A simple game that requires students to put together different sentences, in the form of a paragraph that makes sense, helps them develop their reading comprehension skills. Form the classroom into three or more groups, depending on class size. Cut up passages on a cardboard base into a number of different sentences. Distribute each passage to a group of students, with each student getting a sentence. The group that puts together its sentences first, in a paragraph that makes sense, wins the game.
A spelling bee competition helps students develop their vocabulary and spelling skills, which are skills that aid reading comprehension. Divide the classroom into groups and have each student spell out a word you state. If a student misspells a word, she remains standing. At the end of the game, the group that has the least students standing wins the game.
Another game involves reading paragraphs and recognizing their train of thought so as to be able to identify something that doesn’t fit in. To play this game, divide students into three or more groups and then put up a number of paragraphs on the board equal to the number of groups. Each group of children has to read its paragraph and identify a sentence that doesn’t fit in with the others. The team that does this first wins the game.
While a typical approach to learning new words is to look up words in a dictionary and memorize their meaning, this technique is more conducive to routine memorization than long-term retention. Instead, you can throw out words and their meanings and ask students to use the words in sentences of their own. This sort of game helps students better retain the words and their meanings.