2/8/2023
Five Early Reading Intervention Activities for the Classroom
During the past decade, there has been increasing pressure placed on students and teachers to show early reading progress, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these effects. Studies have shown a direct correlation between the pandemic and decreasing levels of literacy, with other statistics revealing a decrease in reading scores across the majority of states between 2019 and 2022.
With each student having their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses, teaching literacy in a way that works for every student can be difficult—especially when educators don’t have enough time or resources readily available. Many students require early intervention as they work toward literacy. This support typically includes lessons about phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. For many students, especially those with reading disabilities like dyslexia, explicit instruction in these early intervention activities is crucial.
What Are Reading Intervention Activities?
While reading intervention typically refers to one-on-one or small-group instruction targeted toward specific students, there are also plenty of activities that can be done within the classroom that will help students of all levels to strengthen their reading skills.
One of the more popular forms of in-class reading activities is “round robin” or “popcorn” reading, which half of K–8 teachers report using. Despite their popularity, these exercises are ineffective in helping students with word comprehension, increased fluency, or word decoding. Instead of “round robin” reading techniques, we’ve compiled a list of a variety of in-class activities that make learning to read fun and community-based. A 2014 post in the online journal Edutopia, “11 Alternatives to ‘Round Robin’ (and ‘Popcorn’) Reading” shares a variety of classroom reading strategies, several of which we’ve highlighted here.
1. Choral Reading
In this activity, the teacher and students all read aloud together, minimizing the anxiety that comes with solo read-alouds. Choral reading is a much-loved way to get the whole class reading along together, while also helping less confident readers learn to recognize frequently used words in a more relaxed and community-based way.
In another version of this exercise, the teacher reads aloud and pauses on certain words, prompting the students to fill in the blanks together. This classroom reading strategy actively helps students with decoding and fluency.
2. Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS)
Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) is a peer-tutoring activity where students are broken into pairs, each one alternating between the tutor and the tutee. Not only does this exercise allow students to practice reading with their peers, but it also improves their literacy, decoding, and comprehension skills.
For this activity to work best, teachers should pair students based on their individual strengths and weaknesses. Where one student might be great at pronunciation but struggles with comprehension, their partner would fill in the gaps for them—and vice versa.
3. Teacher Read-Aloud
When teachers read aloud with students following along in their own books, they are able to emphasize intentional pauses, expressive reading, and word pronunciation. Through this activity, students are able to directly develop their fluency and comprehension skills. Playing audiobooks in the classroom or at home achieves similar results, as well.
4. The Crazy Professor Reading Game
You can find examples of this reading comprehension game on YouTube, and it is broken into four stages:
Stage 1: Students individually read aloud from their portion of the text, reading with as much verbal expression as possible.
Stage 2: Students reread their section with the same amount of verbal expression as Stage 1, adding dramatic hand gestures as they read.
Stage 3: Teach your neighbor. Students will be partnered with someone who had a different reading than they did, each of them taking turns describing their reading.
Stage 4: The student pairs then play “crazy professor” and “eager student,” with the “professor” giving a hyped-up overview of the text and asking the “student” questions about the text.
This is a high-energy activity for the class that helps facilitate reading comprehension, as well as critical thinking skills.
Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI)
Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI) is when students read the same section of text during the course of a week. This process is broken into five steps:
- The teacher reads aloud in class while students follow along in their books
- Students echo read, repeating after the teacher
- Students choral read
- Students partner read, each student takes turns reading aloud
- Finally, the text can be taken home if more practice is needed, and extension activities can be integrated throughout the week
Implementing Evidence-Based Reading Intervention Activities
As mentioned, teaching students how to read can be a complex process considering each student has their own unique set of needs and preferred learning style. When implementing these classroom reading strategies, make sure to keep this in mind while also considering the five pillars of literacy:
- Phonemic awareness (being able to identify the sounds that make up speech)
- Phonics (matching sounds to letters)
- Vocabulary
- Fluency (being able to read accurately and quickly)
- Comprehension (an understanding of what is being read)
Prior to introducing supplemental reading games to the classroom, teachers should also ensure their students are getting clear and cumulative instructions about the concepts being practiced. This can be done through introductory mini lessons about literacy concepts being covered and continued in smaller groups based on individual needs. Literacy programs can also be used to provide explicit, systematic instruction. Care should be taken to ensure these programs are evidence-based, adaptive, and provide truly differentiated instruction for effective reading intervention.
Alongside instruction, students should also have the opportunity to explore reading independently. This can be done in a multitude of ways, whether it’s allowing students to choose what book they read, placing them in book clubs based on their reading abilities, or assigning creative book reports on a story of their choice.
There is a great deal of evidence to support the idea that students who cannot read well by the time they are 8 or 9 years old—when the emphasis in school becomes reading to learn and not learning to read—often struggle to catch up both academically and socially with their peers. Fortunately, research and shared best practices available today help teachers develop many different paths to intervention, from creating literacy-rich classrooms to utilizing essential whole-group and direct instruction strategies to incorporating adaptive blended learning programs which can help students become confident, capable, independent readers.
At Lexia®, our goal is to make literacy a reality for every student. See how we can support your school’s RTI or MTSS programs for effective reading intervention at any grade.