Reading exercises first grade

First Grade Reading Comprehension Activities

First grade is an exciting time of discovery for early readers. They’re spending less time decoding and word solving and more time comprehending and making sense of the texts they’re reading. Early readers are building reading identities and reading for meaning and joy. Explicitly teaching reading comprehension strategies like making predictions, asking questions, retelling, and inferring helps young readers build the skills they need. These first grade reading comprehension activities are a good place to start.

1. String up a retelling rope

Learning how to retell a story helps young learners as readers and thinkers. It helps them organize their thoughts as they read and recognize when their thinking changes. Using these symbols representing different elements of a story, students can string up a cute retelling rope while gaining valuable comprehension skills.

Learn more: First Grade W.O.W.

2. Visualize the story with illustrations

Visualizing is an important skill for understanding what you’re reading. This blog includes two fun visualizing activities. In the first, students are given a title and are asked to draw an illustration that matches that title. In the second, students are given clues about an object and are asked to draw the object the clues are hinting at.

Learn more: You Clever Monkey

3. Make predictions with a graphic organizer

Making predictions is a just-right reading strategy for emerging readers. During a read-aloud, find a few good stopping points to ask students what they think will happen next.

Learn more: Brown Bag Teacher

4. Make a “beginning, middle, and end” flip chart

One tried-and-true way to teach summarizing to early readers is instructing them to identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story. This easy-to-make flip chart is just an 8 x 11 piece of plain paper folded vertically then divided into thirds. On the front half, students will draw a picture of what happens in the three sections of the story. Underneath each flap is a short written description.

Learn more: Bishop’s Blackboard

5. Ask questions with story sticks

Good readers ask questions before, during, and after they read. These cute story sticks make a game of first grade reading comprehension. Perfect to use with small reading groups or with partners.

Learn more: The Happy Teacher

6. Master the five-finger retell

One strategy you can teach students is the five finger retell. Each finger stands for a different part of the story. Assigning a different finger for each part gives students a kinesthetic connection and makes it easier for them to remember.

Learn more: Mrs. Wheeler’s First Grade Tidbits

7. Summarize using simple signal words

Sometimes with early readers, simpler is better. Start with these basic questions—who?, what?, when?, where?, how?, and why?—to help kids go deeper into their understanding.

Learn more: This Reading Mama

8.

Practice with story maps

There are tons of fun tools to help students build reading comprehension, and story maps are one of them. Here are 15 free downloadable story maps to help your first graders practice going beyond just the words when they read.

Learn more: Education.com

9. Figure out problem and solution with a graphic organizer

Every fiction story has, among other elements, a problem and solution. This lesson helps students understand that a story’s problem and solution fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

Learn more: My Primary Paradise

10. Retell the story using LEGO bricks

Put two things that first graders love together: reading and building. Read a story together, then allow students to use blocks to build a scene from the story. As they build, they can describe details from the story.

Learn more: The Educators’ Spin On It

11. Retell using story cubes

Retelling is a helpful comprehension skill for readers. These six cubes encourage readers to retell the story in different ways. They are prefect for reading partners and to use with small groups.

Learn more: Every educaid

12. Play the Oh Snap! word game

Sight words (aka high-frequency words) are words readers encounter most frequently in texts. Early readers benefit from knowing a large bank of sight words, which encourages fluent reading. This fun sight word game is a great way to improve reading skills and build reading fluency.

Learn more: School Time Snippets

13. Use scooping phrases

The goal of reading fluency is better comprehension. To read with fluency or expression, readers must comprehend the story events. Teach early readers to use “Scooping Phrases” to scoop up words to form phrases within sentences. This effective strategy also works well with struggling readers.

Learn more: This Reading Mama

14. Introduce wordless picture books

As readers encounter more-difficult texts, character traits become less explicit. To determine what the character is like, the reader has to do more inferential work. Using wordless picture books is a great way to introduce early readers to making inferences.

Learn more: Ashleigh’s Education Journey

15. Inference using thought bubbles

Foundational inference activities give first graders an opportunity to practice their inferring skills. As they move into texts, first graders can infer what a character is thinking in the story and then add a thought bubble to explain it.

Learn more: The Teacher Next Door

If you like these first grade reading comprehension activities, check out our fun, printable first grade writing prompts.

