Teaching Kinesthetic Readers
Reading Lesson Plans for Kinesthetic-Tactile Learners
Lesson plans that allow children to move and touch will appeal to kinesthetic-tactile learning styles.
Children with kinesthetic and tactile learning styles may have trouble learning to read using only traditional instructional techniques. Unlike their auditory-sequential classmates, kinesthetic-tactile children learn best with hands-on and movement activities. The following activities, used along with auditory-sequential and visual-spatial lesson plans, will especially benefit these children
Paper Plate Simon Says:
- Write several sets of letters, or, for more advanced students, digraphs (ch, sh, th, ph and wh) on paper plates.
- Play a game of Simon Says that incorporates the sounds.
- Examples:
- Beginner: "Simon Says, hop on one foot to the letter 'K'" or "Simon Says, walk like a robot to letter 'P'."
- Intermediate: "Simon says walk backwards to the first sound in 'yoyo'" or "Simon says, skip to the final sound in 'dog.'"
- Advanced: "Simon says, waddle like a duck to the beginning sound in 'shuttle'" or "Swim to the beginning sound in 'phone'... Woops! Simon didn't say!"
Team Alphabet Olympics:
- Break students into small groups (four is ideal).
- Have one student in each group lead the rest of the group members by asking them to make various letters. For instance the s/he might say, "make a letter that begins the word 'puppy.'"
- Then, lying on the floor, the other students would make the letter together with their bodies.
Guess the Letter, Say the Sound:
- Break students into pairs.
- Have one student in each students walk, shuffle, skip, or hop the shape of a given letter.
- The other student should guess the letter that is being made.
- Once the correct guess has been made, both students should work together to find examples of words that begin or end with the letter sound.
- A similar, quieter game might have the students drawing the letters with their fingers on a desktop or wall
- If weather permits students might also play this game on a sandy playground or even a snowy area outside.
Letter Charades:
- One student mimes two different concrete nouns (provided by the teacher) that begin with the same letter or digraph. The first letter of the first word and the last letter of the second word should be the same.
- Classmates make guesses about the charade and, decide which sound the two words have in common.
Tactile Letters and Words:
- Have students practice creating word families (-an, -op, -at, -as, -oy, etc.) using cold cooked spaghetti noodles (use plenty of oil so that they don't stick together).
- Other tactile tools for "writing:" clay, bread dough, finger paints, pretzel sticks, or toy cars in a pan of sand.
Alphabet Soup
- Show William Wegman's Alphabet Soup video
- Have students work in small groups to create their own alphabet soup of their own by cutting and pasting various food items onto a large picture of a pot drawn on butcher paper or poster board. The teacher or classroom volunteer might draw the pots ahead of time, or the students could use a large stencil for additional motor skill development.
- Hint: Use clip art from free online sources such as The Discovery School’s ClipArtGallery, Google Clip Art Images , or food themed clip art from Classroom Clipart.
- Be sure to have students share their "recipes" with the class!
Utilizing kinesthetic and tactile learning strategies will make reading more accessible to students who might struggle if limited only to traditional auditory-sequential lessons.
The copyright of the article Teaching Kinesthetic Readers in Lesson Plans & Materials is owned by Susan Hyde. Permission to republish Teaching Kinesthetic Readers must be granted by the author in writing.
