Center on Instruction.

Trabasso, T., & Bouchard, E. (2002). Teaching readers how to comprehend text strategically. In C. C. Pressley & M. Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 176–200). New York, NY: Guilford.

Van Garderen, D. (2004). Reciprocal teaching as a comprehension strategy for understanding mathematical word problems. Reading & Writing Quarterly , 20,225–229.doi: 10.1080/10573560490272702

Vaughn, S., Klinger, J. K., & Bryant, D. P. (2001). Collaborative strategic reading as ameans to enhance peer-mediated instruction for reading comprehension and content area learning. Remedial and Special Education , 22(2), 66–74.doi: 10.1177/074193250102200201

Vaughn, S., & Klinger, J. K. (1999).Teaching reading comprehension through collaborative strategic reading. Intervention in School and Clinic , 34, 284-292.doi: 10.1177/105345129903400505

Williams, J., Stafford, K., Lauer, K., Hall, K., & Pollini, S. (2009). Embedding reading comprehension training in content area instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology , 101(1), 1–20.doi: 10.1037/a0013152

Wilder, A.A., & Williams, J.P. (2001). Students with severe learning disabilities can learn higher order comprehension skills. Journal of Educational Psychology , 93(2), 268-278.doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.93.2.268

Suggested Resources

Kosanovich M. L., Logan, T., Magill, K., & Weinstein, C. (2007). Fourth and Fifth Grade Student Center Activities. Florida Center for Reading Research . http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/studentCenterActivities45.shtm

Kosanovich, M. L.,& MaGill, K. (2007). Teacher Resource Guide (with professional development DVD) to accompany the Fourth and Fifth Student Center Activities. Florida Center for Reading Research. http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/studentCenterActivities45.shtm

Murray, C. S., Wexler, J., Vaughn, S., Roberts, G., Tackett. K. K., & Kosanovich, M. (2008). Effective instruction for adolescent struggling readers: Professional development module. Facilitator’s guide . Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. http://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/EIASR%20FG%202nd%20Ed%2E.pdf

Note:  The first edition of this InfoSheet was prepared by Diane Pedrotty Bryant, Judy Englehard, and Linda Reetz .

For a downloadable PDF

©2013 Council for Learning Disabilities.

CLD grants permission to copy this article for educational purposes. Other InfoSheets are available on our website ( http://www.council-for-learning-disabilities.org/publications/infosheets ).

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18 Warm-Up Activities to Engage Students Before They Read Nonfiction Texts

Here is a collection of our favorite “bell ringers,” “do nows” and “hooks” to grab students’ attention, along with examples from dozens of our daily lessons.

By The Learning Network

How can you get your students interested in reading informational texts, whether the topic is Syria or sneakers , space exploration or statistics , surfing , superheroes or “ the souls of Black girls ”? How can you help them make connections between unfamiliar topics and their own lives? How can you scaffold complex ideas to make them accessible for a wide variety of learners?

We’ve had lots of practice answering these questions. Our editorial staff — all of us former teachers — comes up with a fresh before-reading activity, or “warm-up,” for every Lesson of the Day we publish. We now have over 700 of them, all based on Times articles chosen from across sections of the paper, and all free to students around the world.

Here we’ve combed through the collection, organized the strategies that we use most frequently and provided examples so that you can see how they work. Each is intended to be a brief activity — an appetizer before the main course. You can find them all listed here in this downloadable poster (PDF).

But we also hope to hear from you. Let us know in the comments section or by emailing us at [email protected] if you have other warm-up suggestions you think we should try. We’d love to lengthen this list!

1. Make it personal.

When have you faced a difficult journey or challenge? What role do video games play in your life? What do you know about your family history and ancestry? Do you read or write poetry? Have you ever believed in magic?

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17 Engaging Reading Activities for High School

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Reading activities are vital for academic performance, but also for all other aspects of life. By the time they’re in high school, students should have already mastered their reading skills, which allows them to work on efficiency, speed, and improving reading comprehension for complex technical subjects. This is where reading activities for high school students come into play. 

High school students are teenagers with a rebellious spirit and sometimes a disinterested attitude toward school and reading in general, as their social life is becoming more important. Nonetheless, high school is also a time when students need to think about their future and make life-altering decisions regarding their future career path. 

You can understand how, in a situation like the one described above, reading comprehension and good reading habits are essential for students’ future. But, how do you engage students in potentially intense reading materials without disengaging them? With reading activities and strategies that will make reading a fun and meaningful experience, of course! 

In this article, we’ll focus on 17 effective reading activities for high school that you can introduce in three phases: pre-, during, and post-reading. Each cluster of reading activities has its specific purpose and benefits. Best of all, we made sure the activities are based on general principles and flexibility, meaning you can use them regardless of whether you’re teaching English Literature , Science , or any other subject.

Pre-Reading Activities for High School Students

The first cluster of reading activities is called pre-reading activities because they precede the reading assignment. Their aim is to facilitate reading and improve comprehension by preparing the student for the topic. To illustrate this, think of a paper on the causes of the Revolutionary War . In fact, this is a good example that we’re going to stick with throughout this article in order to visualize the nature of the reading activities. 

So, the students need to read a paper about the Revolutionary War. What might facilitate or otherwise impair the reading comprehension, speed, or learning process for this assignment?

Three Pillars for Good Reading Skill in Academic Context

Reading comprehension will primarily depend on previous knowledge, general vocabulary, and the familiarity of specific terminology (not counting individual differences between students). Speed and efficacy will depend on the reading strategies and it mainly affects the students’ reading motivation and attitude. The learning process , on the other hand, depends on many different things, but knowing what to pay attention to, how to organize the content, and sharing impressions with others helps immensely. 

These three elements roughly define the outcome of all reading activities in one way or another. Therefore, we should keep them in mind when deciding when a reading activity helps the students. For instance, reading comprehension is tightly associated with precious knowledge, vocabulary, and familiarity with the topic which is what pre-reading activities target. On the other hand, the speed and efficacy of reading depend more on the reading strategies implemented during reading. Now, if you think post-reading activities help the learning process the most, you’re right, but learning is also very dependent on the pre-reading activities, and the student’s motivation. 

