A few months ago, I created an activity called Read and Draw and posted about it here. What I found is that because every student was so motivated to draw the pictures, they would try their hardest to decode every word on the page. Observing them during this activity was a great window into how well they know and apply each of the graphemes I’ve systematically and explicitly introduced and taught and/or whether they can blend the sounds together when highly motivated. It also showed if students were able to use our posted graphemes if necessary; for example, if they couldn’t remember what sound sh made, would they know where to look and how to use the picture to figure it out?
Now—two months later—most of my students are ready for more. Instead of applying their phonics skills to read one word and draw a picture to match that word, they are now ready to read sentences and draw pictures to match sentences. I tried this for the first time with small groups (heterogeneous, as you’ll see in the video). It was interesting to watch the students read one or two sentences at a time and then decide what to draw. For the most part, they did a great job of choosing the key words to draw. I’m finding that I like this Read and Draw format because while some students are drawing it gives me time to listen to and help other students read. Also, I can take a quick look at their drawings and know instantly if they comprehended what they read. Last, this format allows students to draw on their own but I am nearby to talk to them about crucial details, such as putting pointy ears on a cat or if long sleeves hang all the way down to our feet.
I have made several different versions of the Read and Draw (16 so far) and have them in a folder to share with you. I’ll be adding more as time goes on. We do this activity about once a week, as soon as students are becoming proficient at blending CVC words, words with digraphs, CVCC, and CCVC. One thing I love about having these in Google docs is that I can go back and make changes as needed after I use them with students and discover what might work better. As you may have seen in the video, sweater is too hard of a word for most kindergarten students to deal with, especially after teaching them that ea usually makes a long e sound. And—you may have heard me chuckling about this with one of my students—the kid in the sledding story never put on pants. So, what did I do? I immediately went into the document and swapped out sweater for pants. In the future, my students won’t have to draw a pantless sledder!
Be sure to “make a copy” and save the folder or individual documents as your own so you can modify them as needed.
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you have fun trying Read and Draw with your students!