If you’ve ever tried searching for reading comprehension activities for middle school, you’ll find that there is no shortage of options. But with limited time, it is important to know which strategies and skills to focus on in your middle school ELA and reading classroom. Keep reading to learn more about the most important skills your students should work on and fun resources to help with those skills!
Knowing how to make inferences is vital to reading comprehension in middle school
As texts become more complex, authors begin to say things without directly saying it. It is essential that your students know how to draw inferences from the texts they are reading. For upper elementary and middle school readers, it’s also important to make resources relevant. Teach inferencing through text messages! No, your students don’t need phones. My text message analysis activities help your students practice analyzing text and making inferences.
For example, after reading a series of messages between two parties, your students can infer what the relationship is between the two texters. In addition, they can make inferences surrounding the circumstances of the conversation. This activity helps your upper elementary and middle school readers practice standards involving drawing inferences and citing textual evidence. Also, it makes reading relevant for your learners. Many of them are receiving texts daily from friends and family. Make reading and reading strategies real for your readers with this fun and engaging resource! You can also get the money-saving bundle that includes a variety of fun topics!
Context Clues with Engaging Reading Passages
One of the things my students struggle with on state reading assessments is vocabulary. By far, the best way to teach vocabulary is context clues! Helping your students decipher the meaning of words within the context of a story or nonfiction reading passage will improve their reading comprehension and vocabulary skills.
My Daily Reading Mystery Passages will help your students practice finding the meaning of words using context clues. Practice finding word meaning using synonyms, antonyms, definitions, and even making inferences within a text.
In addition to highly engaging reading passages, you can measure understanding easily with Google Forms. Use the data to inform instruction to make teaching reading strategies easy and fun!
Explicitly focus on main idea and theme to help your students with these crucial skills
Identifying the main idea or theme of a text is a very important skill that students need to have. And as students get older and the texts they read become more complex, it becomes far more challenging to determine the main idea in informational texts and the theme of literary texts. I created daily reading passages that gives students daily, bite-sized practice with these important skills. The passages are short and engaging, and they are the perfect way to start class!
These reading comprehension activities for middle school are great ways to review important skills in your classroom!
