Increase Reading Engagement in Your Classroom

Sometimes it is so HARD to keep kids engaged and on-task during independent reading.

Especially when they are struggling or just learning to read.

Books can seem very overwhelming, and a passage can seem like an impossible task.

I realized that it wasn't that my students didn't WANT to practice reading it was that it just seemed unattainable. 

So, I started cutting up passages by sentences and having students turn them over and read them one by one.  By having just one sentence in front of them at at time it relieved a lot of stress.

I then let them start taking turns with a friend.  This alleviated even more stress and even turned reading practice into fun!  

I highly recommend both these strategies for your classroom.  Take any passage that you are working on and CHOP CHOP it up.   

***I've also added stickers to some of the sentences.  The students read through the sentences at the end and whoever has the most stickers is the winner.  I've had groups of students that absolutely love this.***

While I still think it is very important for students to be reading books and passages sometimes they just need a little stepping stone.

I honestly found the on task reading time to increase incredibly by doing this.   I took this as a HUGE win, because that's the goal of independent reading time is to practice reading!

Tag me on Facebook if you try this in your classroom.  I would love to hear what your students think.

Thanks for reading friends!

Amy

Over the years I took things to the next level like I do sometimes and made actual sentence games to go with each phonics skill that I taught.  I use these with my Science of Reading Lessons, and the kids LOVE them!

If you are interested you can learn more HERE.