Read and Draw Activity for Elementary Comprehension

Read and Draw activities provide opportunities for beginner readers to not only perfect fluency but to understand fully what they have read. This skill is fun and interactive for the students but it is also a great stage for the teacher to see whether students are ready to begin questioning.

It can also be beneficial for students who are not very interested in reading but have an artistic side. For example, teachers can read stories to students and ask them to role-play what was read. Keep it fun by asking students to also get dressed up like the characters. This stimulates an interest in reading and storytelling.

Similarly, teachers can assess students' fluency and comprehension by allowing them to read grade-level passages then draw and color what they read about in the story. To encourage critical thinking, teachers can also ask students to predict what they think might happen next in the story. They may do this by drawing and coloring. Students can be asked to change the story as well. For example, if there was a happy ending they can create a sad ending or make another character in the story the villain. It is never too early to encourage critical thinking.

If you are interested in trying read and draw activities, I have a few available in my TPT store. These activities can be purchased according to reading level or as a bundle. Each phase focuses on a different level of reading readiness. Phase one includes short a, short e, short i, short o and short u passages as well as words from the Dolch pre-primer list. Phase two includes digraphs ck, ll, ss, ff, and zz as well as Dolch primer words and Phase three has digraphs ending with 'h' such as ch, sh, th and wh. The sight word list for that phase comes from Dolch first grade.

Click the images below to check out each resource.