Let’s start with the pre-reading activities! 

Pre-Reading Activities

Word association.

Word association is a powerful technique that’s mostly implemented in the classroom when children are still learning how to read. However, word associations are also very useful when students are required to read a text on a complex topic or a new subject. With this technique, children will activate the right vocabulary needed for processing the text. 

How to use word association? There are two ways. First, you can use abstract words for which children need to find words with similar meanings or instances where the same words would have a different meaning. Another way is for kids to match words with definitions or practical applications of that word without changing the meaning. 

Just make sure that all the words used in the word-association task complement the reading material and activate the students’ vocabulary that will help them effectively read the text. 

Discussions

The second pre-reading activity is an open discussion before the students read the material. We know that discussions are essential as a post-reading activity, but they’re also incredibly helpful before reading. How? Well, they prime students for the reading material by offering some information about the topic and forming expectations on what the material is supposed to address. 

It’s not the same when you read without knowing or expecting anything, and reading while thinking: “Oh, they explained how the Revolutionary War began, but they didn’t mention anything about the causes. I wonder if they will talk about this further in the text because in the discussion, Brian mentioned the Sons of Liberty. They sound so cool, and I wonder what was their influence.”

Students will have an opportunity to hear different opinions, for example, what other classmates know about the topic, which naturally stimulates their curiosity and brings the topic on a more concrete and understandable level.

Text Survey

Text Survey is another powerful pre-reading activity for high school students because it teaches them how to identify the value of the text before reading it. In other words, during their university studies, students will be expected to do independent work, read tons of academic articles, and most importantly, filter out relevant information. This is why teaching them how to do text surveys, before investing a lot of time to read the full text, is essential for high school students. 

First, let us just say that a text survey is not the same as skimming – a common misconception. The latter is a strategic, selective reading method for highlighting the most important information from the text (we’ll explain it in the next section). Text surveying, on the other hand, is a pre-reading activity that allows students to determine if the text is something they actually want to read. 

Of course, when you assign students a particular text, they don’t need to survey it because they have to read it. But, since surveying is an essential academic reading skill, you can create opportunities where it would be beneficial for students to survey the text. 

How to do this? Again, we’ll use our Revolutionary War example. Let’s say students need to prepare a presentation on this topic. Share with them ten papers that approach this topic from different angles or discuss different causes, effects, or consequences, and so on. Assign each student a specific task – what their presentation should be about, and ask them to base it on the information from the papers. 

Now, some of the papers won’t even deal with the subtopics some of the students need to take. This is why, unless they want to read all the 10 or 15 papers, they’ll need to survey them to find which one is the best fit for their assignment. 

Surveying involves looking at the authors, headline, abstract and keywords (if available), the chapter titles, subheadings, date, etc. Basically, all the information that stands out and was used to outline the text. It’s an extremely beneficial technique because it takes only 5-10 minutes and saves a lot of time.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming can be done within the discussion or as a separate pre-reading activity. Just like word association, it helps students to activate their previous knowledge on the topic, make them think, and form hypotheses about the text’s scope and purpose. 

Within the classroom, you can organize brainstorming sessions in different ways, but here’s one example. 

Show students the book cover or the headline of a paper they need to read and ask them the following questions: 

• What comes to mind when you see this cover/headline? (write down the words)
• What do you think this text/book is about?
• Why do you think the text/book is about xx (make them associate the topic with the course itself)?
• In one word, what do you think it’s the main underlying message of this text/book?
• In one word, why do you think I chose this for us to read? 

Speed Chatting

We’re all familiar with the concept of speed dating, and I assume high school students are too, which is what makes this pre-reading activity even more fun. Speed chatting is based on the concept of speed dating, only in speed chatting the purpose is to find as much as you can about the topic, instead of the person. 

How to organize speed chatting? Introduce a topic, let’s say the Revolutionary War. Then, before they need to read a book or a text on that topic, ask them to go on speed chatting with each and every one of their classmates, sharing their previous knowledge about that topic. Usually, students should sit in pairs, one against another, and speak about the topic for one minute before moving on and speaking with another classmate. 

As you may assume, the benefit of speed chatting is that it maximizes the students’ previous knowledge before they read a topic. In other words, if one student knows a lot about the topic, that will be shared among everyone like gossip.

Introducing Vocabulary

A more formal pre-reading activity involves you sharing a glossary with important, new, or difficult words that students will encounter in the book or in the assigned text. However, make sure you all engage and discuss the glossary in the classroom and out loud, instead of expecting the students to go over it alone. For instance, each student can read a word in front of everyone and make a sentence in which they apply the word. This is because some students might be too shy to say that they don’t understand some of the words. 

Video Introduction

Watching movies, TEDtalks, video tutorials or animated visual presentations is not reading, but it’s a great way to prepare students for reading a text on a specific topic. In our example about the Revolutionary War, seeing a short movie, an animation with a timeline, the landscape, or simply how people re-enact the war, will put visual images in their heads while reading the text later, which helps to remember and understand the content in a faster and easier manner. 

In many of the above-mentioned examples, we’ve seen that questions are a great way to make students think, activate their previous knowledge, or get them talking about the topic. However, thinking about questions as a pre-reading activity is a little different. 

According to Tudor (1989) , there are five categories of content-related pre-reading activities, including pre-questions that the text should answer and questions that activate previous knowledge. In fact, the author also included content organizers, vocabulary activities, and predictions. It’s interesting that he found predictions and questions that activate the students’ previous knowledge are a lot more effective for reading comprehension than vocabulary exercises. It’s proposed that this phenomenon is due to the ability of students to use contextual cues and overcome vocabulary deficits thanks to background knowledge. 

Reflective or summary questions formulated as “What we’ve learned in this activity?” or “Based on everything, what can we expect to learn from the text/book?” are good examples of questions that activate background knowledge and work perfectly when implemented after speed chatting, brainstorming, or discussions. 

The answers to these questions should be in the form of predictions that students expect to be fulfilled by reading the assigned literature. 

Strategic Reading Activities

Strategic reading activities for high school are activities that students can implement while reading the text, regardless of the topic of the material. They help them to better organize the material, give them a sense of structure, improve reading comprehension, but also increase the speed and efficacy of reading, which in turn prevents students from becoming disengaged when they come across long reading materials. 

