Welcome to Reading Workbook. This section of LitSite Workbooks is full of reading activities and exercises contributed by educators, parents and students from around Alaska. It is divided into sections by grade level: The first section is applicable for use at Multiple Skill Levels including adult basic education. The subsequent exercises are grade-specific: The Elementary section is for beginning readers, and is further divided into Pre-School/Kindergarten, First through Third Grade, and Fourth through Sixth Grade. The Middle School section includes activities for Seventh through Ninth Grade, and High School for Tenth through Twelfth Grade.

Multiple Skill Levels
Including Applications for Adult Basic Education

Teaching Reading Through Poetry
Claudia Dybdahl, University of Alaska Anchorage, School of Education, lists resources for teachers, suggests generic activities and provides ideas for small group discussion.

Teaching Reading Through the Use of Students' Writings
Using student writings as an anchor for instruction is one way of emphasizing that reading and writing are connected. In addition, grounding instruction in student writings provides more meaningful material in which to demonstrate the concept of student as reader and writer.

How to Read a Short Story
Reading specialist Becky Patterson, a UAA professor of English emeritus, offers tips on previewing, reading and remembering short stories.

The Newspaper: A Living Textbook
Kim Holm of the Anchorage Daily News teaches school teachers and parents how to use the newspaper as an educational tool.

Useful Websites for Teachers, Parents, and Students
These Websites focus on teaching/learning skills for instructors, parents, and students that contribute to academic success at the secondary and post-secondary level.

Elementary

Different "Versions" and Comic Fun
Alice Knapp, librarian at Chugach Optional Elementary School in Anchorage, offers exercises based on different versions of familiar stories and on comic collections.

Looking at Books Through First Graders' Eyes
Reviews of My New Boy by children in Beverly Courtnage's Oceanview Elementary class.

Biography Exercise
Alice Knapp had third and fourth grade students read a biography of and write a report about a famous black American as part of a unit on the Civil Rights Movement. She was looking for something more than a traditional book report.

Readers Theater
for Bilingual/ESL Students
Readers Theater is a drama that is meant to be performed as a group reading, not as fully staged production. It is a great tool for teaching reading, especially for Bilingual/ESL students.

Using Jazz Chants for Bilingual/ESL Students
Jazz Chants are snappy, rhythmical poems and rhymes that can be said with a swinging rhythm --similar to rap or rapping. Students develop a sense of the rhythm of the English language and practice using idiomatic phrases and expressions.

Lesson Plan for "Tlingit Moon and Tide"
In this lesson, students are exposed to the creation of the tides in the Tlingit world. The creation of the tides is essential to the existence of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people, who depend on intertidal resources for food, culture, and livelihood.

Middle School

Corralling Reluctant Readers at the Ranch
Jane Gray, teacher at Clark Middle School, Anchorage, introduces book reviews written by Ranch students for a language arts assignment. The Ranch is a highly structured, intensive program that allows students who fail 7th grade to make up two years of work in one year so they can go on to high school with their peers.

Newspapers in Education - Middle School Reading
Tom Janz, administrator of the Newspaper in Education (N.I.E.) program for The Clarion newspaper, provides a series of activities for getting students to use critical thinking while reading current stories about events in their own communities and the rest of the world.

Literature Circles
Janet Lopez, teacher at Dzantik'i Middle School in Juneau, uses a Literature Circle to get students to talk about a novel with their peers as they read it together. Students are in charge of the discussion and the decision of how many pages will be read before the next discussion.

Text Interpretation Exercise
Text interpretation is a big item on the 8th grade Benchmark Exam, which requires students to comprehend and demonstrate meaning from text. One way Lauri Packebush has found to meet these standards is to have students make comic strips out of text from novels they have read.

High School

'Angel Card' Discussion Technique
Rhonda Gardner uses a word association strategy to draw students into days-long discussions of novels and plays such as Hamlet and King Lear.

Newspapers in Education - High School Reading
Tom Janz provides reading activities for high school students based on reading current stories about events in their own communities and the rest of the world.

Four Reading Strategies for High School Students
A knowledge chart and story map are among the strategies Chugiak High School teacher Kathie Steele uses in teaching how to read effectively.

Four Vocabulary Strategies for High School Students
Kathie Steele use pictures and flashcard techniques to help students enlarge their vocabularies.