A lot of your 1st grade ideas will work; you'll just need to
adjust the content. For summer, I'd try to keep it VERY
engaging (hands-on or kinesthetic). Here are a few ideas:
1. Have students use reading comprehension cubes or beach
balls rather than answering reading questions orally or on
paper. You can make them by adhering questions to the sides of
a foam cube, big cardboard box, or beach ball. (If you have
summer school $, you can also buy these products ready-made).
You can use similar materials to practice fluency (reading
w/different kinds of emotion, as different characters, with
different intonation per end punctuation, etc.)
2. Instead of teaching sequencing, characters & graphic
organizers on the white board, have 1 group of students fill
out index cards with events or character info from the story.
They can practice retelling the story & polish writing skills
while doing this.
Then another group can then use the same cards to sequence,
sort (by character to study point of view, etc), or place on a
giant graphic organizer template. For this you can use big
sheets of craft paper, a pocket chart, hula hoops for Venn
diagrams, etc.
3. Do some creative Reader's theater. It's fun, gets the kids
up & moving, & improves fluency. It can also improve writing
skills (punctuation, etc.) if you have the kids write the play.
In whatever you do, use text from several content-areas and
explicitly teach related strategies for comprehending the
important "big ideas" and vocabulary in math, science & social
studies. After all, a student's poor reading skills will most
likely make him fall behind in other subjects.
Good luck!
Wendy Z
Learning Resources
On 4/30/08, Becky Ziegler wrote:
> On 6/20/07, Jessica Petrella wrote:
>> Hello, I need some ideas for my summer school readers. They
>> are going into third grade. I have only taught first and
>> I'm not sure if my things are too easy. What are some good
>> center ideas for them? They struggle with fluency and
>> comprehension mostly. Thanks, Jessica
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