Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed.

Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

The Need for ESL Reading Comprehension Activities

We know why reading is important, right? Not only does
reading teach ESL students grammar, word usage and idea
expression, but it also enables them to acquire new information
about their second language’s culture.

Additionally, reading helps students to see how English is

communicated through writing, which is why a good writer is
also a good reader.

But reading anything in a second language is never easy. ESL

students who are still juggling new vocabulary, grammar rules
and even phonics may find reading not only tedious, but also
challenging.

Most of the time, students may read an assigned story or text

for the mere purpose of “doing” it. Other times, students may
have diligently poured over the text—but for one reason or
another—completely misunderstood the content.

This is because reading is a complex cognitive process. It involves

your student recognizing individual words and putting a
string of words together in their relevant context. Depending on
the syntactic structure of the sentence and the overall paragraph
theme, the semantic of each word may shift to carry on new
meanings.

Having reading comprehension activities in the classroom helps

students to test their understanding of words in written context,
while enabling them to get the most out of their reading
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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

assignments.

While you have undoubtedly used the conventional reading

comprehension tests to quiz your students, there are ways to
make reading comprehension activities effective without relying
too much on pencils and papers.

So let’s get rolling with these five activities and make reading a
fun classroom task for all!

5 Creative ESL Reading Comprehension Activities Your

Students Will Love
1. Picture Quiz: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
When your students finish reading a story, short text or long
article, most reading comprehension activities look very similar
to the following:

Sarah went to the (beach/park). There, she met a friend who

went to (science class /summer camp) two years ago.

You can find free worksheets like this on K12Reader.com and

Mr. Nussbaum.com, so you never need to spend time making
one on your own.

But, because we want to make everything a bit more colorful and

creative, we’re not going to use words and sentences. Instead of
giving students two options to choose from or having them fill
in the blanks, why not give them a bunch of pictures and do
some matching?

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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

If we use the example above, we can have several pictures labeled

as A, B, C and D. Picture A can be a beach, Picture B can be a
park and so on. Students can then sort through the pictures and
write in the correct picture letter in the blank space.

Additionally, you can use connect the dots to connect pictures to

its relevant sentences. Feel free to also throw in an irrelevant
picture to make the activity a tad more tricky.

2. Sequence: Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together

Use pictures to retell the story and help your students to
remember main plot points, characters and events of the text.
Here’s how:

To prepare, you’ll need to make a worksheet of a bunch of

pictures that are labeled with either numbers or letters. Make sure
that there are spaces or lines immediately below the pictures so
your students can label the pictures based on what they see.
Depending on the level of your students, you can turn the
labeling exercise into the perfect drill for practicing spelling and
sentence construction.

You’ll also need copies of two stories. Make sure each is single
spaced, and printed on a separate piece of paper. Label each story
“Story 1” and “Story 2.”

1. Give your students the picture worksheet and talk about

what’s happening in each picture.

2. Ask your students to turn over the picture worksheet, and

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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

hand out the two stories to read.

3. After students finished reading, have them turn to the back

side of the story papers. Without looking at the story, students
should cut out the pictures and glue them to the back of the right
story in chronological order.

If you need some inspiration on how to create a great picture

reading comprehension worksheet, try ESlFlow.com. There are
also some interesting picture worksheets on Cal.org that focus
specifically on health literacy for ESL adults.

In the end, you’ll probably find (like me) that it’s more fun to
find a story online and download images from Google to make
your own picture stories.

3. Story Re-creation: It’s Alive!

This is a great activity, especially for your drama lovers. Story
re-creation is about reading a text or story and acting it out to
other students.

Depending on the level of your students, you can read the story
together in class before dividing them into groups for further
discussions.

If you want to have students figure out the plot on their own,
make sure the group you create has members with different
English skill sets. In other words, you don’t want to put all the
strong readers in one single group. Spread them out so they can
help others to succeed. Then:
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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

1. Go to ESLfast.com or any place to find short stories. Print

them out and make copies.

2. Divide students in small groups, and give each group a

different story that they’ll need to act out in front of the class.

3. Prepare or have your students prepare a list of short

answers/multiple choices/true or false reading comprehension
questions to not only engage the audience, but also to evaluate
how well the actors capture the events of the story.

4. Then, once students have had enough time to prepare, it’s

showtime!

4. Cause and Effect: Who Solves the Mystery?

Cause and effect questions help students to think outside the
box and better understand the ripple effect of events. Text
materials that have a mysterious plot or a historical background
are excellent choices because they require students to understand
the context of the mystery, the clues and the characters to fully
appreciate the thrills of crime solving.

