25 Self Guided Reading Responses for Fiction and Non Fiction

No matter whether you walk into a classroom in Asia, North America or Europe you will almost certainly see teachers and students building their understanding of the world through a dedicated daily reading session packed full of great reading activities.

Books allow students an opportunity to be informed, entertained or escape as they comprehend fiction and non-fiction texts against their understanding of the world, their personal insights, opinions and finally comparing those texts to others.

Whilst you may have a wealth of books in your school library it can often be tough to come up with fresh and engaging ways to study literature.  So today we are going to explore 25 proven activities that can be applied to any book and at any age level.

These reading activities are easy to follow and suitable for most age groups within an elementary/junior high school level.

A COLLECTION OF FUN READING ACTIVITIES

A Lifetime Tale in Pictures READING TASK

Draw the main character from a book you have recently read.  Show them as a baby, middle-aged and as an older person.

Underneath each picture write what you think they might be doing at that point in their life, and explain why they may be doing so.

For example, if you drew Harry Potter as a baby, he might be casting spells on his mum to feed him lots of yummy food.

This activity is very easy for all age groups to adapt their skill level and text style.

If want to learn more about characters be sure to read our complete guide here.

125 Text Response ACTIVITIES, Games, Projects for ANY BOOK

This massive collection of ☀️READING ACTIVITIES☀️ covers all essential reading skills for elementary/primary students. NO PREP REQUIRED! works with all text and media types.

Thousands of teachers have adopted this as a GO TO RESOURCE for independent and group tasks

TEXT TO SELF READING TASK

Based upon a book you have just read, share a  story about yourself that is related to an event or character that was in the book.

It is probably best done in the form of a written recount. Link your experience to no more than four situations that occurred within the text.

Text to self is a great opportunity for students to become introspective about the content they read and make comparisons to their own experiences in life.

This activity is appealing to teenagers more so than juniors

IT'S IN THE INSTRUCTIONS READING TASK

From a book you have just read, select either an important object or creature and create a user manual or a guide explaining how to care for it.

Ensure you use any important information learnt from the book as well as any other information you consider to be important.

If you are writing a user manual for an object remember to focus on how to use the object correctly and how to take care of it.

If you are writing a user guide for an animal or creature focus on keeping it alive and healthy as well as information that explains how to keep it happy and under control if necessary.

Dear Diary READING TASK

Place yourself in the shoes of one of the characters you have just read about and write a diary entry of a key moment from the story.

Try to choose a moment in the story in which the character has plenty of interaction and emotion to share in a diary entry.

Your diary entry should be around a page in length and contain information you learnt from the book when the character was in that specific place and time.

Remember when you are writing a diary entry you are writing it from a first-person perspective. It is usually but not always written in the present tense.

Diary writing has been a very popular activity throughout time but social media tools such as Facebook and blogging has in some ways changed this.

Mapping it all out READING TASK

Have a go at drawing a map of one of the places from the text you have just read. See how much detail you can include and be sure to discuss your map with another reader so you can compare and add more if necessary.

Take some time and effort to ensure your map is appealing to the same audience that the book is aimed at.

All good maps should contain the following BOLTS elements.

B – Bolts

O – Orientation

L – Legend

T- Title

S – Scale

Express Yourself READING TASK

Using an iPad or a digital camera make faces of the emotions the main characters would have gone through in your book and take photos of them.

Put them together in a document on your computer or device and explain the emotion below the image and when the character would have felt this way.

This is an excellent opportunity to use some creative direction for this task.

Be sure to play around with the images, filters and graphical styling available to you.

Travel Agent READING TASK

Think of yourselves as a group of travel assistants whose job it is to promote a  city of your choice from the text you have been reading.

As a group, you need to come up with a concept map of all of the exciting things that happen in your city and then present it to the class.

Don't forget all of the exciting things such as theatres, restaurants, sports, adventure activities, entertainment and much more…

If you are a little short on details of the location of your story do some research if it was a real location or just get creative and make up some locations and tourist attractions based upon what you read.

You're Hired READING TASK

Select a character from a book and consider what might be a good job for them. You can choose something completely suitable such as a security guard job for Superman or a more oddball approach such as a pastry chef.

Either way, you will have to write a letter from the perspective of this character and apply for a position.

Be sure to explain why your character would be a great employee and what special skills they would possess to make them ideal for the role. Really sell your character explaining all the great attributes they possess.

What's the Status? READING TASK

Create a Facebook page for your character with some status updates about what they have been up to.

Include some pictures and make sure your status updates are relevant to the character and the story.

Around 3 – 4 status updates with mages should give an overall picture of the character.

Use your status updates to explore what your character does for a job, leisure time, places they might go on vacation and the like.

Bubbles and Clouds READING TASK

Using speech bubbles and pictures of the characters, draw a conversation between two characters from the story you have been reading.

Remember a thought is drawn as a cloud and a spoken statement is drawn as a  bubble.

Be sure to take a look at some comics or graphic novels for some inspiration and insights.

This activity is usually best done on pen and paper but there are numerous digital apps and tools which will allow you to make this a reality through technology.

Amazing Artifacts READING TASK

An artifact is an object that has some significance or meaning behind it. In some cases, an artefact might even have a very important story behind it.  I am sure you have got a favorite toy, or your parents have a  special item in the house that they would consider an important artifact.

For today's task, you are going to select five artifacts from the text you have been reading and explain what makes them significant or important.

They don't all have to be super important to the story but I am sure that at least a couple of them played a major role.

Be sure to draw a picture of the artifact and if necessary label it.

FREE READING ACTIVITIES RESOURCE TO DOWNLOAD

Thinking Differently READING TASK

Choose 3 important events from the text and explain how you would have handled them differently from the characters in the story.

Explain how it may have changed the outcome of the story in either a small or major way.

Be insightful here and think of the cause and effect.  Sometimes your smallest action can have a major impact on others.

Popplet Mind Mapping Task

Popplet is a mind mapping tool that allows you to connect ideas together using images, text and drawings.

From a text, you have recently read create a family tree or network diagram that explains the relationship the characters have to each other.

Some may be father and son, husband and wife or even arch enemies.

Try and lay it out so it is easy to follow.

You Have Three Wishes READING TASK

A genie lands in the midpoint of the story you have just read and grants the two main characters three wishes.

What do they wish for and why?

Finally, would their wishes have changed anything about the story?  How so?

Again think about the cause and effect relationship and how this may have altered the path of the book you have been reading.

125 GUIDED READING ACTIVITIES, Games, Projects for ANY BOOK

This massive collection of ☀️READING ACTIVITIES☀️ covers all essential reading skills for elementary/primary students. NO PREP REQUIRED! works with all text and media types.

Thousands of teachers have adopted this as a GO TO RESOURCE for independent and group tasks

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Content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh.  A former principal of an international school and university English lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane's latest Book the Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing can be found here.  Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.

25 Self Guided Reading Responses for Fiction and Non Fiction

Source: https://literacyideas.com/reading-activities-for-any-book/

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