Reading Activities Email

I recently emailed a colleague a list of reading activities that I do with my students when reading a novel. I thought it might be a good idea to post here in case I need a reminder...

Image credit: http://www.scuolemanzoni.it/images/gallery/immagini/immagine3.jpg

Four Corners 

This can be done as a pre/during/or after reading activity. Post the posters (Estoy muy de acuerdo, de acuerdo, nada de acuerdo, no estoy de acuerdo) in four different locations around the room. Take a selection from the text (an action of one of the characters, for example) or some related bit of current events (that you've made comprehensible) and project it (or not, the beauty of this activity is that you can use it whenever-- if you're reading out loud and a character has just done something controversial, stop and ask the class whether or  not they agree with the action) and ask students to go stand next to the poster that best represents how they feel about the passage. Once they've done this, give them a few minutes to discuss in groups why they feel this way (great time to practice sentence starters for expressing an opinion: En mi opinion, A mi me parece, Creo que...) and then ask one person from each corner to explain. Extend it by asking if anyone has changed their mind after listening to group explanations. You can find posters here:

http://maestrahenderson.blogspot.com/2015/02/four-corners.html

 

Illustrations

I love this activity because it is so simple and there are so many  variations you can do to make it really work for you. Basically, while you're reading a passage out loud to the class, have them illustrate what they hear on a storyboard. To turn the listening comprehension activity into a speaking activity, have them partner up and show their pictures to their partner. Either have them use the TL to explain the storyboard or have the partner use the TL to try and interpret what they see. To use as a review activity (and a writing assessment), collect the drawings and during the review portion of the following class (as a warm up even), project one of the illustrations and have students describe in writing what they see. You could modify this activity from a whole group activity to one in which students work in pairs. One partner reads out loud while the other illustrates. 

I heard it! / ¡Lo oí!

I got this idea from Martina Bex and it is fabulous for insuring comprehension during a reading oh and the students LOVE it-- great confidence booster. Best to use with a difficult passage. Pre-read the selection you will be reading in class and pick out ten or twelve of the most important events in the chapter. Put them (in sequential order) on a PPT in English. Before you start reading the passage, have students read the event silently, then as you're reading, have students raise their hands and shout "¡Lo oí!" whenever you read the part in the chapter that corresponds to the event on the PPT. Extend it (and have students demonstrate greater comprehension) by asking students to identify specific words and their meaning. You can find more information and variations on Martina's blog:

http://martinabex.com/2014/01/03/i-heard-it/

3/5/10 (whatever!) Most Important Events

Great strategy to use with a really comprehensible selection. Pair  students and have them read a selection and identify the most important events in the selection. Have them write them out and be prepared to explain their choices in a class discussion. By the way, until your class is freely communicating in the target language without any coercion or behavior disruptions, that is to say, until college, you might want to use a rubric for classroom discussions that assigns a grade for participation (speaking grade). Love pair activities too because they allow you to work with struggling students. Extend it for students who excel by asking them, based on the events they identified, what will happen next in the story. 

Summarizing

This is similar to the activity above. I like to use it to get students to re-read a particular selection but it can definitely be used for the first go round. I usually have students work in groups of three for this (I don't particularly like groups of four but the number is really up to you) and I give each group a large post it note and markers. I assign a selection and ask students to read two paragraphs at a time (again the number of paragraphs depends on you and the text) and have students write a one sentence summary of what they've read. When the class is finished (usually the next day), I ask students to go around the classroom reading the group summaries, we then follow up with a discussion as to which group had the most accurate summary and why. Great review activity! Encourage students to use key vocabulary structures as well. 

Simultaneous Acting

Really awesome to use with a text that has a lot of action. Put students in groups according to number of characters in selection. For instance, if there are three characters, put students in groups of three. Assign each student a character and, while you read out loud, students should act out the action. You could do a friendly competition for most creative enactments to encourage participation.

Annotations 

A non-teacher led activity, this is a great in that it allows students to work independently, in pairs, or in small groups. You can choose the annotations you want students to use or, in order not to confuse and to support English objectives, you can use the annotations employed by the 8th grade English teachers (translated to Spanish, of course). Great activity for independent or whole group reading. 

Text to self, text to text, text to world

This is a variation on the annotations idea. Give students about five or six post its as they are reading and ask them to make connections between what they are reading and themselves, between one selection of the text and a prior selection and, finally, between the text and what is happening in the world. You will need to do some modeling for this activity. I would suggest doing it yourself during direct instruction. 

