Have your students act out a story the class is reading. Organize them into small groups, each acting out one part of the story for the class. By getting the students to make up dialogue that illustrates the story, they will enrich their understanding of the characters and events. Portraying fictional characters enables your students to be someone besides themselves and can deepen their knowledge of other people's feelings.
Provide your students with a piece of fruit. Tell them to list words that describe how the fruit feels, smells and tastes. This activity increases not only their vocabulary and concepts, but tends to make them more aware of an author's descriptions of objects.
Develop games that require your students to answer questions about their reading. The purpose is not competition, but an increase in remembering details when reading. Another activity for this purpose is to have students try to convey some event, character or object in the reading by acting without speaking.
Have your students describe a setting and the characters in the setting by drawing or painting them. They do not have to be artistic to try. If you have them explain in words what they have created to other students, then they can enhance their creativity and artistic vocabulary and develop the ability to visualize stories and other materials they read about.
Paste the letters of the alphabet on a musical instrument, such as a piano, that has enough keys or strings. One student reads a word at random from the story and another student spells the word on the instrument. This stimulates the auditory sense, aids spelling competence and increases the fun your students have while improving their reading ability.
Have your students engage in exercise, another multisensory way to assist the development of reading skills. Younger students can clap, or tap with their feet, after each word correctly identified and older students after each sentence, imparting a recognition of success and the development of a sense of rhythm.