Kindergarten and first grade reading comprehension skills focus on predictions, retelling and summarizing. A fun, easy game that will reinforce these skills is called "Which Book Am I?" The teacher will display books that they have read to the class, up to 10 at a time, then read a paragraph from the book or retell the important facts from the story. The teacher will ask, "Which book am I?," then select a student to go to the display and choose the targeted book. Young children like to participate in this activity, and it builds listening as well as comprehension skills.
Second and third grade students continue to focus on predicting, retelling, and summarizing, but they should be able to connect their predictions and summaries with other books they have read to compare and contrast texts. Children of this age will enjoy making connection chains out of construction paper, adding to them throughout the year, to see how long they can get. Students will make connections between a story they are currently reading to their similar experiences and prior knowledge or to another book. Each time they can make an appropriate connection, they get to write a sentence about it and add it to the chain.
Fourth through sixth grade students usually understand comprehension skills and can apply them to short passages. These children will have fun playing this game that requires them to use several skills at one time. The teacher begins by reading the first two or three paragraphs of an unfamiliar story. The teacher will then choose a student, usually by giving them an object to hold to indicate that it is his turn to talk. Then he makes up the next part of the story, using information from what the teacher read to draw appropriate and reasonable conclusions. That student will pass the object to a classmate, who will continue the story. This is a good way to practice sequence and logical order of events. Sometimes the story gets off track, and students may introduce silly or nonsensical characters and plots, but it keeps them interested and builds comprehension.
Middle school students, seventh and eighth graders, are usually expected to be familiar with most reading strategies. To reinforce their knowledge, they can play "Comprehension Jeopardy." The teacher will read a selected passage from a book or story, which will be the answer to a question that a student must pose, like "What is a prediction?" or "What is a setting?".The teacher can call on students individually, or they can play in teams. Children in this age group love the competitiveness of this game.
Comprehension instruction in high school usually focuses on the text as a whole, stressing the use of previously acquired skills to evaluate and synthesize what has been read. An effective game that students will enjoy is called "The Reviewer's Corner" or "Rate the Writer." This is played by two students at a time, who pretend to be book reviewers. The "game" is really the discussion between the two students about the book, what they liked or disliked, overview of characters, setting and plot. The other students can give the book a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down," depending upon the information they get from the reviewers. Most high school students are familiar with movie review formats and will find this method to be fun and informative.