Sustained silent reading with whiteboards

I use this strategy frequently, usually with a not too difficult selection. I think all of Esperanza would qualify provided that key vocab. structures have been taught. First, I assign a passage and then give individual students a whiteboard and marker (or, if working in groups, I give out one whiteboard per group and each student gets a marker). I ask students to read through the selection writing any words they don't understand down on the whiteboard. I walk around the classroom as the students are reading and write the words I see on their boards on the whiteboard in front of the class along with the English translation. I really like this activity since it gives me a feel for how well the students are doing, which words are most challenging and it also allows students to ask for help without singling themselves out as not knowing something. Follow this up with class discussion and then assign reading comprehension questions to be done independently (formative assessment grade).

Here are some activities I haven't used but found from around the web and look interesting and useful:

I can statements

Basically a graphic organizer that gives students goals for their reading. You can do this for a specific chapter, book, two books, or the class. Might make for a good activity for independent reading or reading in pairs.

http://palmyraspanish1.blogspot.com/2014/12/i-can-statements.html

My favorite bailout moves

Not so much a list of reading activities but very useful for those moments when you think to yourself "what do I do now?!"

https://mrpeto.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/my-favorite-bailout-moves/​

Ok, I think this is all for now but I will continue to add to this list and update you. I really hope this helps a little. I know it's difficult trying to think of ways to vary the reading. Please let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to do and how things are going!

Ten Word Summary

Image found at: http://www.skypeenglishclasses.com

The ten-word summary is another strategy from Reading Rockets. Here's how I used it in my classes:

1. I put students into pairs and handed each student one of the ten-word summary sheets below.

2. Students number each paragraph.

3. Student A reads the first paragraph. Student B summarizes what Student A read. Students alternate roles until the selection is over.

4. Review the passage by using equity cards/sticks to ask questions to check for understanding.

5. Combine pairs of students to form groups of four. Have groups compare their summary sentences and then decide on who wrote the best summaries and why.

6. Pass out poster paper and have students write up their group summaries.

7. Use the posters to do a gallery walk and have students compare summaries and decide on the main events or crucial details of the selection.

Love to do this activity to ensure comprehension of a chapter before moving forward in a novel.

Ten Word Summary

Reciprocal Reading / Reading Rockets

Image from: http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/guided-reading-clip-art-32431625

Since we are reading a number a number of novels this year, I’ve been trying to build up my repertoire of reading activities. These activities need to fulfill the following criteria:

1) Won’t bore students;
2) Activities will engage students in active reading;
3) And, will facilitate language acquisition (aligned to a specific learning objective)

So, when I learned about Reciprocal Reading Groups from Reading Rockets, I was pretty pleased to find a strategy that was student-centered and that fulfilled all three of the above criteria. Reciprocal reading groups are an activity designed to allow students to guide and instruct the reading in small groups. Each student is assigned one of four roles:

Predictor: makes predictions before and after the selection
Clarifier: keeps track of and helps to clarify any unknown vocabulary
Question Generator: responsible for coming up with comprehension questions (great idea here from Martina Bex in getting students to write comp questions—In French and Spanish)
Summarizer: responsible for summarizing the selected passage

The trick in these groups is to have students use their roles to interact with and teach their classmates. In order to do this, I started by explicitly explaining that the idea behind this activity was to get students to help one another to understand the passage. I then assigned each role an order. I had the students read the passage out loud to one another (paragraph by paragraph) while everyone followed along, indicating any difficult vocabulary. After every second paragraph, the group worked together to perform each of their tasks. I stressed that while each student had a specific role the entire group could and should help with each task. So far we’ve used this strategy twice in my classes and I’ve found the biggest challenge so far has been getting the Questioner to really use the questions to discuss the selection. Modeling this for the students helps and I also believe the more familiar the kids get with the activity the more effective it will be. Modeling the templates found on Reading Rockets, I created the bookmark and graphic organizer below: Bookmark

Reciprocal Reading Bookmarks Español

Graphic Organizer

Reciprocal Reading Group Graphic Organizer / Grupo de Lectura

Student Centered Activities

One of the things I struggle with as a CI teacher is that as the primary input source, I tend to be the center of attention at all times in the class. I find that this is sometimes at odds with what I want to accomplish. For example, I don't just want my students to become proficient at Spanish but I also want them to learn and practice collaborative skills. Not to mention that the class can become very boring if I don't give up the reins every now and then. I've been searching for ways to make my lessons more student-centered and interactive, while at the same time providing valuable input, and came across this list of teaching strategies from the Facing History Website. There are some great activities listed and I'm hoping that it will serve as a refresher whenever I'm pulling my hair out thinking of creative ways for the students to engage with the content.

