Literature-Based Reading Activities by Ruth Helen Yopp and Hallie Kay Yopp (2009) is a wonderful collection of various ideas for teaching reading comprehension. The text is organized into sections on pre-reading activities, during reading activities, and post-reading activities. There is an additional section in the back that includes ideas for writing and bookmaking.
I was introduced to this text in a literacy course. I initially thought it looked dry, but I could not have been more incorrect. The many activities described in the text are creative and meaningful and, more importantly, they generate an abundance of student interest and aid in the teaching of comprehension. Each activity is described in detail. The authors then show multiple examples of how each activity would be used in conjunction with a certain text.
Some of my favorite activities in the text are:
Pre-reading - Book Box: Select objects that represent a new text unknown to the students. Pull objects out of the box one at a time and have students make predictions about the text based on the first object, and then revise their predictions as each new object is pulled out.
After-reading - Ten Important Words: After reading a text, have students independently come up with what they think the ten most important words from the text are. Then, create a bar graph of all of the students responses. Discuss and then have students revise and then use their ten most important words to summarize the text .
Bookmaking - Pop-out books: Explains how to make pop-out books. I recently used pop-out books as part of a lesson on verbs; students chose an especially evocative verb from the text, wrote it in a sentence, and then showed it in a pop-out card(verbs are action words, pop-outs are action cards).
There are many more fantastic ideas, but you don't have to take my word for it. Go check it out.
Yopp, R. H., & Yopp-Slowik, H. (2009). Literature-based activities (5th Edition) (5 ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
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