There are a variety of resources that you can use for your STAAR Reading review. However, you can’t just throw activities at students and expect them to get the point of every activity. It is important to keep students engaged in your STAAR reading review.
Students who are actively engaged will make more progress than those that are just sitting and completing activities mindlessly.
After all the point of a review is to grow academically!
Check out this list of the top ways to get students engaged during your STAAR reading review.
Variety of Activities
Students will tire quickly if you give them all paper and pencil activities. Be sure to present the activities in different ways such as: dry erase on whiteboards or page protectors, digital activities, and even colored paper will mix it up.
In addition to presenting the activities in different ways, use different types of activities.
For example, giving passage after passage gets boring! Try giving quick activities that get right to the point of the skill.
Although it is important to throw in reading passages as well, so students build their reading stamina.
Varying activities can create a diverse review while keeping students engaged.
Create Teams
Making anything a competition will get students motivated to do their best on the activities. Assign point values to the different activities and have students compete against one another. Small prizes can be awarded to the winning teams
Additionally, break out rooms and challenges review skills in a competitive way. My STAAR Reading Review Challenge reviews the most important reading skills that appear on the STAAR Reading Test.
Another fun breakout resource is my POETRY BREAKOUT FREEBIE. This activity gives students a great poetry review while keeping them engaged and reviewing difficult poetry skills.
Any competitive activity will be sure to keep your students engaged your STAAR reading review.
Get Students Moving
As students complete the different activities in your STAAR Review, have them move to different locations in the room or hallway. It can be so boring to sit in the same spot all day long!
Even if you have students working on independent work, try changing their location in the room. For instance, give students a clipboard and let them sit anywhere in the room that they want.
Another idea is to have students do a dance or movement activity between activities. Giving them these brain breaks is important to have them focus on the next activity.
Teacher Mix Up
To create even more movement, students can travel from room to room. Get your whole team involved. Teachers can each choose a reading skill and teach every class on the grade level that skill.
That way students can hear the material in different ways. Plus, teachers can prepare just one lesson and teach the same thing to the different classes.
It’s a win, win for teachers and students.
Celebrations
Celebrate small student accomplishments during the review. Pick small victories and call out students, so they feel successful.
Mindset is part of doing well in anything. Students need a positive mindset when heading into the STAAR reading test.
One way to do this is to include meditation at the end of each review which includes positive affirmations will help students build a positive mindset.
As you can see, implementing simple tweaks will ensure that students stay engaged in your STAAR Reading Review.
If you are searching for reading resources to add to your STAAR Reading reviews, check out my previous blog post: STAAR Resource Round Up
