Reading Practice Assignments

My favorite way to teach reading is through authentic and high-quality children’s literature. I love reading to my students and having students read books of their choice. We participate in read alouds, book clubs, novel studies, literature circles, guided reading groups, and book talks.

However, I do see the need for more traditional reading practice. I never want to make that the bulk of my instruction, but there are skills that need to be taught and practiced through this type of resource.

In this post, I’ve shared five of my favorite reading practice assignments. I definitely wouldn’t recommend using all of the resources at the same time! However, they’ve all found a place in my classroom instruction.

Prefix and Suffix Reading Practice

This reading practice activity gives students practice with prefixes and suffixes. Students receive a passage with a focus on either two prefixes or two suffixes. Then, they sort the words with begin with the prefix (or end with the suffix). Students also answer three general comprehension questions.

On the second page of the practice, students retell the story in their own words for additional comprehension practice. Students also write examples of words that begin with the focused prefix or suffix and then write a sentence using two of those words. My personal favorite section of the review includes root words and antonyms. In the root word section, students write the root words from words with the focused prefix or suffix. In the antonym and synonym section, students are given a pair of words. Then, they determine if the word pair is an example of an antonym or synonym.

You can find the Prefix and Suffix Reading Passages here. You will get the print and digital version of the resource.

Spelling Patterns

The Spelling Patterns resource is something I only use with students who need extra phonics instruction. This resource focuses on long vowel spelling patterns. I’ve found that this is the area I most frequently need to target with my students who need extra support. The format is similar to the prefix and suffix resource

The primary differences is that students spell and write words with a focused spelling pattern. This has been great practice for some of my students.

You can find the Spelling Patterns Reading Practice here.

Science & Social Studies Paired Passages

I love integrating science and social studies with reading instruction, which is where these paired passages come into instruction. Student receive two passages based on related science topics. On the first page, they use context clues to write the definitions of three vocabulary words for each passage. They also annotate the text by color coding.

On the second page, students answer three text dependent questions for each of the passages. This is in a multiple choice format.

In the next section students focus on nonfiction text features and nonfiction text structures, as well as main idea and supporting detail. Those are some of the most challenging concepts we teach all year, so the extra practice is incredibly valuable.

In the final section, students have the opportunity to extend their thinking through integrating the two texts and answer extended comprehension questions. This incorporates all of the informational reading standards.

I don’t try to implement all of the sections of this resource at the very beginning of the school year, as my students aren’t ready for this level of how. However, I do gradually introduce section by section. You can find the science passages here and the social studies passages here.

Poetry Reading Practice

The poetry paired passages are in a similar format to the science and social studies paired passages. Obviously, the major difference is that the focus is on poetry.

There are text dependent questions for both poems.

In the next section students work with figurative language and making inferences.

Then in the final section, students extend their thinking by work with higher level questions that require students to apply what they’ve learned throughout the year.

I typically don’t try using this resource until after my poetry unit. I like to give authentic instruction, before I have students practice. You can find the Poetry Paired Passages here.

Paragraph Editing

This resource focuses a bit more on language arts skills, but it’s been incredibly useful. In the review, students edit a paragraph with five specific errors. The mistakes include one of the following: spelling, run-on sentence, incomplete sentence, subject-verb agreement, and capitalization. Students find and correct the error using color coding. There are also five multiple choice questions to support the vocabulary within the paragraph.

The digital version of this resource is in Google Forms, rather than Google Slides like the previous resources.