Make working on a worksheet a little more interesting?

ThirdRockFromTheSun

First off, I want to apologise for not being on for years. Work and coursework is getting the best of me. I'll be making more time to totse!

Anyway, at work I get called into a different classroom every Wednesday afternoon for one hour to do 'guided reading' This basically means the kids will read a book, we'll talk about it, and then they'll answer some questions on a sheet, but it's hard to keep the concentration of the kids because reading, then answering questions on a dull A4 sheet booklet isn't really fun. Do you have any ideas I can use to maybe make this a bit more fun?

On this table I have about 5 kids, and I don't have access to change the booklet, or the book. Any ideas?

Slartibartfast

They've just got to read it. No way about it really. If you read a page, then ask someone else to read a page then make him pick someone else to read the next page, they might enjoy that. Although you have to watch out for the illiterate kid - he could have a panic attack.


The questions they have to answer, change it to a conversation.

bornkiller

Perhaps if you had something more interactive as a group than a boring old singled out A4 questionnaire. (Worked for me in anger management classes)
How about a MS presentation to go with that boring old A4 booklet. Fuck knows how you'd do it. You could place the questions on an office presentation (with a bit of eye candy and shit,) and they can just answer in the boring assed booklet.

How old are these kids anyways?

ThirdRockFromTheSun

These kids are 9-11 years old. I can upload some pictures of the worksheets/books later.

bornkiller

That'd be cool if you could upload them. I just finished my Dr Suess book last night and was looking for some new reading material.
Seriously . I'll give it a go. No promises on results though since I'm a dedicated linux user and only have Libre office. Whether your office program is compatible with it, I'm uncertain of, but you'll get a rough idea of what I'm burbling about.

GoingNowhere

You could include as many tick boxes as possible or make the questions into a poll. Assign them parts (characters in the books) and you be the narrator, and every week different people be different parts. Or if possible scrap the A4 page and make it into a conversation, for example the characters motivation, whether he/she is good or evil, etc. Sometimes you could turn it into a debate where two sides would argue about something (like in Shakespeare, who was the real hero of the story: Brutus, Mark Anthony or Julius Caesar?) There's plenty of way if you just explore your imagination! If possible find film adaptions of the book your reading at play parts of it at certain points of the lesson.

bornkiller

GoingNowhere wrote: »

You could include as many tick boxes as possible or make the questions into a poll. Assign them parts (characters in the books) and you be the narrator, and every week different people be different parts. Or if possible scrap the A4 page and make it into a conversation, for example the characters motivation, whether he/she is good or evil, etc. Sometimes you could turn it into a debate where two sides would argue about something (like in Shakespeare, who was the real hero of the story: Brutus, Mark Anthony or Julius Caesar?) There's plenty of way if you just explore your imagination! If possible find film adaptions of the book your reading at play parts of it at certain points of the lesson.

Now that's what I call interactive.
I like the role play idea by teh waiz!. :thumbsup: