Elementary School Warm Up Exercises for a Reading Class
18 Warm-Up Activities to Engage Students Before They Read Nonfiction Texts
Here is a collection of our favorite "bell ringers," "do nows" and "hooks" to grab students' attention, along with examples from dozens of our daily lessons.
How can you get your students interested in reading informational texts, whether the topic is Syria or sneakers, space exploration or statistics, surfing, superheroes or "the souls of Black girls"? How can you help them make connections between unfamiliar topics and their own lives? How can you scaffold complex ideas to make them accessible for a wide variety of learners?
We've had lots of practice answering these questions. Our editorial staff — all of us former teachers — comes up with a fresh before-reading activity, or "warm-up," for every Lesson of the Day we publish. We now have over 700 of them, all based on Times articles chosen from across sections of the paper, and all free to students around the world.
Here we've combed through the collection, organized the strategies that we use most frequently and provided examples so that you can see how they work. Each is intended to be a brief activity — an appetizer before the main course. You can find them all listed here in this downloadable poster (PDF).
But we also hope to hear from you. Let us know in the comments section or by emailing us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com if you have other warm-up suggestions you think we should try. We'd love to lengthen this list!
1. Make it personal.
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When have you faced a difficult journey or challenge?
What role do video games play in your life?
What do you know about your family history and ancestry?
Do you read or write poetry?
Have you ever believed in magic?
We all work hard to help students make connections between school content and their real lives, and sometimes all it takes is a simple question.
For instance, to introduce an article about Henry David Thoreau and his experience at Walden Pond, we ask students if they liked to spend time alone, and what the benefits and drawbacks of solitude have been for them. For a piece about the science of dog behavior, we ask about their experiences with dogs and their observations about the special bond these animals have with humans. And to ease them into an article about redefining the quinceañera, we invite students to write and think about their own experiences with coming-of-age rituals of all kinds.
Students can explore these personal connections through writing in a journal, using sentence starters, talking with a partner, taking a temperature check, or sketching a concept or identity map.
2. Start with an image …
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We begin many of our Lessons of the Day with short videos — some from the article itself, some from related pieces in The Times and some from a reliable outside source, like National Geographic or the BBC.
Can street dance be a fine art? Before reading about Lil Buck and his belief that Memphis jookin can be no less rigorous than classical ballet, students watch the four-minute video above, "Nobody Knows," that showcases his breathtaking artistry and discipline.
We also use video to engage students emotionally with a news story that might feel distant or complicated. In our lesson plan about China's detention of Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region, for instance, students watch a Times Opinion video featuring the voices and stories of young people whose parents have been imprisoned in the camps.
We often ask students to process what they view through journaling or in discussion with a partner, using prompts drawn from our Film Club feature: What moments in this film stood out for you? Was there anything that challenged what you know — or thought you knew? What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? What connections can you make between this film and your own life or experience?
4. Analyze a graph or map.
Thanks to the excellent graphs and maps The Times produces on subjects as varied as nutrition choices and music fandom, we often use this kind of multimedia to invite students to make observations and ask questions about a topic before they immerse themselves in it.
For example, before reading about how LeBron James is leading a generation of athletes into ownership, students look at the graph of racial disparities between players of color and head coaches of color in sports.
For a warm-up to introduce a Times article on past vaccine drives, including smallpox and polio, students look at maps of Covid-19 vaccination rates across the United States and in their own community.
And before learning about the connection between the decline in Chinese restaurants across America and the economic mobility of the second generation, students analyze a graph that uses data from the restaurant reviewing website Yelp.
5. Draw!
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What does the sun look like?
You have probably drawn a picture of the sun at some point in your life: a simple yellow circle with lines or triangles surrounding it. Do you think it really looks like that?
Based on what you know about the sun — its structure and makeup — what do you think its surface actually looks like? Is it perfectly round? Smooth? Rough? Uniform or varied? Is it the color of the yellow in a box of crayons? Or something more complex?
Take a few minutes and make a sketch of the surface of the sun.
We recognize that most warm-ups take only a few minutes at the start of class, so there usually isn't time to have students create an artistic masterpiece. But, as you can see in the activity above, used at the start of a lesson plan about newly released photos of the sun's surface, sometimes it does make sense to have students make a quick sketch. By inviting students to draw, we're really asking them to think — perhaps about something they've never thought about before.
Drawing can also be a fun way to get students to share their own unique perspectives. Before reading an article on sexist double standards facing women who run for political office, we prompt students to draw what they think an effective president looks like, adding words that describe the appearance, qualities and behaviors of a leader. A warm-up for an article on machine design asks students to sketch what they think of when they hear the word "robot." For an article discussing possible life on Venus, we prompt students to draw what they imagine extraterrestrial life in the universe to look like.