• Skimming – the first strategy involves quickly skimming the material before students engage with it on a more in-depth level. However, it’s not and should not be a replacement for reading (which is why we classified it as a separate reading activity). Skimming is the process of skipping details, data, graphs, or other elaboration for the purpose of getting the main (big picture) idea or argument behind the text and preventing one to lose oneself within the details. After skimming, the students should read the text again, this time paying attention to all the details. 
• BEP – Beginning and End-Paragraph – the BEP is an awesome reading habit after just reading an academic text. The reason for this is that more often than not, academic literature is long and complex, which might make some students overwhelmed – not knowing what was the purpose of the text and its conclusions. Therefore, quickly going through the introduction and the end-paragraph again gives a nice overview and refreshes students’ memory. 
• Key Fragments – ask students to always think about the most important pieces of information (according to them) that the text introduces. Then, they can highlight this information and use it later, without having to go over the whole text again. Also, when studying, these key fragments should be enough for the student to connect all the other information around them.  

Post-Reading Activities for High School Students

Finally, we got to the last cluster of reading activities that help students consolidate knowledge and improve the learning process after reading the material. When thinking about post-reading activities for high school, ask yourself  “What could students do to engage with the material after reading it?” Basically, post-reading activities should require students to use what they’ve read in one form or another. 

In addition, we propose six different activities which you can organize after the students finish reading the material. 

Outlining 

The first, and probably the simplest post-reading activity is to ask students to outline the text based on specific requirements, depending on the topic and subject. For example, if the students are reading a book or a text about the Revolutionary War, ask them to outline the material based on the timeline on which events occurred, or the causes, effects, and consequences discussed. When talking about a topic, there’s more than one way in which you can organize the content. Therefore, you can ask students to outline the material the way they think it’s most informative, or as previously discussed in the example, give them specific instructions. 

Graphic Organizing

Very similar to outlining, graphic organization of the material is basically a visual representation of the outline of the text. You can ask kids to prepare a graphic organization of the text after their usual outline. What do they need to include? 

First, they can customize it any way they want to. The two important things which every graphic organization should have are “nodes” where a message or a word or a symbol is drawn and “connections” between the elements of the graph. The connections are usually presented with lines and other variations representing different things. For example, a sequence of arrows pointed only in one direction might indicate a timeline between the “nodes.” However, they can also be color-coded or pattern-coded, representing different relations. 

The value of this activity is that it engages kids to once again think of the structure and connections between different elements of the text, which is very helpful for consolidating knowledge and indicates that the text was fully comprehended.  

Summary Writing

A more classic post-reading activity in high schools is writing a summary of the text or book that students have just read. This is sometimes a graded assignment with specific instruction or topic, but it’s maybe even more helpful if it becomes a habit. Summaries don’t have to be long or detailed and the main idea is for students to work on their skills of extracting valuable information from a piece of text. That is, from the summary you can evaluate how much the students have understood the material and what kinds of information they focused on. 

Then, you can give them feedback. Again, following the example of the Revolutionary War, some students might be focusing too much on the dates without mentioning the causes or the reasons, others might only talk about the causes and use narration (writing it like a story), without remembering any year, and so on. 

Character/Topic Analysis

As the texts become more and more complex, students might start to struggle to keep up. For instance, their comprehension might be good, meaning they understand the texts, but can they meaningfully analyze the text or even attempt to critique it with well-formed counter-arguments? This is what you need to find out to make sure they’re hitting the learning objectives set for the year. 

To help them out, give them frequent readings and after that share a template for them to use in order to analyze the topic/character/event. Here’s an example of one type of template for analysis:

• Graph 1: What’s the argument/strategy/style/feature used?
• Graph 2: Textual evidence – Where can we find that in the text? 
• Graph 3: What’s the purpose for using that argument/strategy/style/feature (what is the author trying to tell us)?
• Graph 4: How does this argument or strategy support the claim? 
• Graph 5: What’s the effect?

Presentation

We’ve mentioned presentations a couple of times before, and that’s because they’re a great way for kids to present the text they’ve been reading. In presentations, students have visual freedom (adding graphics, animations, images, symbols, drawings, etc), as well as writing freedom (they present orally, which means the writing serves only them). 

Other students may ask questions or comment which is a really great way for everyone to see how others understood the text.

Finally, the last reading activity for high school students is, again, discussion, but this time as a post-reading activity. How is it different? Well, during the discussion after reading the text, students should share their general impressions. Here are a couple of questions usually answered during the final discussion. 

• Were your expectations met? 
• What was surprising or unexpected? 
• What was learned? 
• What questions were raised while reading? 
• Where can we go from here? 
• Do you need a follow-up reading for better comprehension? 
• Do you want to elaborate your knowledge on a specific aspect of the topic? 
• What got your interest the most?

Before You Go

As we’ve seen, there are many different reading activities for high school students that can promote reading comprehension, motivation, speed, and efficacy of reading, as well as the learning process itself. Hopefully, we did a good job organizing this article and you’re satisfied with the way we classified the reading activities. We believe that this way, you can make clear connections with the benefits obtained with each of the activities and their overall purpose. 

Of course, you don’t have to implement all of the activities, that would be way too overwhelming which defeats the purpose because it will eventually make reading an undesired activity. Instead, pick the ones you think will best work for your students or try different ones and see what the students’ feedback is. 

Finally, if you need any help on any of the reading topics, don’t forget to head over to our website and pick out a worksheet ! They’ll engage the students, teach them something more about the topic, and save you a lot of time! Also, make it a habit to regularly check our blog , as we share new informational guides, such as this one, every week!

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• Special Education

Learning A-Z provides a wealth of resources that can be customized for Special Education learning environments—from full-class and small-group instruction to individual practice and one-to-one intervention.

Three keys to a successful Special Education program are matching resources to a student's instructional needs, providing opportunities for practice with a purpose, and providing motivation and feedback.

Looking for More Special Education Resources?

Raz-Plus motivates students with eBooks , eQuizzes, and the RAZ Rocket .

