21 must use reading activities for language lessonsFun Pre-Reading and Post-Reading Activities for All Linguistic communication Classrooms

I love language lessons which involve an chemical element of reading. This is because at that place are so many opportunities for learning and improving language acquisition with topic-related texts. Reading activities are the perfect starting point to learn rich topic-related vocabulary (adjectives, nouns, verbs etc), choice up new grammar structures,steal 'star phrases'and ultimately ameliorate comprehension and meliorate language conquering skills.

According to Moeller & Meyer (1995), reading, even at a irksome pace exposes students to more sentences, grammer, and new vocabulary per infinitesimal than the boilerplate brusk class, Tv set evidence, or song. Then, if you are in a rut with how you present and teach your reading activities, get an innovative injection of pre-reading activities and post-reading activities beneath.

Who Should Use These Awesome Reading Activities?

All of these reading ideas for the language classroom are low-prep and no-prep reading activities. Employ them in any post-beginner language classroom, including French, German language, English and Spanish lessons.

The aim of these 21 must-apply reading activities is to get your linguistic communication students focused and in the mood for learning.  However, as the teacher, you volition need to be in charge of providing a bang-up text, to bring the reading ideas below to life. This could range from one paragraph for beginners, to a few chunky paragraphs for intermediate learners, to an extended text for advanced students.

Pre-Reading Activities

  1. "Find The Word" Reading Aloud Action (Pair Work)
    Put students in pairs and provide them with ane copy of a text. Have a underground list of words at the ready and call them out, at random, one at a time. Let fourth dimension for students to scan the text for the word they hear. The first person in the pair to point correctly at the give-and-take in the text gets a betoken. Brand sure you fix sound level rules, likewise as clear guidance on how the class should be silent ready for the side by side round.
  2. "Reading Aloud" Task (Pair Piece of work / Small Grouping Work)
    Provide students with a 'mesomorphic' text split into paragraphs. Suggest that each student in the pair/grouping must read one paragraph aloud. If the person has an effect pronouncing a word, he/she must circle it and if they come across a give-and-take they don't understand, they must underline information technology. Allow students to hash out their trouble areas in pairs and then in fours. Go around making a note of the mutual issues and write on the board with whole grouping choral work and discussion at the end.
  3. "Team Reading Aloud" – Pronunciation Reading (Whole Group)
    Split the classroom in two and assign all students in each team a number and repeat (using the same numbers) with the other squad. Provide students with a 'chunky' text for reading and set each team off with 20 points. The aim of the activity is to be the team to finish with the nearly points after the text has been read. Flip a money to come across which team begins. Randomly choose a number and that educatee must begin reading. If the other team spots a pronunciation fault, as the student is reading, a member of the squad must put their mitt upwardly. If all others in the team agree, everyone's mitt must go upward – this should go along everyone focused. If they spot a 18-carat pronunciation error, they tin can assistance the reader make the correction receive a signal (provide support if their 'help' isn't quite accurate). Still, if the whole team has made a error and picked a word that was correctly pronounced, they volition lose a point and the other team will proceeds a point. Each time an mistake in pronunciation is correctly spotted, bandy the reading team. Deduct points for talking or misbehaviour.
  4. "The Terminal Word" Reading Activeness (Pair / Small Group Work)
    As a group, the team chooses how many words each student should read. For case, 3 words. In add-on, permit students to choose the order of reading. Once the students brainstorm reading, the winner is the pupil who follows the rules and manages to be the person to read the last give-and-take.
  5. "Avoid The Line" – Reading Aloud Activeness (Pair / Small-scale Groups) When yous prepare a text, underline words at random. Students start with v points. Each student must read 5 words at a time, but must avoid actually saying any words that accept been underlined. Should they read the underlined word by accident, they lose a indicate. Students with with the near points at the end of the reading activity win.
  6. "Bratwurst" Name" – Reading Out Aloud Activity (Small Groups) One student begins and after a pre-determined number of words or sentences, they shout "Bratwurst / Pain au chocolat / Churros" (etc, depending on the language you teach) plus the name of someone in the group i.east. Bratwurst Laura. This person must then continue where the other reader left off. Honour points at the beginning and if someone loses focus and doesn't know where the previous reader was, they lose a point.
  7. Teacher Names – Reading Activity Out Aloud (Whole Group)
         Split the class in two and assign five points to each team. And so, model pronunciation of the text by reading it out aloud. At random intervals, instead of reading the next word, call out a student's proper noun and that pupil must read the word that their proper name was replaced by. If the called student doesn't answer without being prompted within v seconds of stopping, the team loses a bespeak. Perfect for getting students to focus on reading activities, as well as getting them to pronounce the words you recall they might find tricky or could do with knowing. In improver, you could become students to create a list of vocabulary replaced by students names and translate/make sentences with, as a mail-reading action.
  8. "Wie bitte?" – Reading Aloud Action (Modest Groups)
         Put students into threes, taking it in turns to read a sentence. As they read, a pupil must make a error, on purpose. This could include: incorrect words, wrong genders, wrong pronunciation, wrong verb ending etc. When a listener hears a fault, they must say 'Wie bitte?' 'oh la la' or 'Oye', depending on the language yous teach. If they can correct the fault, they win a signal and if they can't correct the error, the reader gets a point. This can likewise be done as a whole grouping with students standing up when you lot make a mistake. The last 1 to stand up is 'out'. However, make sure you lot give students who are out a footling task to do until the terminate of the game.
  9. Spontaneous Reading Activity (Whole Group)
         I student starts reading at random and can read a maximum of one sentence. Equally presently as they end their sentence, some other student must begin reading. If no-one starts within a second, or more than one person starts reading, the whole grouping must become back to the beginning. Starting with some other pupil reading the get-go sentence. You can vary this by getting learners to translate the text as they read the sentence or change the person (thus the verbs and possessive adjectives etc). Keep going dorsum to the kickoff until the reading out aloud activity has been completed every bit per the rules.
  10. Find …. – Skim Reading Activity (Lonely)
         As soon every bit you lot requite students a reading text, provide them with a list of words in L1 (native language) to discover in L2 (language beingness learnt) in the text. This could be all masculine nouns, all verbs, all adjectives, all words get-go with 'a'. They could either highlight the words in the text or underline the words.
  11. Find the Synonym – Skim Reading Activity (Individual)
         As with reading activity 10, requite students a reading text and provide them with a list of words in L2. They must observe and note downward the synonyms they find in the text.
  12. Be A Presenter – Reading Aloud (Pairs)
         Have iPads or laptops available, enough for one between 2. Take students paste a copy of your text into cue prompter with ane educatee sitting with their back to the laptop and the other person reading aloud. The presenter must read clearly with accurate pronunciation and the listener must make full in the gaps on their canvas every bit they are listening with the words they hear. They may not enquire the presenter to spell any give-and-take. Instead, if they have gaps at the finish, the presenter must re-read (the whole lot or just the sentence, depending on how you're feeling on the day).
  13. Approximate The Rule Reading Aloud (Whole Group Game)
         The teacher begins by reading every other give-and-take from the text in order. Students must put their easily upwards to guess the rule. Allow individual students in the group to do the same past reading aloud. The remainder of the group must try to guess the rule. Students can merely start to put their hands up afterward the reader has read at least 1/3 or ane/2 of the text. Let the students be creative with their rules. The teacher could as well re-read and do the aforementioned with adjectives, nouns, verbs etc to brand the reading activeness more grammar based. It's perfect to get reluctant and shy students reading.
  14. Running Dictation Speaking Reading Activity (Modest Groups)
         This works better with shorter texts or splitting a whole text into paragraphs, which each team is responsible for. Put plenty copies of the texts up outside the classroom with a number on each. Assign each team a number. Advise the aim is for students to be the first squad to communicate the text from their corresponding paragraph exterior the classroom, without adulterous. Students must take it in turns to read a judgement in sequence from their paragraph, and exist the first squad to finish communicating and writing the paragraph downward on a sheet of newspaper.
    RULES: a) merely i educatee can be out of their seat at a time, b) students must non run or shout, c) students  must too accept information technology in turns to write the sentences on the paper, d) learners are not immune to spell whatever words, but they are allowed to become back as many times as they demand to to re-read the judgement, e) the balance of the group must piece of work as a team to ensure the words are spelled accurately and the grammar is as well correct.
  15. Gap-Make full Transcript Dictation Reading Action (Individual)
    Provide students with a copy of the text, with gaps. I suggest three forms, 1 with verbs missing, the second with nouns missing and the third with adjectives missing. Distribute the sheets and then they accept people around them who had the same sheet. The students must individually fill in the words as they listen. You could read over again if necessary. Once finished, get learners to check they accept spelled the words correctly by discussing (not showing!) with their neighbours.
  16. Wrong Words Reading Activity (Private)
    The teacher provides students with a copy of the text with a selection of wrong words. As they listen to the text existence read, they must highlight the word they hear that is wrong. Get through a second time, and this time, the students must write in the right words. This will give the students an thought of the text earlier they exercise any comprehension activities.
  17. Key Word Bingo – Vocabulary Based Reading Activity (Individual)
    From the text, read v-20 words (dependent on text length) at random in L2. Students must cross them off every bit they hear them.

