As every teacher knows, reading in the elementary grades is one of the most important skills taught. Because it affects all other academic achievement, a good deal of classroom resources are devoted to reading instruction and support.
As a second grade teacher, I would spend hours looking for reading lessons that fit the needs of my students. Finding and incorporating relevant reading activities that met the various abilities of my ELL students was a difficult and time-consuming process. On most Friday afternoons, you would find me flitting from classroom to classroom begging teachers in different grade levels for readers.
TeacherFileBox was a great tool that I discovered. It allowed me to personalize reading lessons in my classroom with its diverse selection of reading lessons and activities. I found beginning alphabet activities for students who needed additional support, and advanced reading units for the students who were progressing faster than the rest of the class.
The reading comprehension lessons and activities below highlight important skills and strategies with engaging stories and activities. Help your students become confident and competent readers with this selection of reading activities and lesson units from TeacherFileBox printables.
Phonics Reading Activities
Help students increase their fluency and reading skills with these phonics and reading comprehension printables from TeacherFileBox. This online digital lesson library allows you to search lessons across grade levels so you can personalize your reading lessons for every student.
Grades PreK–K Alphabet Awareness: This alphabet awareness activity highlights the letter “H.” Students sound out the letter, read a minibook story, draw, trace, and practice beginning writing skills.
Grade 1 Reading Level D: This reading unit includes a helpful story booklet with activity pages that highlight important word families and sound combinations.
Grades 1–2 Vowel Digraphs: Practice important phonic sounds and word patterns with these ai/ay vowel digraph printables.
Grades 1–2 Phonics Readers: Practice the long “o” sound with these phonics readers. These paper books make it easy for students to consistently read at home and in the classroom.
Cross-Curricular Reading Activities
Capture students’ interest and keep them engaged with interesting reading passages and comprehension activities. These standards-based reading printables are great to add to theme-based, cross-curricular teaching units.
Grade 3 Observing Our World and Beyond: This paired-text science unit focuses on helping students answer this Big Question: How do we learn our place in the universe? These printables include teacher support pages, a dictionary, reading selections, and a variety of written and oral activities, including reading comprehension, close reading, vocabulary, and text-based writing activities.
Grades 3–4 Petrified Forest National Park: This “Read & Understand Science” unit for grades 3–4 investigates how fossils developed into the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. The unit contains a two-page article, plus three skills activities to answer comprehension questions, define vocabulary, and write sentences about fossil pictures.
Grades 4–6 Sedna, Goddess of the Sea – Inuit Myth: This unit captures students’ interest with an interesting Inuit myth and provides practice of summarization, making inferences, and vocabulary development.
Grade 6 The Terra Cotta Warriors: An Army of Clay: This nonfiction article tells the story of the terra cotta statues created by a Chinese emperor over 2,000 years ago and newly discovered in 1974. The reading activities ask students to make inferences, express options, and learn important vocabulary and spelling words.
Reading Comprehension Skills and Strategies
Target important reading comprehension strategies with these leveled and in-depth reading units. Assign each student their own reading article in Google Classroom and easily differentiate your classroom reading lessons.
Grade 2 Fiction Compare and Contrast: The fictional stories included in this reading unit include engaging reading activities and practice pages that highlight compare-and-contrast reading strategies.
Grade 4 Week 5 Determine Important Information: Build fluency and vocabulary with short, daily reading activities! This daily reading comprehension unit includes five days of activities that focus on how to determine important information in an article.
Grade 5 Fiction: Summarize: This reading comprehension lesson unit focuses on summarizing fiction texts. The unit includes one practice activity with a rule box and practice items, a fiction reading selection with comprehension questions, and a review activity.
Hands-on Reading Activities for Kinesthetic Learners
These kinesthetic reading activities are a great addition to your center rotations. Perfect for active learners, these creative activities help students practice phonics patterns, word families, and reading comprehension.
Grades 1–2 Make a Word (Word Families): This center activity includes all the components to create an interaction reading center.
Grade 2 Listen for Long Vowels (Take It to Your Seat Centers): This inviting, hands-on center directs practices long vowel sounds in words with different spellings. The center includes student directions, word cards and sorting mats, and a response record sheet.
Grades 5–6 Book Commercial (Book Project): This creative unit directs students to read the same book, discuss the best “selling” points of the book, and create a commercial. It includes directions, instructions on how to make a commercial, planning guide, and bookmark of guidelines for working together.
Get exclusive access to these reading lessons and more with a subscription to TeacherFileBox! This online library makes it easy to differentiate your lessons with just the click of a button. With thousands of PreK–6 printables across subject areas, TeacherFileBox provides scaffolded learning resources that meet the needs of every student. Choose from in-depth teaching units, hands-on center activities, bulletin boards, art projects, and more! Save your favorite printables in your personal account, print lessons, project them onto a screen, or share them with your Google Classroom! Choose from reading, math, language, writing, science, geography, social studies, STEM/STEAM, SEL, and more!
Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.