LESSON STEPS: MULTI-SENSORY LESSONS - STEP 9: extended activities
The Multi-Sensory Lessons Begin
Step 9: Extended Activities
Ready Reading basic lessons certainly get the student started in the reading process. In addition, the Ready Reading Teacher’s Manual gives ideas for extending the lessons through varied activities that not only provide reinforcement but make reading an enjoyable thing to do. Since time is often limited, these things are easy to prepare and accomplish within the classroom. Teachers can select what fits individual classroom time, materials, space, and student needs. The objective is to keep the students thinking about the letters, sounds, and words studied.
Among the suggestions are activities that require basic supplies (many of which can be donated by parents if they’re not already available at school): Shoe boxes, baskets of varying sizes, small cartons, small objects (for sorting and classifying), small pictures of individual items, paper for writing and art...and the list could go on and on. Some schools or towns have a supply center where anyone can donate and teachers can get the free items for classroom use.
Rather than have all the items available at once, for the younger students it’s best to keep a tub or box to fill with the specific items needed for the day’s or week’s activity:
- Printed or recorded directions. A short step-by-step video clip would be great!
- A model of the type of thing students might make.
- Self-checking cards, when they apply, kept in a card file or photo file available for future use. These could easily be made by taking a picture of a completed activity and printing the picture to be used for checking.
- Materials for easy specific activities:
- If young students want to make individual scrapbooks for letter sounds, they might need paper (sheets with a folder or a binder or a spiral notebook), pictures to paste on correct letter pages, a list of word cards for pictures to draw and label, etc.
- If students are doing a sorting activity with pictures, objects or word cards, they might need small boxes or tubs identified with the targeted letter sounds for the things to be sorted.
Remember that extended reading activities are great ways to involve paraprofessional personnel and parent volunteers in the classroom.
Remember–the difficulty level of the activity should be commensurate with the reading ability of the student(s). When you make it fun for the students, it is fun for you, too!
More specific ideas for extended reading activities will be included in future postings. Feel free to post ideas from your favorite creations for extended activities!