

However, if you need to maintain your students’ current energy level Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down is ideal. right after lunch) Stand Up/Sit Down may be a better alternative. When students have a low energy level (i.e. Instruct students to put their thumbs up if they agree with a statement or to put their thumbs down if they disagree. This activity provides a quick way to gauge if your students are comprehending a story or to test them on different reading skills.

This is a great way to see how much of your class is grasping the material while getting their blood flowing-helping them stay alert. For instance, when you’re trying to help your students understand the difference between common nouns and proper nouns, you can give examples of each and have students stand up if it is a common noun or sit down if it is a proper noun. You can use this activity to help students learn to differentiate between similar but different reading concepts. Make sure that the pretest is similar to the posttest so you can see how much your students retain during your lesson. When lesson material matches student ability and understanding, engagement is higher. During the pretest, walk around the room to gauge student needs and adjust the lesson accordingly. If the pretest is on a computer or iPad, have students share the device between the two of them. Pair students up for the pretest and have them use the same set of materials. Let your students know that you will not score the test, lowering anxiety and increasing student performance. Partner Pretestīefore teaching a new decoding skill or grammar rule, preface the lesson with a pretest.

Here is a list of fourteen student engagement strategies from a webinar presented by Reading Horizons Chief Education Officer, Stacy Hurst, that you can use to increase student engagement during reading instruction or reading intervention: 1. We, as teachers, can do more to get our students engaged in learning to read. Luckily, reading instruction can be so much more than lecture, reading practice, memorization, or decoding drills. Research shows that students whose teachers spend too much time talking are less likely to be engaged during classroom instruction.
