Work Tasks for Beginning Readers

Have students who are just building their reading skills? I’ve gathered some of my very favorite work tasks for students just learning letter sounds to students who are reading and comprehending at the sentence level. Check out these quick and easy tasks for beginning readers.

I like to think of my beginning readers in my classroom in about 3 stages. I have my students who are working on letter sounds and phonemic awareness, students working on word reading, and then I have students working on sentence reading. I broke this blog post down into those 3 stages and I’m going to share a couple tasks you can do with your students while they’re working on that stage!

Now, I’m a big fan of seasonal work tasks and use them a lot in my classroom, but what I’m sharing with you today are some work tasks you can use any time in your classroom. Want to mix up the stimulus, you totally could do that to make it season, but I’m just sharing some basic ideas. I’d love to hear about how you’re personalizing and making these tasks seasonal, drop me a comment and let me know!

I’m rounding up some of my favorite tasks for beginning sounds. These are just a few of my favorites for beginning readers! There are tons of great task ideas out there, but it’s no secret that I’m a fan of simple laminate and go tasks and these are two of my favorites, plus who doesn’t love a hands on fine motor activity?

I love this “Match a Sound” mat. It has a variety of letter sounds that my students are able to look at and find the initial sound for each picture. I use this for my students that have mastered quite a few initial sounds.

But what about the students who haven’t yet mastered that many sounds? I love these clip cards from Mrs. P’s Specialties because who doesn’t love sneaking in a little fine motor practice with their academic skills?

I also use these initial sound sorting mats so I can target just the sounds my students have mastered. If they’ve mastered A, G, and Z I can throw those mats and their matching pieces in the work boxes and they’ll be able to work on just the sounds they’ve mastered.

If you have students reading sight words or CVC words, these are some great tasks you’re going to love in your classroom!

I currently have students working to read color words in my classroom, so I typed them up really quick and threw them in a container I got from the Dollar Spot. I found some quick manipulatives that matched the colors and away we go with our sorting task! Students read the color word and sort the pieces to match the word. Have students working on number words? Add them to the bottom and have them sort out number magnets. Reading animal names? Sort toy animals. There are so many ways you can use this task!

Another favorite for my beginning readers is this sneaky fine motor task where students place clothespins with pictures (I found them in the wooden pieces section at Michaels, but you could easily cut out pictures, laminate, and glue them onto clothespins too!) onto word strips that match the pictures. These clips are Back to School Themed and an August favorite in our classroom.

We also love a simple word reading task in our classroom. These CVC mats are a classroom favorite that we use over and over again. I give students 5-10 picture in their work boxes and the accompanying words. Students read the words and match them to their pictures.

This may be my favorite part. When I have students who have started reading sentences, we’re ready to start working on some beginning comprehension skills. Check out these tasks for students who are reading sentences!

This is a great task for your beginning readers! I throw 3-5 mats in a work box along with their corresponding sentences. Students read the sentence and match them to the pictures. I love that these task cards combine CVC words and sight words and work on some beginning comprehension skills with my students.

Here’s another fun task we enjoy in my classroom. Students look at the picture and unscramble the words to make a sentence. I usually put just one scrambled sentence in my task boxes because I don’t want students to confuse the words between tasks. You could also color code the sentences (print or write each sentence on a different color paper) so students know which ones belong together.