• Students listen, read, and take quizzes on developmentally appropriate books.
• Digital eBook tools and features help students read closely and focus on comprehension.
• Track students' progress over time with Reports, and easily share progress with students and parents!

1 Match Resources to Students' Instructional Needs

Access a vast collection of resources that meet your students' instructional needs.

Assess to Inform Instruction

• Comprehension Quick Check Quizzes that accompany most books help you identify skills for instruction.
• Use Assessments for foundational skills to identify areas for instruction.
• Assessments

2 Provide Opportunities for Practice with a Purpose

Learning A-Z provides books, lessons, activity sheets, comprehension quizzes, and a variety of other resources for teaching a range of foundational skills, including Alphabet , Phonological Awareness , Phonics , and High-Frequency Words , which help teachers set different purposes for student reading.

Find Resources Using Filters, Searches, or Correlations

• Filter books by grade, level, or type to meet a particular student's needs for differentiation.
• Search resources by type, keyword, topic, or skill from anywhere on the site whether you are trying to match student interest or ability, or reinforcing and practicing particular comprehension or language arts skills.
• Sort the Books by Skills Chart to determine which books' instructional resources focus on skills your students need to practice.
• Standards and Correlations provide lists of books that meet individual learning standards, match skills for a select number of Reading Series, or help you meet Curriculum Standards for your state, province, or nation.
• Books by Skills Chart
• U.S. State Standards
• Common Core Standards
• Core Program Correlations
• Curricula & Assessments

3 Motivation & Feedback

Motivate students through choice among a vast collection of resources and share successes.

Motivate Through Choice & Rewards

• Students choose from books across a range of text complexity levels.
• Reward reading practice, progress, and achievements with cards and certificates in Student Rewards & Incentives.
• For teachers who own both Reading A-Z and Raz-Kids, we provide the ultimate motivational tool—the RAZ Rocket. The RAZ Rocket provides a personalized space for students to spend stars earned after listening to, reading from, and taking quizzes on developmentally appropriate books.
• Student Rewards & Incentives

Show Students Their Progress

• Measure foundational skills on provided graphs for Alphabet Letter Naming and High-Frequency Words Assessments to share progress with students.
• Discuss continued improvement with students using reading rate graphs on Fluency Timed Reading resources or Retelling Rubrics and comprehension quizzes.
• Alphabet Letter Naming
• High-Frequency Words Assessments
• Fluency Timed Reading
• Retelling Rubrics

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Instructional Tools

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• Pre-K Tip Sheets
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• ELL Frameworks and Contributors

Try These 3 Reading Activities for Special Education Students

How Do You Accommodate Students with Disabilities in Reading?

I have taught both elementary and high school and have worked with many students who have disabilities in reading, among other cognitive disabilities. The truth is: finding reading activities for special education students can be tough sometimes. I've noticed two main things about reading activities for my students and son during my many years as a special education teacher and special ed momma. First- reading comprehension activities are a MUST and it can be hard to find good, engaging activities to use to assess students' comprehension. Next, how do you know where to begin as a brand new teacher with students in the area of reading?

How to Assess Special Education Students in Reading

The first thing I always do at the beginning of the school year or when I get a new student on my caseload is assess their reading level. If the IEP states that the student is reading below a Level H (we use the Fountas and Pinnel Literacy System at my school) , I created this quick Reading Assessment for my students with special needs. I typically use this at the elementary level. I like to use it at the beginning and end of the school year. Sometimes I do it per quarter if there is time.

With the Reading Assessment, you get:

• original text for levels A-H
• running records for each level
• 2 different versions of a quiz for each story (one with picture supports; one without)
• reading comprehension picture cards

Reading Comprehension for Special Education

As I said above, students in special education typically always need to work more on their reading comprehension skills. Answering wh questions can be a hard skill for some students to grasp, especially students with Autism. In addition to working on reading comprehension, we need differentiated reading activities in this area to easily use for our different levels. This is where I like to use the Reading Comprehension WH Questions with Real Pictures .

My students are always able to comprehend easier and engage more when I use real pictures during lessons. With the Reading Comprehension WH Questions , I can plan to easily differentiate my groups with the three different levels. Students read through the passage three times and color a star for each time they read to work on fluency. Then they proceed to answer who, what, when, and where questions. I do why questions completely separately because it is a much harder skill.

GRAB THE READING COMPREHENSION WH QUESTIONS HERE!

ELA Task Boxes

Another favorite reading activity to use in my special education classroom is ELA Task Boxes . I might be slightly biased and a tad obsessed with making task boxes for my classroom! The great thing about them is they can be used at any age and they always help to increase independence in students. I use them in so many different ways throughout the day. Sometimes I pull ELA task boxes for reading in small groups for a more hands on approach. Sometimes, we rotate them into our independent workstations. Other times we have even used them for morning work or early finishers.

Never tried task boxes? Grab 4 FREE task boxes here!

GRAB THE ELA Task Boxes HERE!

What are some of your favorite reading activities for special education students?

I am a High School, self-contained Autism teacher from Central New York, who is passionate about individualizing student learning. I am a mommy of three, lover of all things Disney, married to my best friend and addicted to chocolate!! I hope that you find great ideas and inspiration here, so welcome!!

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Language and Literacy Guides for Special Education Students

Keep educating.

Below are nearly a dozen guides to help parents and teachers improve reading among their sixth through eighth grade students with disabilities. They were created by researchers at the Language and Literacy Research Center at the College of Education in partnership with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk on a project called PACT Plus. Pact Plus implements a tiered approach to improve reading among sixth- through eighth-grade students with disabilities in public schools. One of the goals of the project is to provide evidence-based technical assistance, professional development, and publications on effective models and their successful implementation for secondary students with disabilities. 

Resources for Parents

How Can I Help My Middle Schooler Read Multisyllabic Words?  

How Can I Help to Improve My Child's Reading Comprehension?  

How Can I Help My Child With Content Area Reading at Home?  

How to Motivate Children to Do Their Homework?  

How Can I Support My Adolescent’s Development as a Writer?

How Do I Engage in Partner Reading With My Child?

