Create a sound-matching game that your students can play independently. Inside a file folder, print letters, digraphs or blend that you want to reinforce. Print out a variety of pictures that begin with each of the sounds written inside the folder, cut them out and place them in a zip-top bag. To play, students remove the pictures from the zip-top bag and match each one to the letter or combination of letters that they begin with. For example, students may match pictures of shirts and shoes to the "sh" digraph.
Create letter cards for your students to practice spelling. On index cards, write out individual letters, digraphs, blends or word families. Provide students with the cards and encourage them to combine the letters to create different words. For example, a student may combine an "m" card with an "at" card to create the word "mat."
Create story starter worksheets to encourage creative writing in your students. On a piece of lined paper, write the first sentence of a story; "Yesterday, I went to the store and the craziest thing happened!" for example. Make photocopies of the sentence and distribute them to your students. Instruct them to read the first sentence on the sheet of paper and to use it as a lead into their own creative writing piece. Invite students to share what they have written and compare the different stories.
An important part of reading comprehension is the ability to sequence the events that occurred in a story. To promote reading comprehension, create story sequencing cards for your students to use. Photocopy pictures from the beginning, middle and end of a story and glue them to pieces of card stock; alternatively, you could write out sentences from the beginning, middle and end of a story onto individual index cards. After reading the story the cards are related to, invite children to arrange the cards in the correct order.