Drawing a "mind map" also counts. In this lesson about a school for basketball careers, we invite students to visually brainstorm every job they can think of that is related to their favorite sport: management of players and teams, training, marketing, merchandising, keeping statistics and more.
The goal isn't to test students' illustration skills, of course, but to allow them to express their creativity and imagination, as well as to see the range of visual ideas in a single classroom.
6. Ask for predictions.
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Take the second question in the list above: Before exploring the math behind any N.F.L. team's playoff chances, we invite students to make their own predictions and then compare them with The Times's computer simulator.
Here's another example: We ask students to make predictions before reading an article about how distracted walkers can affect pedestrian flow: What do you think would happen if several people were walking while looking at their phones in a crowded school hallway or on a busy sidewalk? How might these distracted walkers affect the way the crowd moved, if at all? After students make those predictions, they are more prepared to understand the results of a recent study — and to do our "going further" activities that take those results and use them for real purposes in their own communities.
Making predictions in advance of reading a text can help to give students a purpose for reading, providing a "need to know" as they look for answers to their conjectures. For example, in this lesson, about teenagers and their social ties during the pandemic, we invite students to begin by making a list of all the roles their friends play in their lives. Then, before reading what experts on adolescent development and mental health have to say in the article, they compare their lists and try to predict some of the reasons the experts would give for why pandemic isolation has been particularly hard on teenagers.
7. Take a stand on an issue.
How do you feel about the following claims? With which do you agree, or strongly agree? With which do you disagree, or even strongly disagree? Why?
Participating in sports builds valuable skills for young people.
The risk of long-term brain damage for professional football players is very high.
The risk of long-term brain damage for youth football is very low.
If I were a parent, I would not let my 13-year-old play tackle football.
This is how we introduce students to an article exploring how a small Texas city is struggling over the question of whether to allow 13-year-olds to play tackle football.
Beginning a class with this kind of "Four Corners" debate, which prompts students to show their position on a specific statement (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree) by standing in a particular corner of the room, is a great way to get students out of the seats and to take a stand — literally and figuratively. Another version? The "Human Barometer," which asks students to line up along a continuum based on their position on an issue. We often use one of these two protocols when tackling a nonfiction text exploring a topic with disagreement or controversy surrounding it.
In a warm-up to an article on state cuts to food stamp programs, we ask students to take a stand on the statement: "The government has a responsibility to make sure no Americans go hungry." And to introduce an article on the lucrative opportunities enjoyed by some college "cheerlebrities," we ask students to decide where they stand on the statement: "College cheerleaders should be able to make money through things like endorsement deals, brand partnerships and sponsored social media posts."
The idea is not that there is one correct viewpoint or perspective, but to begin to understand the contours of a public debate and start to unpack the arguments in favor of contending stances.
After reading the featured article, students can return to the Barometer or Four Corners warm-up activities and revisit their stances to see if — and how — they and their classmates have revised their opinions.
8. Invite student-to-student discussion.
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The think-pair-share. The turn-and-talk. Most teachers are familiar with these quick activities that invite students to talk with a partner — as tools to make sure every student in the class is involved. And when students use them to discuss ideas, reactions and experiences during a warm-up, they become active learners right from the start.
We generally ask students to do a little writing and thinking before conversing with a classmate so they're ready to enter the discussion with something to say. For example, to introduce a lesson about the history of Black American Sign Language, we invite students to first quick-write and then turn and talk about how they use language in different settings.
Before reading an article on how to argue more productively, we first invite students to engage in some "joyful disagreements," debating such thorny questions as "Does pineapple belong on pizza?" and "How does the roll of toilet paper go on the holder?"
Sometimes we employ slightly more structured or elaborate discussion strategies, like the "speed dating" exercise in this lesson plan about art appreciation. In a face-to-face setting, students pair up to answer a question or to discuss a topic for three to five minutes and then quickly form new pairings to discuss a different question or topic — and continue that way for several rounds.
9. Make something — or do something.
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Warm-up activities don't always have to focus on reading, writing or discussion. Often we try to make them literally hands-on.
In a lesson plan about the art of origami, for instance, it just makes sense to invite students to experiment with origami before they begin reading. Afterward, we ask them to reflect on the process and describe what was challenging, what was fun and what techniques they used.
Sometimes a warm-up is less hands-on than lips-, teeth-, tongue-, jaw- and throat-on, as in this lesson plan about beatboxers, which invites students to experiment with making different types of sounds and beats with their mouth and voice alone.
And for a lesson on the complexities of language's origins, we ask them to choose one of the 26 letters in the alphabet and imagine they have to explain how to make the sound of that letter to a young child or someone who has never heard or spoken it before. To do so, they first have to experiment with saying the letter in different ways — at different speeds, for example, or by exaggerating the movement of their mouths and lips — while paying close attention to what their bodies are doing as they make the sound.