Resources for Teachers 

Adolescent Literacy Resource Menu: A Guide for Instructional Leaders 

This guide is organized by commonly experienced challenges (e.g., lack of modeling) to teachers implementing evidence-based adolescent literacy practices with fidelity. Also provided are an explanation of each challenge and resources from established organizations and research centers that instructional leaders can use to address these challenges. Some of these resources are brief documents that a teacher can quickly scan; others are lengthier and may require more time to read and make sense of. Many of the resources are free (e.g., online resources), and some have an associated cost (e.g., books). This guide provides an estimate of the cost and time associated with each resource

Turn and Talk: An Evidence-Based Practice – Teacher’s Guide 

Turn and talk is an instructional routine in which students use content knowledge during a brief conversation with a peer. Students are provided with a short prompt to discuss content or a skill. Students turn to their predetermined partner and answer the prompt while their partner listens. Then, the partners switch roles to allow the second student to address the prompt. The turn-and-talk routine can be used across all content areas and at any grade level. This guide explains the routine, and provides evidence of its effectiveness, sample lessons using the routine, and solutions to common challenges.

Partner Reading: An Evidence-Based Practice – Teacher’s Guide

Partner reading is an instructional routine that incorporates peer modeling into reading text. In the routine, one partner reads a text that is slightly challenging while the other partner corrects errors and checks for understanding. It is most effective to pair students so that one partner is a slightly more skilled reader than the other. Partners take turns being the reader and listener. The more skilled reader reads first, modeling fluent reading for the listener. While following along, the listener is exposed to any difficult words and essentially rehearses the text before reading it aloud. The partners switch roles, and the new reader reads aloud the same text while the new listener provides feedback and checks for understanding. This flexible routine can be used with any content area text in any grade level.

For more information and resources from PACTPlus go to  https://www.meadowscenter.org/projects/detail/pact-plus

About the Language and Literacy Research Center 

The Language and Literacy Research Center (LLRC) at the College of Education is an interdisciplinary center within the College of Education that brings together faculty and students from different perspectives. The mission of the Language and Literacy Research Center is to create long-term, productive partnerships amongst researchers, students, and educators in order to further develop our understanding and support of language and literacy development and instruction across the lifespan.  The LLRC acts as the educational arm of the Language Science Center.

Visit their Facebook page for more information and up to date posts!

Featured Faculty

Dr. Wexler is currently the principal investigator (PI) of an IES funded research project, Project CALI (Content Area Literacy Instruction).  Dr. Wexler has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as two books on adolescent literacy and related topics. She has also delivered many presentations and professional development workshops across the country and abroad and often consults with federally funded centers such as the National Center on Intensive Intervention. 

Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, she was a Research Assistant Professor and Dropout Institute co-Director at The University of Texas at Austin Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk. Dr. Wexler has directed large-scale intervention studies funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, The Meadows Foundation, and The Greater Texas Foundation. She greatly values her partnerships with local school districts and believes it is essential to work together to bridge the research to practice gap.  Thus, her work is affiliated with the University of Maryland Language and Literacy Research Center (LLRC), an interdisciplinary center that focuses on language and literacy issues in education.

Dr. Taboada Barber studies reading comprehension from a cognitive and motivational perspective. Her work centers on studying the influence of specific motivational variables (e.g., autonomy support, self-efficacy) and cognitive variables (e.g., executive function skills; inference making) on the literacy and language development of  elementary and middle school students. She is interested in studying reading comprehension within classroom instructional contexts as well as an individual difference variable. As a former English as a Second Language teacher in full language immersion settings, Ana's work in reading comprehension development is principally concentrated within the population of English Learners (ELs) or emergent bilinguals within the United States. More recently she has extended her focus to include Spanish-speaking students in South American countries (e.g., Chile and Argentina). Ana has also turned her attention to the possible roles that executive function skills (i.e., working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility) as one component of a larger system of self-regulation, play in the reading comprehension of English Learners and monolingual speakers. 

At UMD, Ana is the co-director, together with Jade Wexler, of the Language and Literacy Research Center (LLRC) which aims to promote collaborative research among experts and students interested in literacy and language within the College of Education and local education agencies. Ana is also affiliated with the Language Science Center (LSC) which seeks to advance the science and study of language as a University-wide endeavor.

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Reading resources for special education

Reading Strategies | Comprehension | Mega Bundle | Differentiated Passages | SEL

Middle School Narrative Writing Unit

Paragraph Writing Unit | 2nd Grade

Halloween Color by Code Pre-K / Pre-Primer Dolch Sight Words

Life Skills Math Distance Learning Daily Special Education IEP Goals

Addition and Subtraction Worksheets Bundle: Gr. 1-6, Single/Multi-Digit/Decimals

I Can Tell Time: No-Prep, Hour to One Minute Intervals, Gr. 1-2, Quizzes Inc

600 Heart Word Cards: The Science of Reading Fry & HFW Sight Words {Word Wall +}

Science of Reading Guided Phonics + Beyond Curriculum SOR DECODABLES +SOUND WALL

Making Inferences - Inferencing Activities Worksheets Inference Anchor Chart

Sight Words, Sight Word Practice, Kindergarten Worksheets, Activities, Books SoR

Morning Adapted Work Binder® (for Special Needs) | Adapted Morning Work

Phonics Worksheets Reading Fluency Passage with Comprehension and Question ELA

First Grade Phonics Reading Fluency Comprehension Passages Questions Worksheets

Main Idea Reading Comprehension Fall Apple Halloween Pumpkin & Digital Resources

Reading Intervention Binder for Beginning Readers No Prep ELA SOR Aligned

Science of Reading Comprehension Phonics Fluency Decodable Passages Worksheets

Decodable Passages & Comprehension Questions 2nd Grade Phonics & Fluency Bundle

Kindergarten High Frequency Sight Word Practice Sentences & Guided Reading Game

Nonfiction Text Structures Unit: Passages, Worksheets, Anchor Chart, Task Cards

Phonics Reading Comprehension Passages Phonics Worksheets With Digital Resources

2nd Grade Back to School Morning Work & Bell Ringers Language Arts & Math BUNDLE

First Then Board & Visual Schedule Flipbooks (EDITABLE) for Special Education

Morning Word Work Phonics Worksheet Science of Reading Comprehension Passages

Reading Comprehension Passages and Questions - Close Reading Strategies - Audio

Phonics Worksheet Bundle - CVC, Long Vowels, Digraphs, Blends and More!