Mail-Reading Activities

  1. True or False? – Mail-Reading Activity (Alone)
    Once students have read the text through properly, let them v minutes to create a list of truthful or false statements. These can be given to a peer to answer if time allows.
  2. Summarise The Text – Mail Reading Activeness (Individual)
    One time students have read the text, advise that they must underline the key messages, depending on the size of the text. I recommend advising a maximum number. Students must and so combine and re-discussion these ideas to summarise the whole text in a ready number of words.
  3. Re-write The Text – Reading Activity (Solitary)
    After reading (and depending on the length of the whole text), students must re-write the text in the beginning, 2d or third person atypical. If the text is long, then advise that they should pick out a certain number of paragraphs.
  4. Walking Text – Reading Comprehension Action (Individual)
    Instead of getting students to read the texts in their seats, print out a few copies.  Ensure the text is enlarged and in paragraphs with line numbers. Then, chop them upwardly with numbers, indicating the paragraph number on each and stick them around the room. I recommend doing a few copies to ensure that no more than than 2 students are at one paragraph of text at a time. Give them some pre-printed comprehension questions to answer as they go effectually. You can support learners who need information technology with an indication of the paragraph number, correlating to the question, written on their sheet.

Want these ideas in a handy downloadable format? Download my 21 must-utilise reading activities for all language classrooms PDF here:

Did you enjoy this reading activities for the language classroom post? If and so, be sure to bank check out these posts to meliorate linguistic communication acquisition here too:

Fun Games for the MFL Classroom
Spontaneous Speaking with Video Clips in the Language Classroom

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