How to Use 1 Reading Activity to Target 5 Literacy Skills
Do you ever feel overwhelmed trying to plan lessons that cover all the literacy skills your students need? Phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, writing… it can feel like you need five different activities every single day.
Here’s the good news: you don’t. With a little creativity, you can take one activity — even a simple word list or a game — and stretch it to support five different literacy skills.
The 5 Skills You Can Target With One Activity
1. Orthography (Visual Patterns)
Orthography refers to the "visual" component of our language. Students must be able to look at letters and understand what they represent. This is something that comes easily for some, and not so easily for others.
Highlight or underline a target phonics pattern (like ar).
Ask students to find all the words with that pattern.
Helps them connect what they see to what they read.
2. Phonological Awareness (Sound Skills)
There are a few ways you can target PA within a word list. We want students to blend their syllables and sounds as a part of their decoding process. Additional PA skills you can target include…
Rhyme Discrimination - Find all of the words that rhyme with _________.
Rhyme Production - Pick a word from the list. Can you tell me a new word that rhymes with that word?
Phoneme Manipulation - If we change the first sound of this word to ___, what new word does it make?
Phoneme Deletion - If we delete the ____ sound from this word, what do we get?
3. Vocabulary
One of the easiest ways to incorporate vocabulary instruction into your lessons is to use the words your students are decoding!
Use the same list to practice meaning.
Ask: “Which word is a synonym for…?” or “Which one means the opposite of…?”
Play a guessing game: define the word using category, function, synonym, and antonym clues — and have students guess.
4. Executive Functioning (Metacognition)
To support students' executive functioning and overall metacognitive abilities, have them identify any words they don't know (either how to read or what they mean).
Give students ownership by asking:
“Which words do you know for sure?”
“Which words are tricky for you?”
This builds self-awareness and helps you decide what to target next.
5. Writing
After reading the words, you can target writing by having students…
Spell the words (you can read them to the students, they shouldn't see the words when spelling)
Use their words in sentences
Pick a word to write a paragraph about
Complete a writing game! One student picks a word from the list and uses it in a sentence. The next student has to continue the story using the next word in another sentence. Keep working through this pattern until all students have gone (or go back and forth if there are only two students) or until you can’t continue the story.
Teacher Tip
Try it this week: pick a single word list you already planned to use. Then, choose one extension for each of the 5 skill areas. Even if you don’t get to all of them in one day, you’ll start to see how much mileage you can get out of one activity.
Want More?
This is exactly what we’ll be walking through in our upcoming Spotlight PD: The Literacy Game Plan: Using Games to Teach, Engage, and Differentiate.
We’ll walk you step by step through how to:
Take one activity and adapt it for multiple literacy skills.
Use games to reinforce the five core components.
Incorporate games into your lessons that will completely change the game.
👉 In the meantime, if you’re looking for other games you can use in multiple ways, check out our favorites here!