Easy and Fun Reading Activities: Quick Lessons for the Win!

These easy and fun reading activities are great to have on hand when teaching kids how to read. Having no prep reading activities ready to go will save you time and sanity!

These easy and fun reading activities are great ideas to have on hand.

No Prep Reading Activities

We’ve all had those crazy weeks when a perfect trio of chaos aligns (i.e. parent-teacher conferences, report card deadlines, and a full moon that makes the kiddos bounce off the wall). We’ve also had those weeks when willing yourself to walk through those doors and make it to school is just about all you can muster the energy up for.

Whether you face a perfect storm of chaos, or exhaustion from burning the candle at both ends– you NEED to have some no-prep activities in your back pocket to get you through those days.

Let’s ease that stress!

After you implement the key to stress-free reading intervention, you can use this list of no-prep reading activities to give yourself a little break. 🫶

I do already have an Ultimate List of Reading Intervention Activities that includes some no-prep ideas as well, but I wanted to make a list specifically devoted to quick activities that don’t require a ton of extra work.

Also, be sure to grab my Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet to help you decide which of these activities your students need!

Intervention in reading doesn’t have to be overwhelming with this free cheat sheet.

These reading activities truly require no prep and are easy to pull out at a moment’s notice. Some of the activities require simple things, like writing words on a piece of paper, but it is easy enough to do right there in the moment on the spot. (Perfect “winging-it” material!)

**Below are 9 ZERO prep activities + 3 bonus “low” prep activities that require minimal initial prep but can be reused over and over again.

Reading activities can be simple and still be effective!

Keep a few of these in your teaching arsenal for those moments when you need a quick activity but have no time to prep it!

Reading games like “Guess my Word” can be played at any time.

1. Guess My Word (no-prep)

This is a FANTASTIC way to build phonemic awareness (which is essential to reading success)! You start by giving the “clues” as the sounds in the word, and then the student tries to guess what word it is. For example:

“My word has the sounds /b/ /u/ /g/. Can you guess what word it is?”
Students guess the word “bug”

When students get good at this, you can switch roles and have them choose a word and give you the sounds for you to guess! Great for practicing blending AND segmenting!

**Here are 7 more super EASY phonemic awareness activities to try!

I love fun activities in reading that use sticky notes!

2. Sticky Note Word Families (no-prep)

Ahhh, sticky notes. One of my favorite reading tools! So interactive, bright, and sensory. This little activity is a great hands-on way to get students practicing word families.

Start out with a word ending, like -op, -at, -un, etc.
Write that word ending on a sticky note.
Write several different consonants that would make a word with that ending on a different color of sticky notes.
Have students place a consonant in front of the word ending to make a word and read it.
Let them change out the consonant to make different words.

As I talk about in this blog post on the best way to teach cvc words, word families are a great way to learn and practice cvc words!

Fun reading activities should always focus on essential skills, like vowel sounds.

3. Vowel Hold-Up (no-prep)

Learning vowel sounds can be tricky because they each sound very similar, plus each vowel has a long and a short sound. It’s important to get direct, targeted practice differentiating vowel sounds.

Write each vowel on a sticky note in one color, and draw the short vowel symbol (◡) over them.
Write each vowel again on a different color of sticky note and draw the long vowel symbol ( ￣ ) over them.
Say a long or short vowel sound
Have students point to or hold up the vowel that makes that sound, and say whether it is long or short.

I talk more about the importance of vowels along with some other key phonics skills in this post: 13 Phonics Strategies You Need to Try!

(Here’s a video that shows “Secret Word Pass” in action!☝️)

4. Secret Word Pass (no-prep)

This activity works great with a small group. Students get to practice writing one specific word, and reading new words.

Assign each student a “secret word”. You can have all of the words be in the same word family, use your spelling words, or use sight words.
Give each student an index card.
Have students write their word at the top of their index card and “whisper read” it quietly.
On your signal, have them pass their card to the right.
Students then “whisper read” the word on their new card, then write their original “secret word” on that card.
Pass the cards again.
Students read the words on their new card, and write their secret word on this new card.
Continue passing, reading, and writing until students get their original card back, and they can see all of the secret words on it.