Plus, get all the latest teaching tips and tricks by signing up for our newsletters!

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Search Printable 1st Grade Reading Worksheets

Our first grade reading worksheets help young readers work on essential early reading skills. These printable reading worksheets allow kids to build their vocabulary, read short narratives, practice reading comprehension, and more. From bingo to word matching to flashcards, we have multiple ways to make learning to read fun. You can also check out our first grade writing worksheets for more practice.

Tips for Teaching First Grade Reading

First grade reading is an important phase in your child's literacy development. Not only does it build upon the phonics skills introduced in kindergarten, but it prepares children for chapter books in second grade. For more support with phonics, check out our phonics worksheets. By the end of first grade, early readers should be able to:

Interpret illustrations in order to make meaning about a text.
Decode unknown words.
Determine cause and effect within various texts.
Question the author's meaning.
Predict what they think will happen next in a story.
Know what types of books they love the best!

Exercises for developing reading skills 1-kov | Reading material (grade 1) on the topic:

Exercises for the development of reading skills for students of primary school age

The main purpose of these exercises is to improve reading skills, since poor reading technique invariably affects reading comprehension. For a novice reader, the understanding of the word read often does not go along with reading, but after it, when he traces the entire letter sequence.

Gradually the eye gets the opportunity to run ahead and understanding is carried out along with reading. We list the most significant exercises of this set:

1. Read columns and lines of words in a circle in whole words, repeating after each all the previous words as quickly as possible. FOR EXAMPLE: HOUSE, HOUSE - TOOTH, HOUSE - TOOTH - NOSE, HOUSE - TOOTH - NOSE - FOREST, HOUSE - TOOTH - NOSE - FOREST - CHEESE, ...

2. Read as one word the service words with the word to to which they refer. For example: in the forest, along the river; and said.

3. Read the tongue twister repeatedly from beginning to end “in a circle”, gradually increasing the reading speed, pointing to the word you are reading with your finger. Arrange a competition with the help of domer seconds. nine0003

4. Choose 2-3 sentences, read the first word, and then, quickly repeating the first word again, read the second; repeating the first two, read the third, and so on until the end. FOR EXAMPLE: "SE LI". "GEESE SET". "GEESE ON THE WAVE". “GEESE ON THE WAVE IN THE EVENING” Try to read the previous words faster and faster each time, reaching the end of the sentence, read it again.

5. Do the exercises for placing logical stress (highlighting the most important words in meaning with your voice. Read, placing logical stress in the question and answer:

Is that Maruska the cat? This cat is Maruska.

6. Perform exercises to regulate the pace of reading.

Reading pace: SLOWLY, but in whole words, smoothly. AVERAGE - the norm of reading with all the rules of expressiveness. FAST - tongue twister.

7. Reading passages at different paces.

a) Reading, with a change in the strength of the voice: QUIET - NORMALLY - LOUD; LOUD - QUIET - NORMALLY; nine0003

b) Combinations of voice intensity and reading tempo: SLOW - LOUD; FAST - QUIET;

8. Read only ahead without repeating what you have read. When reading a sentence, try to remember similar pictures and try to convey your attitude to what you read.

9. Choose 2-3 sentences and read them one by one with the adult, writing down the time:

Adult: 23 sec, 21 sec, 19 sec, 17 sec.

Child: 1 min. 16 sec, 1 min, 50 sec, 46 sec

Next, specific tasks are proposed according to the type of which each teacher can compose similar ones. The purpose of these exercises is to improve the technical success of reading a younger student without violence, based on the development of interest in this type of activity. nine0003

1.. Find in each column the words that differ by one letter. Connect them with an arrow.

MAK

Cat User

Roth KIT

Cancer ROG

2. Similar and how they are different.

WOOD and BUSH, PEN and PENCIL, BRIEFCASE and BAG

za-zu-zy-zi-za-za

4. Correct the mistakes.

Beats like a fish against honey.

Lazy man and fool - two native gates.

5. Read the sentences with question and answer intonation.

Rooks fly south in autumn. In autumn, rooks fly south. In autumn, rooks fly south. In autumn, the rooks fly south.

6. Read and write the names of birds. To do this,

you need to rearrange the syllables.

NITSASI ROCASO VEILOSO LINFI

Read the words in columns and rows “in a circle”

8. Read one word at a time. Where will you pause and take a breath?

The bear does not pluck one berry at a time, but sucks the weight of the entire bush.

