Crafting a Reading Lesson on the Spot

Have you ever been asked to pull a small group of students out of class and lead them in a reading lesson? How much lead time did you get? If the answer is “not much,” then the following suggestions can help.

1. What is the purpose of the lesson?: Often the goal of a reading lesson is comprehension. Sometimes it's fluency. Sometimes it’s both. Another goal could be practicing vocabulary, using critical thinking skills, or learning about an important topic. Which ones matter the most for this lesson? If you’re not sure, before you get started ask the teacher or staff person, “What should I focus on?” and “What should I watch out for?”
2. Get familiar with the text: Scan the text to see what features it has. Are there relevant pictures, graphs, or headings? Are there questions before and/or after the text? Do any new vocabulary words jump out at you? Now ask the students to do the same. What do they see? What do they think they will read about?
3. Do the first reading silently: If this is an intermediate or advanced group, instruct the students to read the text silently and save their questions for later. Just read for the main idea. You can do the same. As you read, look for challenges that you’ll want to address such as unfamiliar vocabulary, complex sentences, or new concepts. Read the questions as well to see if they fit the purpose of the lesson. Do they check for a deep enough level of understanding? Do they ask students to think critically? Or, will you need to ask a few more questions to accomplish these goals?
4. Do a second reading aloud: When the students are ready, tell them that you’ll answer their questions soon, but first let’s read it again. This time read it aloud and have the students follow along. This models fluency and pronunciation and it should also increase students’ comprehension. It also gives you an opportunity to think about and compose another question or two if needed.
5. Focus on the purpose of the lesson: What should happen next depends on what students need to get out of the lesson.

• Comprehension?: Ask students if they have questions. Give them some time to review the text as they come up with questions. Most likely they will ask about some vocabulary, which is an important part of comprehension. Direct the class to read the sentence with the new word in it again. If the text offers clues about the meaning, highlight those clues for the students to see if they can guess what the word means. If not, briefly explain the word or look it up in a learners’ dictionary.
  • An option to consider is to have students read again and Mark the Margins. Follow the link for more ideas about what they can mark.
  • Use the questions that came with the text to check for comprehension and add a question or two if most of the questions have answers that can be easily circled in the text. Ask questions that ask about the author’s purpose, the main idea, and ones that start with “Why does the text say…” or “How does the author show…” As students answer the questions, you might consider doing this Restating the Question activity.
• Fluency?: There are several no-prep Tutor Tips that explain activities you can use to practice fluency:
  • Modelled Reading
  • Echo Reading
  • Repeated Reading
  • Collaborative Oral Reading
• Vocabulary?: Follow the first suggestion above under comprehension and then add in another question or two to the ones that came with the text that ask students about the meanings of words in the text. If many of the words are fairly new, you might ask students to categorize the words according to whether the meaning is positive, negative, or neutral or some other category that fits the topic. Some other low-prep activities for vocabulary practice to try include:
  • Whiteboard Bingo
  • Categories
  • Oral Fill in the Blank