I’ve gotten so much mileage out of this activity! 🥰
It is SOOOO easy to do and it is a lot of fun for the students.
Not Only…
…is it fun, but it also helps build:
- Reading fluency
- Decoding skills
- Familiarity with difficult texts, vocabulary, and grammatical structures
Beat Your Own Time Instructions
Here are the basics of the activity:
- Each student gets with a partner.
- Partners take turns timing each other reading a text or part of a text. (If you’re using a grade-level text, you can focus on a single paragraph or a single page depending on the students’ abilities.)
- Each student writes down how long it took him or her to read the passage.
- The partners switch roles so that the other person can be timed reading the passage.
- Then students try to beat their own scores, reading the passage more quickly than they did the first time.
- When students beat their own score, you can let them go root for other students who haven’t beat their scores yet. The goal is to have each student beat their own scores routinely in order to build reading fluency.
- Goofy Version: Have students read with different voices or tones. Read it angry. Read it like an old man. Read it with a British accent.
IMPORTANT: If the passage is challenging, you will want to go through it together with the class so that everyone knows how to pronounce the words and understands the core vocabulary.
If you want a simple, reading lesson plan for your ELLs, check out this post that can be paired with this activity well.
Tried this activity? Let me know how it went in the comments below or what activity ideas you have!
