Getting Them Reading

As you know, I have been tutoring this semester, and the emphasis is on reading. I have really enjoyed my time doing it, but there have definitely been discouraging days as well. If a student does not want to read, how do you get them to do it? One day my student was not interested in reading the book at all, and I was desperately trying to think of something to keep him engaged. I came up with a game that has turned into his favorite thing, and I wanted to share it!

My student and I take turns finding sentences in a book and reading them to each other. The trick is we leave out one of the words, and instead say, "blank." Then the other has to try and figure out what the missing word is.

For example, if we were using this book(which I found at Goodwill for only $.89! Goodwill book shopping is my favorite thing to do!) we would randomly find a page and select a sentence.

I love when it takes a while to find a good sentence because then my student is reading without even realizing it! Here on this page, I could use the sentence, "The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his 'blank' with the back of his hand." The word I left out would be mouth.

Sometimes they get it right on the first try, but most of the time we give clues. We can tell each other when a guess is very close. Often this is using good use of synonyms, which I love. Or I will repeat the sentence and encourage using context clues. Sometimes we use a whiteboard to show how many letters.

I got this whiteboard at the dollar store and it was the best dollar ever spent. Students like using this far more than paper and it is much easier to erase and use over again. We will write blanks for the letters of the word.

Sometimes if the word is difficult to figure out we will give the first letter or even the last letter.

Usually with all the clues we give, we figure out the word. But if we can't figure it out, the other person gets a point. Because what fun is a game without points and a winner?!

I'm losing :( But he's reading, so I am one happy camper!

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 :)