9. Read the sentence with intonation: surprise, condemnation, indignation.

Well, you are greedy, bear!

10. Read: at first quietly, and finish reading very loudly; very loudly at first, and then very quietly.

Look, if you overeat, your stomach will hurt.

11. What do you think they are? Connect the words with arrows. nine0003

Wolf Cautious, cunning.

Fox Angry, greedy.

Hare is thrifty, shy.

12. Put the mixed up syllables correctly:

breath-kognez

dot-ki-fox

goal-and-ki

-dy-ra-ki-you

la-pa-ra-no-sha-lun

14. Find a name in each line and write next to it.

FYVAIVANGOR _________

SASHAITYUBLT _____________

ONMAKNGTANYA _________________

15. Read the sentences. Follow your inhalation and exhalation.

There was a thunderstorm (inhale) and thunder. There was a thunderstorm and thunder, (exhale). Sasha could not hear (inhale) whether the storm had passed.

16. Highlight the underlined words with your voice.

Why are the whales silent? Do not say anything.

Why are whales silent? Do not say anything.

17. Read the sentence with intonations: surprise, doubt, joy.

"It's good in the forest in autumn!"

17.a) Accompany the phrase: "I am very happy" with various gestures:

- joyfully extend your hand for greeting,

- withdraw your hand in fear,

- angrily threaten with your finger,

- shake your shoulders indifferently 02 -

call slyly to you.

18. Read the words in order of increasing action:

flashed, passed, ran

19. Match the proverbs on the left with the half on the right.

Learning is light, and

are escorted according to the minds, and there will be no boredom

do not sit in the fold of hands and ignorance - darkness

20. Right a mistake.

Horn to the ears - at least the ties are sewn on.

21. Read the tongue twister "in a circle", increasing the speed.

Our Polkan fell into a trap.

22. Read the sentences, distributing the breath correctly. nine0003

(inhale) And his house without a stove (inhale) is \just a dog house, (inhale) \and there is a bed of straw, (inhale) \and he is not cold.

23. What syllable should be added to make words? Write these words.

Miss___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ cups ______ 90 003 90 002 24. The names of animals are hidden among the letters. Find and highlight.

FYVAPRENOTTM

YACHSMEDVED

EZHDVORONAPA

KENROMYSHI

25. Read the sentences, highlighting the highlighted words with your voice

Set the pauses "/".

The fox drags the children either a mouse, or a bird, or a hare. He sits aside and watches how the cubs learn to catch prey.

26. Match these words with words with opposite meanings.

Deep-? Long-?

Pure - ? sad-?

Sit - ?

27. Read prepositions with words as one word.

Fishing from the water to the river on the shore behind the float

28. Correct the mistakes.

In the absence of fish and a tank - fish.

Fashion does not flow under a lying stone.

Buy a whale in a bag.

29. In what order can these words be put?

Stream, puddle, pond, river, sea, ocean, lake

30. Read the words and find among them those that can be read backwards.

RIVER, KAZAK, BAG,

BACKPACK, HOUSE, BIRCH. nine0003

31. Answer. Who is flying? Runs? Floats?

Magpie, dog, sparrow, pike, hare, bream, crow, stork, seal, bullfinch, crane, bee, giraffe, mouse, perch, wolf, tit, shark.

32. Cross out the letters that are repeated twice. What is written?

Tyuigufrzhyadyshchykbemz Vyazlchaeedsopoprozoprozobushp

33. Pinocchio emphasized the letters as on the sample: a and B. Find errors. nine0003

J T U A K E N A G S B S S D F X B F A Y V A P E R O L E J E A Y C S E B I A T B Y Y C B

Exercises for the development of reading technique in younger students

Hello friends! What are you complaining about? Is your child's reading technique lame? Taxi, we will treat. Keep the prescription. I prescribe you special exercises for the development of reading technique. Take regularly, once a day, several pieces. And the reading technique will firmly stand on its feet, and then it will also jump forward.

Such magical exercises do exist. And if you try, then on the Internet you can find hundreds of different methods, approaches, ways. Eyes run wide to be honest, and the brain begins to boil slowly. You don't know what to choose.

