Tic Tac Toe Reading Partners

I was browsing through some materials I collected at a training I attended at some point in my teaching career. I found this handout meant to remind teachers of different ways readers can work together. I thought it would work perfectly as a Tic Tac Toe game because that's how a Pirate Teacher would use it--hook them with a game!
 


I had it copied on green paper so that it would stand out. Students put it in their Literacy Binders under the category Reading Strategies.

 

The students were on-task and active. They had targeted conversations and were cooperative.

 

During Independent Reading, students met with their partners and completed 3 of the boxes in the grid to complete tic-tac-toe.

 

So teach like a pirate and turn plain old buddy reading into tic-tac-toe partners!

Biography Bucket

Students select a book from the bucket. While Buddy Reading, students record information on index cards. Then they sort the cards and place them in the biography folder according to the categories.  If they have an empty category, then they have to go back into the book and find facts to go in that pocket.  You can extend this center into a writing assignment by having the students use the index cards to write a paragraph about the person they read about.

Poet-Tree Center

My boyfriend was doing some home remodeling for a family and they were throwing away an old artificial tree.  He brought it home to me instead because he said it looked like something I would put in my classroom. Of course, he was right and this is how the Poet-Tree was born!

I have a wide collection of poetry in this center.  Some of it is in book format, some of it is folded-up posters that I keep in plastic sleeves, and I also print out individual poems and store them in plastic sleeves.  I have activities hanging on the tree using black metal binder clips.  I also have packets of activities and poems that hang on the wall. 

I include a variety of reading levels, types of poems, poetry topics and themes, lengths, and interests.  Children can act out the poems, choral read them with a partner, create props to do a dramatic reading, or create a song from the poems.  They can illustrate the poems and write new titles for the poems.  I have grammar related activities where students have to use highlighters to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns.  For lower level readers they circle consonant blends and different vowel spellings.  A favorite activity is one where the poem has underlined words and the students have to rewrite the poem using synonyms or antonyms in place of the underlined words.

There Was an Old Lady

Read one of the books from the basket. Students work with a partner to create their own version of this popular story. They can design illustrations to go along with their story.  For a challenge, students can read one of the original versions or the new version aloud in a Reader's Theater format.  Lower level students can use finger puppets to act out the story.  You can integrate this center with the Sequence Skills center.

Spotlight on Reading

For this center I have a basket that contains books related to our literacy and Social Studies topics and some small flashlights. It allows students to practice the prosody portion of oral reading fluency.

Students choose a book from the basket and silently Buddy Read the book.  The partners tap each page to signal when they are finished reading  Then they turn on the flashlights and shine light on their favorite part they just read.  The partners must read that part out loud.  Remind students to make sure they turn the flashlights off when they finish.

Magnified Reading

This center is meant to be used with independent readers.  I have a bag filled with books, magnifying glasses, and question stems based on QAR.

Students choose a book from the bag.  They silently Buddy Read the book. Students tap each page to show their partner they are finished reading.  Then they place their magnifying glass on part of the story and the partner must read that part out loud.  Finally the partners ask each other one "in the book question" and one "in your head question."