I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love coming back to my classroom in January.  By this point in the year, our routines are solid, and it is a great time to really dig in to content. It’s also the perfect time to incorporate reading skill review.

By second semester, I have usually taught most of the reading skills in isolation, so this is the point in the year when I can really dig in deep and apply those skills to our novels. (You can read more about when and how I teach reading skills in this blog post.)

Even though second semester is always full of novel study, I still find that my students need a bit of review about all those different skills that we have worked on, especially with state testing coming up. I have blogged many times before about how I review reading comprehension, and I’ll link to those posts at the bottom of this post. But today, I have a couple of new ideas for you!

Reading Skill Review Sort

While I explicitly teach all of our reading skills and we review them at length, there is something to be said about the students knowing exactly what each of the reading skills is asking them to do. I cringe when I see students struggling on tests because they can’t remember the difference between a text feature and text structure or what exactly they are looking for when prompted for a theme vs. a main idea.

This year, I created a fun review activity to help my students revisit all of the different reading skills.

With this little reading skill review game, the students have to find the definition for the reading skill AND match the key word/examples to the reading skill. It’s a fun, quick way to review all of these different ideas with students! I like to use this type of activity in a small group setting so that we can discuss the different definitions and key words.

I printed the two boards out and laminated them so that I could use them with multiple groups. Then, I printed the definitions on one color and the Key Word/Samples on another color. I cut Velcro squares in half and put them on the boards and the backs of the definition/samples. Super easy!

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Reading Skill of the Day: Daily Practice is Essential!

Year after year, I have searched and searched for a great way to incorporate a daily review of all of these skills. I never found anything that fit the bill and was super engaging for my students. Most of what I found looked the same as what I already had– long passages followed by multiple choice questions or open-ended answers. So, I decided to create it this year, and I’m so tickled with how it came out!! Introducing… the Reading Skill of the Day Weekly Journal!

I began by looking at all of the different reading skills I needed to incorporate… I knew that Main Idea and Inference were skills that I wanted to cover every single week, so Main Idea Monday and Inference Wednesday were born! The rest of the skills (and the sequence in which they appear in the resource) can be seen in the calendar below.

Each week covers a new skill in a fun and engaging way for students. The variation in skill practice allows them to see the skills differently and get oodles of valuable reading practice. Best of all, almost all of the tasks can be completed in five minutes or less, making this a super easy resource to incorporate into your literacy block.

Each week also includes a bonus activity for your early finishers and as another learning engagement to keep your kiddos excited about reading!

There are twenty weeks total, and you can use them in so many ways. You can bind or staple them all together, put them in a folder or binder, or distribute a single page (front and back) each week. Here are a few ways you can use the Daily Reading Skill Review journal:

• Morning Work
• Literacy Block Warm Up
• Small Group Review
• Whole Class Daily Review
• Daily Homework
• Intervention
• …and so much more!

If you’d like to see even more about this journal, please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store here!

Weekly Reading Quick Checks

To go with Reading Skill of the Day, you can easily assess 17 key reading skills with this rigorous and engaging weekly reading skill review resource. Each week reviews main Idea, inference and at least two critical more reading skills. Students will read one fiction and one informational text each week and complete accompanying tasks. That means there is a total of 80 passages included and a full 40 weeks of content!

It’s the perfect companion to the Reading Skill of the Day Weekly Journal to be used as accompanying homework OR as an end of the week quiz on Fridays.  It follows the same scope/sequence as the weekly journal and reviews the same skills as the journal each week.  HOWEVER, the resource also stands alone as a set of weekly reading passages that can be used as weekly reading quizzes, weekly reading homework, a quick reading assessment, and more! 

Literacy Skill of the Week

Literacy Skill of the Week is another yearlong spiral review resource that builds literacy skills in a way that’s FUN for students and EASY to prep! It’s a monthly resource to teach and review essential reading, writing, and grammar skills in fourth and fifth grades. While each month’s passage and story topics revolve loosely around the given season, most passages and stories can be used throughout the year for extra practice.

This bundle includes 12 months of original, high-interest reading passages with a heavy focus on a specific skill each week. Each month, two texts are fiction, and two are informational. Each original text includes FIVE days of reading tasks for a total of 20 days worth of high-quality tasks in each month!

• Day One – Read, annotate, and evaluate a text
• Day Two – Graphic organizer that focuses on the skill of the week
• Day Three – Using pictures to teach and review the reading skill
• Day Four – Read and respond questions
• Day Five – Writing prompts

You can use any combination of days to fit your needs. Each month has one week that focuses on reading, writing, figurative language, or grammar skills. Once a skill has been introduced, it will be reviewed periodically throughout subsequent months and weeks as well. The sheets are perfect for:

• Weekly instruction or practice
• Weekly homework
• Center work
• Morning work
• Intervention
• Test Prep
• Spiral Review

Using Pictures to Teach: Free Winter Version

Are you looking for even more creative ways to review reading skills? Using Pictures to Teach Reading Skills is the perfect companion to Reading Skill of the Day! Try out my FREE winter-themed version (which can be used any time of year) of Using Pictures to Teach Reading Skills!

You can get this for FREE when you subscribe to my Teaching With a Mountain View Newsletter! This is a newsletter subscriber EXCLUSIVE freebie and you can’t access this content anywhere else! It’s easy, and I promise to never send you any spam! Sign up below and you will immediately receive an email with your freebie! Just enter your name and email address and click, “Get my Freebie!