2nd Grade Leveled Reading Comprehension Passages & Questions for Reading Fluency

Decodable Readers, Science of Reading Decodables, Decodable Books Kindergarten

Build A Tiny House! Project Based Learning for Geometry and Math

Book Tasting: Introduce Your Students to New Books and Genres

Digraph Worksheet Packet - Ch, Sh, Th, Wh, Ph

Find reading resources | tpt, learn more about reading resources.

Not only is reading a core concept in the study of English language arts, but it’s also a cornerstone skill for proficiency in many other subjects (for instance, without strong reading skills, students won’t be able to solve math word problems or read through primary sources for social studies class).

If you’re a teacher or parent looking for printable and digital reading resources to help your student learn a reading concept, look no further! TPT has an extensive collection of resources, created by other teachers, that are designed to help with any need across grade levels.

Elementary students just learning to read can practice the basics with some simple, fun phonics practice activities or small-group reading centers focused around sight words. Students in middle and high school can read novels and complete hands-on, interactive assignments that build their comprehension and critical thinking skills. With plenty of TPT resources at your fingertips, you can sharpen your student's reading skills in no time.

Fun and engaging reading activities to try

Engaging reading activities can energize your students and foster a love of reading. Here are a few ideas for reading activities from our teacher-created resources that you can find on TPT and try in your classroom:

Interactive Phonics Activities

Use hands-on activities such as sorting, matching, or building words with manipulatives to help students recognize phonics patterns and learn word families.

Encourage students to find specific words either in a text or around the classroom to help reinforce sight word recognition.

Reader's Theater

Bring short stories, books, poems, or plays you’re reading in class to life by assigning roles to students and having them act out scenes. This can help enhance fluency and comprehension.

Interactive Read-Alouds

Engage the class by pausing during read-alouds to discuss the story’s theme, reflect on a character’s motivations or actions, or to ask students questions.

Comparative Analysis

Explore different adaptations of the same story (book versus movie, classic version versus a modern retelling) to encourage analysis of interpretation and presentation. You can also pair texts that are similar in theme, like poems and songs.

By incorporating these (and other!) reading activities into your lesson plans, you can nurture a love for reading while enhancing comprehension, critical thinking, and communication skills.

Frequently asked questions about teaching reading

What types of reading resources are available on tpt.

There are many different types of reading resources sold by Sellers on TPT. Some popular reading lessons include: phonics, vocabulary, spelling, and balanced literacy.

How do I find reading lessons on TPT?

Educators can save time preparing reading lessons with resources created by experienced teachers. Simply start a search for reading resources on the TPT marketplace, and filter by grade level, price, and/or resource type to find materials that've been proven to work in classrooms like yours. No matter what you’re teaching, there are plenty of reading lessons and activities sold by Sellers on TPT that are tailored to meet your students' skill levels.

How can I make my reading lessons fun and engaging?

Students learn best when they're engaged! Sprinkle a little fun into your reading lessons by using manipulatives, pairing unusual texts like poems and short films together, or doing an escape room activity.

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Reading Strategies for Special Education: Improving Reading Comprehension and Fluency

• Janelle Martel
• Categories : Inclusion strategies for mainstreamed classrooms
• Tags : Special ed information for teachers & parents

Encourage Reading

Students who have dyslexia, or another reading disability, often struggle integrating reading into their day-to-day lives. Teachers and parents need to find fun and exciting ways to get the students to read without the student worrying that they will struggle. There are several great reading strategies for special education students.

The first and easiest way to help struggling readers and improve reading comprehension and fluency is to find reading material that they enjoy reading. This may be something as simple as a magazine on motorcycles or a book about dancing. Ask your students what they really like to read about. Once you find an interest, take advantage of this. Students will be more interested in reading something that they like, rather than reading a book that they are forced to read. There are also books known as hi-lo reading books. This means they are for students who have high interest levels yet low reading levels. Magazines and newspapers are also great for this because they have short articles, but make the student feel grown-up.

Reading Strategies

Having students track their reading progress is often a great strategy. If students see that they are increasing their reading fluency, they will be more interested in reading. I suggest students do a weekly reading prompt in which the teacher can see how many words they can read correctly per minute and track it on a graph. You may find that the students frequently ask to see this graph, as they are usually interested in watching their progress. It is a small motivator that really means a lot to the students.

Another strategy that can be useful for struggling readers is to have them track while they read with their finger so they don’t lose their place. You can also have them use a ruler. This helps them to keep their focus on where they are in their reading.

When students are struggling with a particular word, there are a number of different strategies. You can determine which works best for each student. The first step is to sound it out phonetically. The second is to read through the sentence leaving the unknown word out and have the student use context clues to determine which word might fit.

A final strategy that I would like to recommend is having the students record themselves reading. Have them read a story, then playback the story and read as they are listening to themselves. This will help with fluency and comprehension.

Reading Games

Reading games are another one of the reading strategies you can employ for special education students. Something as simple as word bingo or Scrabble are excellent games to play with students to enhance their reading skills. The more fun reading becomes for students that struggle with reading, the more interested they will be in reading.

In elementary grades, a Word Wall can help as well. Students need to be exposed more often to words, especially words that they struggle with. A word wall can be something as simple as a bulletin board with words of the day on it, or words from a lesson. As you progress through lessons, add more words to the wall and review them frequently. In secondary grades, a word wall can be used, but you could have the students keep a word journal instead. This journal could also be where students record words they get stuck on when reading.

Best Sites and Apps for Special Education

These top special education sites and apps are designed for teachers, students and families

As of 2020-21, 14.5% of all U.S. students were special education students (ages 3-21). That translates to more than seven million who need teachers with specialized training to help kids with physical, emotional, mental and behavioral disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates that these students be educated with non-disabled peers to the greatest extent possible, in the least restrictive environment, and these apps and sites for special education can help. 

