Project-Reading Prompts

This semester I have the opportunity to tutor an elementary aged student in literacy. I have so enjoyed it so far, and am getting very excited to actually put what I'm learning into practice. A child said to me this week that reading at school is so hard, but reading at home is so easy. I thought how true that statement was. When we "have" to do something it is always so much more difficult than if we choose to do something. Even when it is the same thing! And let's face it, being stuck in any place all day can drain you, especially when it is a classroom. So I wanted to find a way to work on reading skills and fluency; preferably without boring him or causing him to lose interest in reading! (What a horrible, horrible thought!)

I was looking on TeachersPayTeachers and finding lots of ideas for different prompts, or games, or activities to do to help with reading. I fell across some guided reading prompts that were absolutely perfect from Shelley Gray. 

First I printed them. This is "2 per page" so they are smaller.

After I cut them all out, I "laminated" them just using some packing tape that I already had.

I wanted some type of container to keep them all together in. I remembered a box I already had that might be perfect.

This was actually a candy box! I got a candy gift from SugarWish, which is kind of a neat site if you want to check it out. Here are my cinnamon hearts!

I put my little cards right on in there and they fit great! (How cute is the inside of that box?!)

Then on the lid, I covered the logo with a label of mine from my Erin Condren Life Planner! (that is a whole other story, and you can find that here.)

Pretty sweet, right? I like to have the student pull a card from a shuffled pile and do whatever it says. It adds variety and I don't have to think so hard to think of questions to ask every single time. Sometimes it asks the student to find a noun in the book, or to find out who the illustrator is, or to make a text-to-world connection. Some of these I will do in the middle of reading, and other times I will have the student write the answer in a journal at the end of our time. I love using it so far, and today my student stayed after the time I said we were done, because he had not found an adjective on his page yet! Ahh, it makes my heart soar when that happens :)