In order to protect my readers from such problems, I took the liberty of making my own choice. The article includes only the most interesting and delicious, in my opinion, exercises that will undoubtedly help raise the reading technique to the level provided for by the Federal State Educational Standard. I do not claim their authorship, they were developed by professionals: teachers, psychologists, professors. nine0003

But I claim authorship of their names. Painfully, they are boring in the original performance. Agree, “The Secret of the Missing Offer” sounds much more fun than “Professor I.T. Fedorenko. And it will certainly arouse more interest among younger students.

Lesson plan:

1 List of exercises
2 Exercise 1. “Half of a watermelon”
3 Exercise 2. “Lost letters”
4 Exercise 3. “4.905 Eye-diamond” Sherlock
6 Exercise 5. “Through the Looking Glass”
7 Exercise 6. “Mad Book”
8 Exercise 7. “The Birds Have Arrived”
9 Exercise 8. “Partisan”
10. “Exercise, times! Again!"
11 Exercise 10. "The Mystery of the Missing Offer"
12 How to practice?

Exercise List

Here it is! List of special reading exercises:

Half a watermelon
Lost letters
Diamond Eye
Sherlock
Through the Looking Glass
Mad Book
The Birds Have Arrived
Guerrilla
Oh! Again!"
“The Mystery of the Missing Offer”

Exercise 1. “Half a watermelon”

Ask a child if he can imagine what a whole watermelon looks like when he sees half a watermelon? Of course, the answer will be positive. Now suggest doing the same experiment with words. nine0003

Take a book and an opaque ruler. Cover one line in the book with a ruler so that only the top of the words are visible. Task: read the text, seeing only the tops of the letters.

Move the ruler up and show only the bottom of the words. Reading. By the way, this is more difficult.

For very young schoolchildren, we can offer another version of the game. Make cards with simple words. And then cut these cards along the words into two halves. It is necessary to connect the two halves correctly. nine0003

Why is it useful? Aimed at the development of anticipation. Anticipation is anticipation. This ability of the brain, which gives us the opportunity, when reading, not to read absolutely all the words and letters. The brain already knows that they are there, so why waste time on them? Anticipation can be developed, it makes reading fluent, conscious, easy.

Exercise 2. “Lost Letters”

Another exercise to develop anticipation.

Letters and words are sometimes lost. But even without some letters and words we can read. Shall we try? nine0003

Write on paper, print out on a printer or write with a marker on a special board the phrases that you see below.

Book shelf.

New... T-shirt.

Large spoon.

Red... cat.

Another phrase like this:

Bobik ate all the cutlets,

He doesn’t share ...... ....

Yuk-yuk-yuk - ours broke down ......

Task: read letters and words that do not exist by guessing. For the next lessons, come up with your own phrases, use new phrases, catchphrases, tongue twisters.

Exercise 3. "The eye is a diamond"

Look at the picture and draw the same rectangle. In the cells, place the numbers from 1 to 30, in random order, but not one after the other. The numbers should be randomly scattered across the cells.

A schoolboy looks attentively at a picture with a tablet. nine0003

And now start counting out loud together with him: one, two, three, and so on up to thirty.

The count is even, not too fast, but not too slow either.

Child's task:

at the expense of one, find and show one with your finger;
on the count of two - deuce;
three - three, etc.

If a child hesitates with some number, then the score is not waiting for him, you need to catch up, look faster. For kids, you can draw smaller signs, for example, 3X3 or 4X4. nine0003

What is the purpose of the exercise? It is aimed at increasing the viewing angle. In order to “hook” with your eyes when reading not one letter, not one word, but several words at once, well, or the whole line entirely. The wider we look, the faster we will read.

One table can be used two or three times, then the arrangement of numbers must be changed.

Exercise 4. Sherlock

Put words on a piece of paper. Very different, not very long. In random order. How to scatter them on paper. Name one of the words and ask the child to find it. Words can be, for example:

frame, kissel, spoon, chair, horse, gold, soap, pen, mouse, mouth, knee, dog, summer, lake, cancer

Each next word will be faster than the previous one. Since trying to find one word, the student will read others along the way, and remember where they are. And that's all we need.

Thanks to Sherlock, the viewing angle is increased. And reading speed.

Exercise 5. “Through the Looking Glass”

We got into the looking glass world, and everything is the other way around. And even everyone reads not from left to right, but from right to left. Shall we try? nine0003

So, we read the lines in the books from left to right. I will clarify, the words themselves do not need to be turned over. It is not necessary to read "tomegeb" instead of "behemoth".