When teachers improve their ability to engage and educate special ed learners, they’re simply fulfilling another version of individualized learning. Fortunately, in addition to graduate-level coursework, there are several high-quality online resources to help any teacher learn the theory and practice of working with kids with disabilities. 

The following sites and apps provide lessons and activities for special needs learners, as well as professional development tools for teachers. All are free or modestly priced. 

Better Lesson Instructional Strategies Explore a broad range of instructional strategies that, although diverse, all aim to support individualized learning. Choose from social-emotional learning, culturally responsive teaching, competency-based learning, and more. Within each category, learn how to plan, practice, and implement several related strategies. For example, SEL offers detailed guidance on self-regulation, self-awareness, and collaborative conversations. A rich resource for all teachers, not just special ed. 

Sen Teacher   Hundreds of free learning materials for special ed, including customizable printable downloads and interactive games in math, science, sensory/art, and assistive technology. Simple to use, and no account is needed.

TPT: Free Special Education Lessons and Activities   Created, tested, and rated by your fellow teachers, these free special education resources are searchable by subject, grade, standards, and formats. Browse the handwriting practice, sight word activities, life skills, money math, and more to find exactly what you need for your classroom.

MakeBeliefs Comix for Students With Special Needs Learn how teachers across the country are using MakeBeliefsComix to help students with a variety of disabilities—from autism to stuttering—learn and thrive.

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Autism Circuit Tools This site provides a diverse range of tools to help students make decisions, modulate their behavior appropriately, and understand consequences. Autism Circuit offers guidance and brief videos demonstrating how teachers can use tools such as choice boards in their classrooms. Other tools help students communicate, manage emotions, behaviors, and schedules. 

Do2Learn Do2Learn is a nonprofit website providing free resources, tools, and activities to support educators in teaching children and young adults with special needs. The site includes interactive games, visual aids, and printable materials to engage learners of all ages and abilities. Educators can access a variety of lesson plans and curriculum ideas to create more inclusive and supportive learning environments. 

Microsoft Learning Tools Immersive Reader OneNote Learning Tools provides a free immersive reader to help students boost their reading skills. Want to try it first? Just enter your own text into the box and start reading. Choose male or female voice, font and text size, background color and line focus. Other features allow you to assign color to parts of speech and display words in syllables. Click on any word to view a visual representation and to hear the word spoken. Translates words and entire documents into dozens of languages. Very cool tool, and super easy to use!

Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities Adapted Literature and Lessons  Nearly 500 classic, popular, and/or educational works of literature adapted for students with special needs. The works include digital books, movies, videos, music, and PowerPoint presentations that aim to help students with visual and other disabilities. Want to create your own adapted literature? Check out the Creating Your Own Adapted Literature Webinars explaining how to do so. Free, no account required.

Mindful Schools   Features 10 free mindfulness classes for kids, including activities, mindful movement, and read-alouds. Courses for educators cover mindfulness basics, how to implement mindfulness in the classroom, and self compassion (a must for teachers!).

Otsimo Special Education iOs Android Developed by Zafer Elcik for his young autistic brother, the Otsimo app features a gamified, personalized curriculum for special education. Games focus on everyday basics such as clocks, weather and clothes as well as the alphabet, music, and colors. To view the app games, visit the website here . To play games, you’ll need to download the free app. 

Voice Dream A suite of award-winning apps—Reader, Writer, Scanner—that provides text-to-speech reading, writing, and scanning capabilities in 30 languages. 

AAA Math A no-frills K-8 math practice site that offers thousands of interactive math lessons, from addition to geometry to statistics. It’s easy to use -- just click on any topic or lesson and start practicing. Lessons are served in small, attainable blocks, which aids in preventing frustration. Plus, kids get immediate feedback on their answers. Free, no account needed. 

BoomCards Special Education Decks Great collection of Boom Cards decks covering a wide variety of useful topics such as identifying public bathrooms, WH questions, verbs, modes of transportation, compare-contrast exercises, and more. Many are free or modestly priced, and all are sortable by grade, subject, and cost. Free account required. Want to learn more about how to use Boom cards? Check out What is Boom Cards and How Does It Work?

Autism Focused Intervention Resources and Modules Free modules to help educators and caretakers learn about autism and evidence-based practices. Also available for $35 are continuing education credit modules that cover topics from cognitive behavioral intervention to video modeling. 

Paths to Literacy Lessons and Materials Fine collection of lessons, manipulatives, hands-on activities, videos, and more to support teachers who work with students with visual disabilities, including deafblind students and those with multiple disabilities

SENict Teaching Activities Free downloadable exercises curated to aid young people in advancing their accessibility skills via assistive technology, encompassing switches, touch devices, pointing devices, and eye gaze systems. Download each exercise individually or purchase a convenient memory stick loaded with 600+ activities, training videos, and teacher supports for £25 (about $31 U.S.).

Starfall A well-designed, ad-free site that focuses on making reading and math fun for students pre K-3. Starfall’s founder Stephen Schutz struggled with dyslexia as a child and created Starfall to help kids learn to read—and learn to love learning. Art, music, poetry, riddles, and more keeps kids engaged in the interactive material. Four membership levels range from $35 annually for home use to $355 for a school membership. Each section also includes clearly marked free content, so it’s easy to browse the site and try it out without an account. 

Reading Rockets Reading Intervention Videos These highly instructive free videos feature literacy expert Linda Farrell working with struggling readers on specific reading goals such as mastering the alphabet, multisyllabic words, and blending sounds. Each video is accompanied by professional development guides as well as commentary by Farrell. Be sure to explore the entire Reading Rockets website for a wealth of additional literacy guides and resources. 

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Diana has been Tech & Learning's web editor and contributor since 2010, dedicated to ferreting out the best free tech tools for teachers.

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14 Activities That Increase Student Engagement During Reading Instruction

Research shows that students whose teachers spend too much time talking are less likely to be engaged during classroom instruction. Luckily, reading instruction can be so much more than lecture, reading practice, memorization, or decoding drills. We, as teachers, can do more to get our students engaged in learning to read.