Highlights from ACTFL 2014 / Social Reading

Image taken from: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/social-books-hopes-to-make-e-reading-communal/

Another great benefit of attending ACTFL was the exposure to a number of different teaching tools that I was previously unaware of. Before going any further, I think it's important to admit that as far as using technology in the classroom is concerned I am woefully behind. I began teaching with CI/TPRS two years ago and I have, since that time, have concentrated almost solely on the effective delivery of comprehensible input. However, I do understand the importance (and value) of taking advantage of the tools that technology has to offer and sought out sessions in San Antonio that would shed some light on some of the more effective apps/websites out there. The first really mind blowing (again, I'm new to this tech stuff) strategy/tool I learned about was social reading. Basically, the idea behind all social reading applications is that you provide a space for students to read, annotate, and comment on a text together thereby helping one another to decipher meaning and understanding. These tools are an obvious asset in the English Language Arts classroom but, I would argue they're even more valuable in the Foreign Language Classroom, especially when students are exposed to authentic texts. There are a number of social reading applications out there for you to explore in order to find which works best for you and your students. Some allow you to upload your own text and others require you to choose from a selection. Below are some of the social reading apps discussed at ACTFL (if anyone knows of any others, I'd love to hear about them):

• Classroom Salon 
• Subtext 
• Ecomma 

(I've also included this June 2014 article on the best apps for classroom use. Many of which I'm unfamiliar with but hope to blog about my successes with them later!)

All of the presenters at the session on social reading I attended were World Language faculty members at a universities around the country and because they are in higher education not all of their ideas seemed to me to be readily adaptable to the middle school level. However, one of the panelists, Joshua Thoms from the University of Utah, described a project he and his students completed using classroom salon that I thought would be really fun to try with my own students.

(1) The activity is a group project and so the first step is to assign groups of four.
(2) Each group was assigned a different text and had to read the text using the Classroom Salon app. They were also instructed to annotate the selection and to comment on each other's work. (This step requires getting author's permission to use their text on Classroom Salon.)
(3) Groups then had to generate 10-15 different interview questions for the author of each text.
(4) Finally, the groups conducted Skype interviews with the author in the target language and those interviews were later played for the entire class.

I remember reading a blog post long ago about Cynthia Hitz doing a skype interview with her students and Mira Canion and thinking then how cool that would be to do with my own kids. We will be reading "Hija del sastre" by TPRS publishing later this year and I'm planning on bringing in some authentic texts about the Spanish Civil War and having students do the activity described above.

Highlights from ACTFL 2014 / Higher Order Thinking

I've just gotten back from ACTFL in San Antonio and I have a notebook full of ideas I wanted to share here for future use. My first session was given by Carol Gaab and was entitled "Inspiring Higher Order Thinking." I work in DC public schools and an entire section of our evaluation rubric is devoted to higher level thinking in class and so I was eager to attend. As always I found the presenter full of energy and with some excellent ideas. For this session, Gaab used her biography about Felipe Alou.
(1) She first discussed how she selected particular vocabulary words from the text by looking both for the major themes of the novel and the highest frequency vocabulary words. For this text, Gaab chose the word "dream."
(2) To reinforce the vocabulary, she gave students five examples of different types of dreams and asked session participants to distinguish between "waking dream" and "sleeping dream." For example, "Felipe dreams of joining the major leagues" would be classified as a "waking dream" or a "goal" and "Felipe dreamt there was a monster under his bed" is a "sleeping dream."
(3) In order to give students more opportunities to practice the vocabulary she gave students various sentences about the main character and students had to decide if each statement were "probably" or "possibly" true. I like this strategy which is very similar to Martina Bex's "This or That" activity and can be modified in a variety of different ways.
(4) Gaab then suggested personalizing the vocabulary. Asking the students questions like "Do you have a dream?" "Do you always dream the same thing?"
(5) Next, Gaab asked participants to indicate which of the following words could be used to describe a dream: Event, Opinion, Goal, Wish, Reality, Future. She suggested distinguishing between long-term goals and short-term goals and, to demonstrate, showed us an impressive video of one of her own ESL students discussing his long and short term goals on video.
(6) After this last activity, Gaab transitioned from talking about dreams to talking about stereotypes (all of this in preparation for the students listening to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech). She introduced the word "judge" and asked students if they thought they were a judge. Anticipating that most would answer in the negative, she showed the audience several pictures depicting various stereotypes (an overweight woman, two goth kids, etc.) and asked us to write down three words describing each picture. She then asked us to share comments in order to see whether we commented on economic status, looks, age, etc., proving to us that we do in fact judge one another.
(7) Gaab followed up with a selection from the "I have a Dream" speech. She suggested giving the students a transcript while they listened and, ultimately, taking the script away after the second or third listen. I would also try to personalize the speech as much as possible and circle key vocabulary after each listen.
(8) As a post-listening/post-reading activity Gaab gave us several sentences and asked us to distinguish the sentences as either something MLK would say or would not say.

All and all I thought it was an excellent session and took away a ton of ideas. We are gearing up to read "Los Baker van a Perú" after the holiday and I'm looking forward to developing some higher order thinking with this text.

