Reading Test Prep That's Rigorous and FUN | ELA Relay
Y’allllll. We’re deep into February and everything is starting to feel blah. Do you know what I’m talking about? We’ve all been teaching the same routines with the same materials for about 6-7 months at this point, and it’s grey and cold outside, and everything is just the opposite of exciting. (except for the rogue snow day chance…or flood day chance if you live here in Nashville.)
Because of this, I don’t think I can preach about properly citing text evidence one. more. time. The kids know. They know they should not be responding to text without referring to what the text actually says. They know they shouldn’t compare and contrast two articles that we read and put things like “I think kids in Alaska probably like soccer, too”, in the center of their Venn diagrams. And yet they do. 🤦🏻♀️
So, I wanted a way to spice it up, and ELA Relay was born!
We’re working on Cause and Effect right now, but this game can be used with any set of texts that you have in your room! I also have skill-based reading passages in my store, or high-interest texts that are based on season, holiday, and sports. (Popular culture articles are also coming this month!)
Here’s the gist of ELA Relay:
You put your kids in teams: the beginning of any great classroom game (haha). You’ll need anywhere from 3-6 teams for this game.
You set up the stations around your room with class sets of four different articles/small group books/assigned reading from a textbook/what have you, some highlighters, pencils, maybe some sticky notes, or some graphic organizers (depending on how you want to play the game).
You assign each team to a station, but they don’t go to that station until the time starts. They will do the actual work at their desks with their teammates. You want the stations to be clear in case one team finishes before another and needs to race and get the materials from the next station!
When you start the time (you can project one on your SMART Board so your kids can keep track of their time!), the kids are going to get the materials from their first station and get to work! They need to read the article, and chart evidence of the Cause and Effect (or whatever skill you’re practicing). You can have them provide evidence by writing it on sticky notes and racing it to a chart at that station, or you can print the graphic organizers that I have with these articles and have the kids work on that graphic organizer throughout all of the stations.
When the kids think they have found a strong cause and effect relationship, they need to clear it with you so you can take that teachable moment and help them refine their findings if needed! Then they can move on and get the articles from the next station.
When all teams have read all four articles and found cause and effect relationships, the game is over. This is a relay, so you can totally say that the first team is the winner. But I like to switch it up! I printed these winner certificates that are open-ended. You can name the team who worked together the best as the winner. You can name the team who found strong text evidence without help each time the winner. You can name the kindest team the winner…however you want to do it!
Graphic organizers are included in my reading passage set, so you don’t need a separate product. But, these only include 3 sections. If you split the kids up into 4 or teams, have them chart their last one on the back, or copy this graphic organizer 2-sided so they have space for 6 pieces of evidence!
I love ELA Relay because it’s not super involved, and it’s relatively quick. It’s great test prep for the end of the year or the end of the unit. It’s fantastic for a half day that you need to still be academic, but you want to keep it light. It’s great for a Friday! I am excited to play it again with my students!!
If you want to grab the direction cards, winner cards, station labels, and a list of suggested prizes, you can get them for FREE from my Free Resource Library!
Download for free in my resource library below! :)
If you need materials for the game: graphic organizers and reading passages, you can get them in my TPT Store by clicking the pictures below! You can play this game with ANY graphic organizers and ANY reading passage sets, however! :)