List of Reading Activities

Here is a list of fourteen student engagement strategies from a webinar presented by Reading Horizons Chief Education Officer, Stacy Hurst, that you can use to increase student engagement during reading instruction or  reading intervention:

1. Partner Pretest

Before teaching a new decoding skill or grammar rule, preface the lesson with a pretest. Let your students know that you will not score the test, lowering anxiety and increasing student performance. Pair students up for the pretest and have them use the same set of materials. If the pretest is on a computer or iPad, have students share the device between the two of them. During the pretest, walk around the room to gauge student needs and adjust the lesson accordingly. When lesson material matches student ability and understanding, engagement is higher. Make sure that the pretest is similar to the posttest so you can see how much your students retain during your lesson.

2. Stand Up/Sit Down

You can use this activity to help students learn to differentiate between similar but different reading concepts. For instance, when you’re trying to help your students understand the difference between common nouns and proper nouns, you can give examples of each and have students stand up if it is a common noun or sit down if it is a proper noun. This is a great way to see how much of your class is grasping the material while getting their blood flowing—helping them stay alert.

3. Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down

This activity provides a quick way to gauge if your students are comprehending a story or to test them on different reading skills. Instruct students to put their thumbs up if they agree with a statement or to put their thumbs down if they disagree. When students have a low energy level (i.e., right after lunch) Stand Up/Sit Down may be a better alternative. However, if you need to maintain your students’ current energy level Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down is ideal.

4. Secret Answer

This activity is great for students who might not be confident in their answers—students who look around the class when doing Stand Up/Sit Down or Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down to see how the other students answer before they answer themselves. To give students a secret way to answer, assign different responses a number and have students hold up the number of fingers that correspond to the answer they think is correct. To do this exercise properly, have your students place their hands near their hearts (physically) with the appropriate number of fingers raised to indicate their answers. This way, especially if all the students are facing the teacher, it is difficult for students to copy their neighbor’s answer.

5. Response Cards

This is a great way to mix things up a bit. Have students create a stack of typical responses, including agree/disagree, true/false, yes/no, greater than/less than, multiple-choice options, and everyday emotions. After students have created their response cards, you can have them use them to respond in various settings. For example, while reading a book together as a class, you may pause and ask your students what they think the character is feeling right now. The students then select one of the everyday emotion cards from their personal stack of cards and lift it up to answer the question.

6. Think-Pair-Share

This activity allows students to pause and process what they have just learned. After reading a passage in a book, ask your class a question that they must first consider by themselves. After giving them time to think, have them discuss the question with their neighbor. Once they’ve discussed the question, invite students to share their answers with the class. By giving them this time to process, you enable them to be more engaged in their learning.

7. Quick Writes

Studies show that the proper ratio of direct instruction to reflection time for students is ten to two. That means that teachers need to provide students with two minutes of reflection for every ten minutes of instruction. This activity is a great way to give students that much-needed reflection time! In this activity, ask a question about a reading passage and have students write a response to share with a neighbor or the entire class.

8. One Word Splash

After reading a passage or learning new vocabulary terms, ask your students to write down one word that they feel sums up that material. This might seem overly simplistic, but it requires higher processing skills to help your students digest what they are reading. Students can do this with a pencil/paper or a dry-erase marker/personal whiteboard.

9. Quick Draw

This activity is perfect for visual learners or students who aren’t entirely writing yet. After reading a part of a story or learning a new concept or topic, have your students draw a picture about what they’ve just read or understood. For example, after reading part of the story Jack and the Beanstalk, have your students draw what has happened in the story up to that point. A student may draw a picture of a boy planting seeds with a beanstalk growing in the background.

10. Gallery Walk

To help students get some of their energy out, have them do a Gallery Walk to see their peers’ work. This activity is an excellent add-on to Quick Writes and Quick Draw. Because students seek approval from their peers, they will put more effort into their work when they know the class will view it.

11. A-Z Topic Summary

Help students connect the dots after finishing a book, a learning module, or a lesson. Have your students complete an A-Z Topic Summary either as individuals or in pairs. If it is an individual activity, have students write either a word or a sentence that connects to the book, module, or lesson for each letter of the alphabet. For example, if they learned about baking, they might write a sentence for the letter A such as: “Always preheat the oven before baking.” To speed up the activity, you can assign students to work in pairs or assign a letter to each student or team and have them write a sentence for that letter rather than the whole alphabet.

This is a quick way to help students process reading or lesson material when you’re pressed for time. First, have your students write three facts they learned from something they read or learned in class that day. Next, have students write two questions about the book or topic that wasn’t covered or discussed in class. Finally, have your students write one opinion they have about the reading material or lesson. This activity can also help you plan for the next lesson on the topic or book.

13. Find Your Match

This is another activity that gets your students up and moving. Create card matches that correlate to a storyline in a book, vocabulary terms, figures of speech, grammar rules, etc. For example, your card matches might include the following concepts (depending on grade level): rhyming words, uppercase/lowercase, antonyms/synonyms, words/definitions, problem/solution, and words/pictures. Hand out one card to each student in the class and then get up and find the other student with the matching card.

14. Dictation

One of our favorite teaching activities is Dictation! It is highly effective in engaging students because it is  multisensory explicit phonics instruction  involving: auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and tactile senses. Having a multisensory approach increases working memory and integrates all language skills/modalities. To do Dictation, have students listen to a word, repeat the word out loud, write it out on paper, and then have them read the word out loud again. View an example of Dictation in action  here .

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Food Service Assistant I - Grossmont High School - 4 Hours - CP25-013136 at Grossmont Union High School District

Application Deadline

10/7/2024 11:55 PM Pacific

Date Posted

Number of openings, add'l salary info, length of work year, employment type, location/site:, department:, about the employer.

The Grossmont Union High School District is dedicated to providing a safe and collaborative learning environment which supports academic achievement and social development for all students. The Grossmont District operates on the premise that success for every student is dependent upon all groups in the organization including teachers, administrators, parents, staff, students, and the community working together to support all students in their development as life-long learners, thinkers, and successful contributors of the community.

Job Summary

Food Service Assistant I 4 hours per day 5 days per week 203 days per year

Requirements / Qualifications

REQUIREMENTS: High School diploma or equivalent. Job related experience is desired. Food Handler's Certificate within 20 days of hire.

CalPERS Links

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Grossmont Union High School District

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