Give this interesting crime scene a try by reading it together

with your students in class. The story also ends with the
question: Why isn’t Inspector Coderre satisfied with Ms. Webb’s
version of the event?

Divide students in groups and answer this question together:

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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

1. Create a cause and effect map to capture the first part of Ms.
Webb’s testimony, which ends right before the sentence, “The
inspector was very sympathetic and told her that it was very
natural to not want to damage somebody’s property.”

Here is an example of the map based on what we read:

(effect) Ms. Webb could see the study room → it was well-lit
(cause).

(cause) Ms. Webb broke a small window → to get into the house.
(effect)

It doesn’t matter how we order the cause and effect. The point is
to help students notice details in the story and make an effective
analysis.

2. Ask the students to identify the part of testimony that made

the detective lose his sympathy. Analyze that testimonial
section with another cause and effect chart. Do they notice any
inconsistency?

3. Discuss student findings as a whole class or in small groups.

5. Following Directions: It’s a Treasure Hunt!

When we think about reading comprehension materials, stories
and short stories are usually the top resources that come to our
minds. However, ESL teachers can do some hands-on activities
to encourage students to read and thrive in a fun environment.

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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

The treasure hunt reading comprehension game does just the

trick. To play:

1. Hide different treasures (cards, small balls and beanies) in

the classroom or schoolyard.

2. Write a short story and clues that tell where to find each
treasure.

3. Divide students in groups and give them a map and a clue

sheet to locate the treasure.

The map can be hand drawn or printed. Give unique names to

the basic geographic features of the classroom/schoolyard so
students can navigate the rain forest or dark caves without
getting lost!

The clue sheet should begin with a short text that describes an
actual or fictional event in the past. The story should include the
name of the characters and vague descriptions of the treasures
involved. The rest of the clue sheet should be filled with hints,
codes and even secret messages for students to decode.

For example, if you hid a diamond playing card on the third

shelf of a bookcase in the corner, you can give the following clue:

It stands in a corner with lots of pages for you to read. The

diamond is on the third floor and right under a fairy tale.

The first group that finds their treasure wins the game. But they
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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

are always welcome to join other teams to help them find their
treasures too!

Have Fun with ESL Reading Comprehension

Sure, there is a time for your students to read for its sheer
pleasure. However, reading comprehension activities maximize
the benefits of reading by making it more relevant and personal
through creative reinforcements.

Let’s help students to personalize the “read information” in

applicable and meaningful manners with fun reading
comprehension activities.

In the process, you will have opportunities to clarify

misunderstandings, discuss points of ambiguities and enhance
students’ vocabulary, word usage and interpretation skills.

Who knows, with a few dashes of drama, entertainment and

creativity, your ESL students will “read” happily ever after!

Elena is a linguist who enjoys helping ESL teachers and

students to find ingenuity beyond the conventional ESL
learning process. Besides teaching, Elena is also a freelance
content writer who provides engaging and SEO content for
business of all niches. Read more about her writing service at
My Content Hopper.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and

portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a
copy. (Download) Participles
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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

A. Past participles come in two forms: regular and irregular. The regular forms end
in –ed just like the past tense of verbs. The irregular forms can take on various forms.

Examples: Base Past Past Participle

Regular Want Wanted Wanted
Irregular Take Took Taken

B. Past participles are used as adjective, in the passive voice, and with the perfect
tenses.

Examples:
Adjective The broken toy is
on the floor.
Passive The toy was broken
by the child.
Perfect tense The toy has been
broken.

C. To learn these, write the base form on one side of an index card and the past
participial form on the other side of the card. You can flip the cards yourself or
have another student work with you.

D. Here are some irregular participles grouped by their sound:

Beat beaten
Bite bitten
Drive driven
Eat eaten
Get gotten
Shake shaken
Speak spoken
Take (mistake) Taken (mistaken)
Write written

Blow blown
Draw drawn
Fly flown
Know known
Sew sewn
Swim Swum
Throw thrown

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 Worksheet: Azar: Fundamentals of English Grammar, 3rd ed. Charts 2-7, 10-2, and 10-7

E. Here are more irregular participles grouped by their sound:

Buy bought
Catch caught
Fight fought
Seek sought
Teach taught
Think thought

Bind Bound
Find Found
Grind ground

Be been
See Seen

Do done
Go gone

Lose lost

Myra M. Medina
Miami Dade College

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