Every teacher wants her students to fall in love with reading. However, with the STAAR reading test looming in April, students must practice reading passages. There are several ways to make reading passages fun in your classroom.
Giving reading passage after reading passage is a sure way to bore your students and yourself!
Practicing reading comprehension questions is necessary for student success but making it fun will ensure your students pay attention and try their hardest.
The STAAR reading test uses similar question stems over and over. If students practice these types of questions, they can feel confident when they take their test.
Here is a list of STAAR Reading Question Stems that can be used with any classroom reading.
Making reading passages fun can definitely be a challenge, check out this list to use in your own classroom:
Challenge
Are your students competitive? If so, they will love a challenge.
A challenge is a way to get students to work together on answering reading comprehension questions. They compete against other groups for a prize, reward, or simply bragging rights.
Any reading passage can be used in a reading challenge. All you have to do is cut apart the questions.
Students work together on the first question then show the teacher their answer. They only receive the second question when the first is correct.
A group can be put on a one minute pause if they are arguing or someone is not participating.
A premade challenge is also an option. These challenges come with a story and students must answer questions correctly in order to solve a puzzle.
A few of my favorite challenges are: STAAR Reading Review Challenge, Revise and Edit Valentine’s Day Challenge, and STAAR Revise and Edit Challenge.
Plus, this FREEBIE challenge is the best: Revise and Edit Challenge
Musical Passage
Playing musical passages is not only a fun way to complete a reading passage, but it also gets your students moving.
To begin, students stand and push in all the chairs. Next, music plays. Students move around the room until the music stops. They partner up with whoever is closest to them. Then they read the passage together. When all the students are done, the music plays again. Students move around and when it stops they answer the first question.
This continues until all the questions are answered. One stipulation I put on this game is you can not be with the same person twice.
Musical passages can get a little crazy, so be sure to set up boundaries ahead of time.
Text Mapping
Text mapping is a fun way to get students to prove their answers and NOT just pick any answer choice.
Students usually work in groups when text mapping. After reading the passage, they glue it in the middle of a poster.
Then they cut out each question. They highlight their answer choice and use the same color to highlight in the passage where they found that answer.
Create Your Own Questions
This activity can be an independent or small group activity. Students will read a passage and then create their own questions.
It can be tough for students to think of good quality questions. Therefore, giving them question stems is helpful.
My STAAR Reading question stems include a student friendly version.
Additionally, students love to give their passage and questions to other students to see if they can get them right.
Around the Room
This is the activity I do most frequently in my own fourth grade classroom.
It gets students moving without the chaos.
First, I post the questions along with a copy of the passage around the room.
In my room, we usually read the passage together. However, you could have students read the passage independently before people begin moving.
Then students walk around the room answering each question. This activity is completed independently or with a partner.
When students finish, I check their answer immediately and have them go back to correct the ones that they missed.
These STAAR Reading Passages include full size question cards which are perfect for the around the room activity.
Other Helpful Blog Post over the STAAR Reading Test
Teach to the Test: How to Prepare Students for the STAAR Reading Test
5 Ways to Keep Students Engaged in Your STAAR Reading Review
STAAR Reading Test Taking Tips