With this method of reading, the meaning of the text is lost. Therefore, all attention is switched to the correct and clear pronunciation of words.

Exercise 6. "Mad Book"

Tell your child that sometimes some ill-mannered books behave rather strangely. They suddenly pick up and turn upside down.

Child reads aloud. After a while, you clap your hands. The task of the child is to turn the book upside down and continue reading from where he left off. At first, you can make marks with a pencil so as not to get lost in the text. And so several times. Two, three full turns of the book. nine0003

If your student is only in the 1st grade, or maybe even in the 2nd grade, but reading is still very difficult, then you can read not a book with texts, but short simple words printed one after another on paper.

What will it do? Eye coordination will develop, the ability to navigate in the text. A standard of letters will be formed. And the processing of information by the brain will improve.

Exercise 7. “The birds have arrived”

Show the child the phrase “the birds have arrived”. And ask to read it:

calm;
happy;
loud;
quiet;
sad;
with irritation;
with fear;
mockingly;
with anger.

What will it give us? Ability to read expressively. And convey feelings and emotions with your voice. Don't get hung up on that one sentence. You can read proverbs, sayings, tongue twisters with different intonation.

Exercise 8. "Partisan"

The student reads the text (or individual words, if it is still very small) aloud. You say: "Partizan". At this signal, the student takes a pencil into his mouth (holds it between his lips and teeth) and continues to read to himself. At the signal “Partizan escaped,” we take out the pencil and read aloud again. And so several times. nine0003

Why? To eliminate the pronunciation of words while reading silently. Speaking is the enemy of speed reading. So it needs to be removed. And when a pencil is clamped in the teeth, it will not work to pronounce.

Exercise 9. “Oh, one! Again!"

For this exercise we need a stopwatch and a text to read.

We read for 1 minute. We pay attention to the speed of reading, but for now you can forget about expressiveness. Ready? Go! nine0003

The minute has expired. Stop! Let's mark where we left off.

Let's rest a bit and read the same text one more time. Go! After a minute, we make a notch. Wow! Already more.

And what will happen the third time? And the third time will be even cooler!

What does this give us? Increase reading speed. And the motivation of the child. He will see for himself that he is capable of more.

Exercise 10. “The Mystery of the Missing Offer”

In order to solve the mystery, we need cards with sentences (look at the picture). There are 6 cards in total. Each card has one sentence. The font is large and easy to read. nine0003

Prepare a notebook and a pen. Let's start the exercise:

Show the child the first card.
A student reads a sentence and tries to remember it.
Remove the card after 6-8 seconds.
A child writes down a sentence in a notebook from memory.
Show the second card to the child, and so on. up to the sixth sentence.

What is the point here?

As I already said, in fact, this is not a game, but visual dictations developed by Professor I.T. Fedorenko. There are 18 such dictations in total. Each has six sentences. nine0003

In our example, I used the very first dictation. What is their peculiarity? Please count the letters in the first sentence of the dictation. There are 8 of them.

In the second - 9,

in the third - 10,

in the fourth and fifth, 11 each,

in the sixth already 12.

That is, the number of letters in sentences gradually increases and eventually reaches 46 pieces in the last sentence of 18 dictations.

Texts of Fedorenko's dictations can be easily found on the Internet. One dictation can be used twice, thrice, if the child does not manage to do everything right. By the fourth time, it usually works out. nine0003

It is convenient to use Microsoft Power Point for this exercise. The one in which presentations are usually made.

By playing the Mystery of the Missing Offer you develop your working memory. When such a memory is poorly developed, the child, having read the sixth word in a sentence, will not be able to remember the first. Do visual dictations every day and there will be no such problems.

How to practice?

Don't try to do all the exercises at once. Only the Mystery of Disappearing Offers game requires your daily attention, and already add a couple more, three exercises of your choice to it. Change them, alternate, so as not to bother. Remember to test your reading technique from time to time to measure your progress. nine0003

You need to exercise regularly, every day, little by little. This is the main rule! A detailed training plan can be found here.

Do not be lazy, train, and you will be happy and get five in your diary!

Friends, maybe you also know some interesting way to improve your reading technique? I hope you share it in the comments.