Reading intervention lessons are more engaging with interactive activities.

5. Walk Out Words (no-prep)

Sometimes students just need a little movement to get engaged and for skills to stick. Try out this super kinesthetic phonemic awareness activity! It’s a great way to activate multiple senses– and multisensory learning is proven to be the most effective type of learning!

Say a word.
Take one step for each sound you hear in the word.
Say the word again at the end, and jump!

Magnetic letters make great interactive phonics activities.

6. Build a Word (no-prep)

If you have letter tiles or letter magnets easily accessible, this activity is a breeze to prep! It’s one of my go-to activities that is super effective.

Say a word.
Students count the sounds they hear in the word on their fingers.
Have them set out letter tiles for each sound.
Students read the word they made.
They write the word on a piece of paper as they say the letters out loud.
Challenge: Clear the letters and cover the word–see if students can build the word again from memory!

Here are 6 more Simple + Fun Phonics Activities to Make Your Students Excited to Read!

This fun reading game gets kiddos excited about spelling words.

7. Word Race (no-prep)

This reading activity is similar to an anagram scramble. Make it a competition, and students will be so engaged! (This game is similar to my CVC boggle games, which are super fun!)

Write 10 or so letters at the top of a page (or on the board).
- Make sure there are a couple of vowels in there.
Have students come up with as many different words as they can just using those letters.
Whoever comes up with the most words wins!

If you need reading teacher ideas, this rhyme war is so easy, fun, and effective!

8. Rhyme War (no-prep)

I know I’ve shared this in my Phonemic Awareness Strategies post, but it is such a fun one I needed to include it here. It’s a great way to get students listening to and analyzing the sounds they hear in words.

Have one person say the starting word.
The next person says a word that rhymes with that word.
Take turns going back and forth until someone can’t think of a new rhyme.
The last person to think of a rhyme wins!

Teaching reading activities can be super simple, but still be super effective.

9. Word Sorts (no-prep)

Word sorts are great for getting students to analyze and compare words. This higher level thinking helps the words stick in their memories.

Write 6-8 words on separate notecards.
You can give students categories, or let them come up with their own.
Let students sort and group words into like patterns, sounds, meanings, etc.

Low-Prep Reading Activities

Now these ideas do require some initial prep, but once the prep is done, they are great to use over and over again! It’s a small investment of your time to put these together, but the reward is so great to have them to pull out for a quick activity.

Teaching reading can be a lot easier when you prep activities like these intervention binders beforehand.

10. Reading Intervention Binders (low prep)

These have been a lifesaver for me! I put together these Print-&-Teach Intervention Binders and they are packed with reading activities that target different skills (plus progress monitoring pages). All I need to do is pull out the binder and we’re ready to get practicing. You can put together your own binders too, or get these that are already made for you to save even more prep!

Buy or make activities that practice the skills you want to target.
Print out the activities.
Put them in a binder.
Pull out the binder whenever you need to practice those skills!

Link: Reading Intervention Binders MEGA Bundle

Fun reading games are great to prep and then pull out again and again.

11. Reading Games (low prep)

Games are super engaging reading activities, plus you can usually use them again and again without kids getting tired of them! Just be sure to laminate the pieces so they hold up. Here are a few games that I’ve used:

Some more reading ideas are to use flashcards for letters, phonics patterns, and sight words.

12. Flashcards (low prep)

You can buy a set of letter, phonics, or sight word flashcards, download these FREE printable phonics flashcards, or make your own set according to your needs.

Just grab a stack of index cards and write the words/letters/phonics patterns you want students to practice.
Quiz students by holding them up and having them read.
You can go one time slow, stopping and talking about the words, and then another time faster.

Well, there you have it! Some of my favorite easy and fun reading activities to pull out spur of the moment when you don’t have time to prep a ton of materials.

These reading activities are all simple, super engaging, and any one of them will help you in teaching struggling readers how to read.

Happy teaching and reading!

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