Fun Reading Activity With Highlighter Tape

One of the ways that I like to change-up my reading groups is by occasionally throwing in a novelty item that still has educational value. Kids love highlighters so sometimes we use those.  But what's even better than a highlighter?  Highlighter tape! Talk about fun!  It's transparent, it's colorful, it's sticky!  Who doesn't want to "play" with highlighter tape?
 I really love to use the printable books from Reading A-Z. Not only are there lots of books to choose from but the topics are relevant and kids enjoy reading them.  I used this book with a group of kindergartners earlier in the week. I only have this group for about 15 minutes so we are a little limited in what we can do but we had plenty of time for this activity.
I gave them the book like I usually do and before I asked them to look at the pictures or anything else, I asked them to open the book and just look at the words. I specifically told them not to read--just look at the words. They were a little confused, some of them started reading, some of them just looked at the pictures, and some of them just sat there--so I stopped them and explained again.  Don't read the words in order as they are on the page, just look at the words and see if you can find words that you know.  They got it the second time and started word hunting.  When they realized I was giving them pieces of highlighter tape to put on the words they knew, they really started looking!  A few times they even tried to convince me they knew words they didn't know because they loved using the tape so much.
After a few minutes of word hunting, I stopped them and said, "Okay, now look at the book.  You have a lot of words highlighted.  That means that you already know a whole bunch of the words that you are about to read. Isn't it great to know that, once you start reading this book you've never seen before, you'll  already be able to read so much of it?"  They were really proud that they knew so much, but they were also better prepared.  With all of the words they already knew highlighted, there was no stopping to think about what word that was, it was freshly on their minds.  They didn't get bogged down by the sight words because they had just seen them.  This allowed them to concentrate more on the unfamiliar words.  Since most of the words in this text were either sight words or picture clue words, reading the book after this activity was a cinch.
After we read the book, I asked them some questions about the book.  Sometimes when students are reading an easier level book, our questions tend to be easier, too. I try to prevent this by asking questions that have excluded answers.  For example, in this book only one animal was in the house and the rest were on the farm so I asked, "Which animal is not outside?" I also ask prediction questions, opinion questions, questions about their experiences because this allows them to talk about their reading and connect it to their lives.  They are much more likely to remember what we read about if they've had the opportunity to talk about it.

Reading A-Z books are awesome!

Highlighting tape can take an ordinary book and make it extraordinary!

Highlighting tape is fairly inexpensive and it lasts a  while, too.  I've had these rolls for a few years.

You can buy highlighting tape at teacher supply stores, online, and even most office supply stores.  It's an inexpensive way to switch things up for your students an allow them to have a little bit of fun while they are still learning.