Differentiated Read the Room: Ideas for learning and a freebie!

   

     Read the room is an excellent center activity! I use read the room almost daily in my classroom for literacy, vocabulary, letter recognition, spelling patterns and much more! I have created a bundle of read the room activities that are differentiated in order to meet the needs of all of your students no matter what level they are on. I am a firm believer in making my classroom an environment where all children are successful and feel confident in their learning. Differentiation is just one way to help those children who may be behind or even ahead to grow and flourish in the classroom. The goal is the same: learning, irregardless of where we start we want children to learn at a pace that does not frustrate and overwhelm.

     My Differentiated Read the Room Files contain 3 sets of picture cards. One set has the entire word printed with the picture, the 2nd set only has the target vowel written under the picture and the 3rd set only has the picture. This will allow you to choose the proper amount of challenge for your students. Before I hang my cards around the room I go over each picture with the students to make sure they know what each one is. Once I hang my pictures I place the pages I chose for each student on a clipboard and pass them out. I then go over procedures and instructions and set the students loose to complete their task. This is normally a center activity during small group instruction so there are only 4 or 5 students roaming the classroom at a time. This also allows me to give instructions to each group since they may be completing different tasks.

     For children who are struggling to write, don't know all of their letters or are struggling with letter sounds I will use my cards with the word on them and print out the worksheets that have the entire word to trace. This way the students are getting reinforcement of letter sound recognition and proper letter formation. As these children build their letter skills they can move into the pages that only have the target vowel and they have to fill in the beginning and ending sounds.

     For those students who are doing well with their letters and are starting to spell words I choose to hang the cards with either just the target vowel or with not writing at all. I will use either the page with just the pictures for recording or even the page that only has the numbers of the cards to match. It just truly depends on where each student is comfortable working with some challenge.

As your students become comfortable with the read the room basic recording they can then begin to complete the other activities included in the file. Here I have had students write the target word and then rewrite it using different colors for each letter:

Here those who need a challenge can write the word and then write a word that rhymes with the target word:

These students can then move into writing sentences and stories with their words:

Other students can complete a draw and write to hone their skills:

Here are some of the other activities included with each of my Differentiated Read the Room Files:

There are many more activities you can incorporate into read the room. The file contains an entire page of extension ideas to further the learning past read the room. The short letter "Ii" file is free for you to download and try. If you believe these files will be beneficial for your students you can purchase them individually or in a growing bundle here!. I hope you enjoy adding read the room to your classroom activities!

Click Here to Download your FREE file!

ENJOY!