Activity Library

24 Ready-to-Use Activities

Search, filter, and download classroom-ready reading activities. Each includes step-by-step teacher instructions and a printable student handout.

Showing all 24 activities

Strategy 1: Making Connections

Connections Coding

Students annotate a text extract using symbols or colour codes to identify three types of connection: text-to-self (TTS), text-to-text (TTT)…

Individual 15–25 minutes
Strategy 1: Making Connections

Connections Text Walk

A collaborative gallery walk where five to eight text extracts are placed around the room on A3 paper. Small groups rotate between extracts …

Small groups (3–5 students) 30–45 minutes
Strategy 1: Making Connections

Context Walk

A variation of the Text Walk that uses multimodal contextualising resources — nonfiction, fiction, photographs, artwork and video — rather t…

Small groups (3–5 students) 30–45 minutes
Strategy 1: Making Connections

Connections Map

Students create a concept map (mind map) of all the connections they have made with a text. Working on large paper or digitally, students ma…

Individual or pairs 20–30 minutes
Strategy 2: Visualising

Sensory Scenes

Students annotate a text extract for sensory details across all five senses, then complete a graphic organiser with a drawing of the scene a…

Individual 20–30 minutes
Strategy 2: Visualising

Soundscapes

Students create an aural landscape of a scene from the text using digital sound-editing tools (such as GarageBand or Audacity). They annotat…

Pairs or small groups 45–60 minutes (may span two lessons)
Strategy 2: Visualising

Line-by-Line Visualisation

Students work in pairs, sitting back-to-back. One partner reads an extract aloud, pausing at each sentence, while the other draws the scene …

Pairs 20–30 minutes
Strategy 2: Visualising

Reading in Role

A dramatic activity where students prepare and perform a characterisation from a text extract. Students annotate the text with performance n…

Pairs or small groups 30–40 minutes
Strategy 3: Questioning

Four Questions

Students learn four levels of questioning aligned with Bloom's taxonomy: knowledge and comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesisin…

Pairs or groups of three 20–30 minutes
Strategy 3: Questioning

Why? Why? Why?

Starting from a teacher-provided declarative statement about a text, students form a "Why…?" question, then swap with a partner to answer it…

Pairs 15–20 minutes
Strategy 3: Questioning

Text Interrogation

Students interrogate a text from multiple angles using a three-layer concentric circle framework: the broad context (what was happening in t…

Individual or pairs 25–35 minutes
Strategy 3: Questioning

Deep Questions

Completed at the end of a text study, students identify key moments in the text and brainstorm five to ten questions at the analysis or synt…

Individual then whole class 25–35 minutes
Strategy 4: Inferring

QPCI

Quote — Paraphrase — Connection — Inference. Students identify key quotes from a text, then work through four columns: the quote itself, a p…

Individual 25–35 minutes
Strategy 4: Inferring

Read Between the Lines

Students work with a double-line-spaced extract and write a single sentence of analysis beneath each line, exploring meaning that could come…

Individual 20–30 minutes
Strategy 4: Inferring

Meaning Map

A concept-mapping activity where students map all the deeper meanings in a text — phrased as questions, statements, or themes and values — w…

Individual or pairs 25–40 minutes
Strategy 4: Inferring

How Do They Feel? How Do You Know?

Students identify moments where a character experiences a strong emotion, then demonstrate how the author has shown (rather than told) that …

Individual or pairs 20–30 minutes
Strategy 5: Summarising

Guided Summary

A structured five-step process: (1) underline passages containing main ideas, (2) write a list of the main ideas, (3) combine similar ideas …

Individual (teacher-modelled initially) 25–35 minutes
Strategy 5: Summarising

Key Idea Paraphrase

Students identify five key terms or ideas from a text, optionally find synonyms, and then use those key terms to write a new paragraph entir…

Individual 20–25 minutes
Strategy 5: Summarising

10 Words or Less

Students must summarise the key ideas of a text in a single sentence of 10 words or fewer. This forces extreme precision and accuracy with l…

Individual 10–15 minutes
Strategy 5: Summarising

Elevator Pitch

Students "sell" the main idea of a text using a three-part "Gaddie pitch" structure: "You know how…" (identify the problem or issue the text…

Individual then pairs 15–25 minutes
Strategy 6: Synthesising

Mega Map

A comprehensive mind map that pulls together all ideas from across a course of study — characterisation, narrative structure, language, imag…

Individual 40–60 minutes
Strategy 6: Synthesising

Strategy Hub

A graphic organiser that collects the key information from each of the five other strategies into one page. Students transfer key ideas from…

Individual 30–40 minutes
Strategy 6: Synthesising

Synthesising Mood Board

Students create a collage of words, images, colours and textures that captures the essence of a text, drawing on multimodal resources. The m…

Individual or pairs 40–60 minutes
Strategy 6: Synthesising

The Text File

A cumulative document that evolves over an entire unit of work, serving as a record of all interesting points, character observations, theme…

Individual (ongoing) Ongoing across the unit (10–15 min per lesson for updates)