El resumen / Reading Activity

En la clase de escritura nuestro profe nos pidió escribir un resumen de un ensayo de Octavio Paz. La destreza de resumir es algo que mis estudiantes practican con frecuencia en mi clase y por eso me interesaba averiguar cómo los profes de Middlebury la enseñarían. A mí me gusta la actividad muchísimo porque sirve para alcanzar tres objetivos: los estudiantes reciben la repetición necesaria para adquirir vocabulario nuevo por medio de leer tanto como escribir; tienen que analizar un texto para identificar el propósito del autor, el mensaje, a quien se dirige el texto, y los detalles y, por fin, tienen que resumir, un pocas palabras, la información pertinente. Sin embargo, mi profe extendió la actividad con dos actividades que, en mi opinión, sirven para hacer el ejercicio uno en el que los estudiantes pueden colaborar y reflexionar sobre su trabajo antes de entregarlo y así se aprovecharán más del trabajo. Sé que usaré esta actividad en mis clases en el año que viene y quería escribirla para aclarar la estructura:


1) Primero, prepare dos textos breves (para las clases más avanzadas los textos pueden ser más sofisticados) y dos pruebas correspondientes que evalúan el entendimiento de las ideas principales (las ideas necesarias para la buena formación de un resumen) de cada lectura

2) Repase las características de un buen resumen con la clase y, por supuesto, muestre un ejemplo de un resumen bien hecho

3) Divida la clase entre dos grupos y asigne el primer texto a un grupo y al otro grupo el segundo. A Los estudiantes se les permita leer sólo las lecturas de su grupo.

4) Asigne a los estudiantes el trabajo de leer y resumir lo que han leído.

5) Dirija que los estudiantes de un grupo intercambien sus resúmenes con los estudiantes del otro grupo. Déles tiempo para leer los resúmenes y hacer preguntas.

6) Por fin, suministre la prueba. Después de que los estudiantes la terminen; repásela con la clase. La idea es que si el resumen está bien escrito, con todo el contenido imprescindible, los estudiantes la aprobarán. Si los estudiantes no la aprueben el que escribió el resumen sabrá la información que le falta y lo que debe incluir para mejorarla.

7) Pida A los estudiantes que usen las pruebas y los comentarios de sus compañeros para re-escribir el resumen.

Perezosos / The Guardian

Ran into this guy in Costa Rica in 2007

I don't know how many people out there would agree with me on this but I believe that one of the greatest benefits of the "digital revolution" has been that the news has become interactive! I love the slideshows, videos, and blogs that online news sources provide. And none, in my opinion, is better at showcasing pictures from around the world than The Guardian.  Just check out today's selection!

I often try to incorporate these photos into lessons and earlier this year, right before we took the students to Costa Rica for spring break, I ran across the cutest slideshow I've seen to date on the website... Sloths! (Please click on this link. It's guaranteed to put a smile on the face of even the most exhausted teacher!) I put the photos in a PPT and used them as a basis for a discussion about what sloths ate, where they lived, etc. but, I really wanted to accompany it with a reading.

Well, I finally got around to it and you can download it below. It fits perfectly into our unit on Costa Rica and the environment and I'm looking forward to using it next year.

Perezoso

Of course, you can always extend the lesson with a little Movietalk:

Organizadores Gráficos

As the year winds down (we still have two weeks in DC!) I've begun to organize all my materials in preparation for next year. One of the things I've noticed as a teacher is that I gravitate much more towards reading than storytelling (something I need to work on for next year) in my classroom. It makes me so happy to see a classroom of language learners engrossed in a Spanish novel!  Still, I want to make sure that my students are getting all they can from the reading and, if I can reinforce some of those English Language Arts standards in the process, well, why not?! As usual I began with an internet search of graphic organizers that help students organize, interpret, and analyze the text. Here are three of some of the nicest collections I found for free:

This collection from Pomperaug Regional School District in Connecticut contains over 35 organizers in both Spanish and English and include organizers for reading comprehension, vocabulary development, interpretive and analytical skills, and study habits.

The site Organizadores Graficos has loads of organizers in Spanish with nice, clear charts and they allow you to download them for free. The best part is that you can modify them to suit your students needs.

Finally, Eduplace has a nice collection of organizers with fun graphics (I work in a Middle School where were all about the graphics!).

However, not content to to NOT remake the wheel, I decided I'd try my hand at making some of my own. Using this simple, clear and fantastic tutorial on how to use Pages on a Mac by Alice Keeler, I created three organizers. The first is designed to have students express and support an opinion, the second is for making predictions and, the last, is for making sensory observations. I'm looking forward to using them in the classroom and would love to hear any suggestions others might have for using graphic organizers in the classroom.

Organizadores Graficos by AnnaHenderson