Give the students a worksheet with the scrambled names of countries and an unscrambled person's first name, written in ways particular for each country. Students will unscramble the letters of the countries and match the country to the name. For example, the name "John" is fairly common around the world, but other countries have their own version of the name. Scottish "John" is "Sean" and Italian "John" is "Giovanni." This reading game will help students in English as well as their foreign language classes. Time the students and reward the first to finish with a free homework pass.
Spoonerisms happen when a sentence is spoken with switched or misplaced sounds. For example, "Go thrush your beef" is supposed to mean, "Go brush your teeth." Separate the class into two teams and encourage them to write a story including three to five spoonerisms. The stories are traded and the opposing teams search for the spoonerisms and then correct them. The first team to find all the mistakes and correct them wins.
Place a poster board in a conspicuous area of the room and then brainstorm with the students to determine a list of categories pertaining to reading and books. Categories include most pages read in an hour, number of books read in a week, thickest book read, number of pages in a completed book and so on. Throughout a period of two to six months, students fill in the chart as they finish reading a book from each category.
The students will need Internet access for this quiz game provided by Smithsonian Education. Send each child to http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/students/ideaLabs/digging_for_answers.html and allow the students to take the quizzes on the page. There are a variety of quizzes available, so review each then decide which one suits the current curriculum the best. The students will receive a score at the end, which will be recorded by the teacher or assistant.