10. Try a mini-experiment.
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Spinning Water Droplets That Seemingly Defy Physics
Chinese researchers have discovered a new way to make water droplets spin, creating a potential new kind of hydropower.
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I bet you've never seen water do this: twist and turn like a dancer in flight. It happens when a droplet lands on a water-repellent surface with a special pattern. These acrobatic leaps were recorded by Chinese scientists investigating new ways to manipulate water. To understand what they did, let's step back and see what Isaac Newton had to say about bouncing objects. According to Newton, when an object hits a solid surface, some of the energy of the impact is translated into a rebound. Think of a ball hitting concrete. If the ball travels straight down with no spin, it should bounce straight up again. And it's the same with a water droplet on a water-repellent surface. Theoretically, the droplet should bounce straight up — no fancy stuff. But the researchers created a pattern of adhesive material on the surface that water sticks to. The water in contact with the sticky patches recoils more slowly than the water touching the repellent surface, and that makes the droplets spin. Change the pattern of the adhesive, and you change the shape of the dancing droplet. The researchers made swirls and half-moons and dotted circles, each of which caused the water to behave differently, sometimes even bouncing sideways. Scientists also showed how the energy of the droplets could be harvested. They set up a magnetically suspended surface. As the droplet landed on the surface and rebounded, it pushed down the plate and caused it to spin. It's a new kind of hydropower. And at their peak, those droplets are spinning at a whopping 7,300 revolutions per minute. So apart from creating a water droplet ballet, scientists have also found a new way to harvest energy. And their work might help in designing self-cleaning airplane wings. For now, it's enough to have the pleasure of watching the leaps and pirouettes of those dancing drops.
Try out a mini-experiment testing the way water reacts to different types of surfaces. First, gather a few surfaces with varying textures — rough, smooth, grainy, oily, soft, hard or bumpy. You might use a desktop, a sheet of textured paper, an aluminum can or pavement.
Then, using a dropper, Pasteur pipette or straw, drip water on the different surfaces. Record your observations.
This is how we begin our lesson about dancing water droplets that reveals the startling ways water seems to dance. Students then watch the short video above and compare their observations with those of scientists.
For science-related nonfiction texts, you might try a mini-experiment that doesn't require a lot of materials and is quick and easy to do. For example, before reading an article about how scientists use paper as a model to study other crumpling challenges — such as how DNA packs into a cell, or how best to cram a giant solar sail into a small satellite — we ask students to ball up pieces of paper and take notes about patterns they notice.
Some experiments might be too long for a "hook" activity, but a short hands-on activity can be a great, interactive way to get early buy-in from students.
11. Try a thought experiment.
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Imagine a situation where all cars and public transportation suddenly disappeared — and all you had for travel was a bicycle: How would it affect you and your family?
Sometimes prompting students to imagine alternate realities can open their minds to a new way of seeing a problem or issue. For instance, the prompt above begins a lesson plan about the most bike-friendly city in the world, Copenhagen.
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Take five minutes and simply look at the clouds in the sky.
This simple instruction begins our lesson on the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Sometimes the best way to engage students can be the easiest and mostly readily at hand: Look around you, pay close attention to something, watch and observe.
To introduce the complicated topic of the disrupted global supply chain, we ask students to look at the labels on their clothing, sneakers, electronics or anything else they own and find out where they're made. What trends do they notice as they share their data across the class or in small groups?
In a warm-up to an article on a scientific experiment studying the blinking of birds, we ask students to take several minutes to study and observe their own blinking: Does the quality and the quantity of blinking change in different settings or lighting? When sitting versus standing? When looking at something nearby or far in the distance? When is your blinking voluntary and when is it involuntary?
Students can use their simple observations to form questions or a hypothesis, helping both to build engagement and to frame the reading.
13. Activate prior knowledge.
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Students approach any new topic with varying degrees of prior knowledge, so inviting them to consider what they may have already read, heard or watched on that topic can serve multiple purposes.
For starters, it can help classmates share ideas and information at the start of a lesson. It can also help to surface any misinformation that students might have. And it can give students an opportunity to ask questions before they dive into the reading.
Many teachers are familiar with the classic K/W/L chart — a graphic organizer that organizes what students "know," "want to know," and "have learned" in three columns — and we use them often, too, in lesson plans on topics like the Harlem Renaissance, women's suffrage movement and presidential election process.
Sometimes we simply ask students to share in their journals or in pairs: "What do you know — or think you know — about a particular subject?" Our lesson about the ways in which the British spy agency M15 promotes itself on social media asks this to help students brainstorm what they might already know on the broad topic of spies and spying — but also, we hope, to get them excited to learn some surprising things about how espionage agencies operate today.
And sometimes we just want to show students they know more than they think they know. For example, in a lesson about applying to college during a pandemic, we suggest that students brainstorm a list of all the steps, big and small, a high school student traditionally takes as part of the college application process. Then we ask them to go back through that list and put an X through each step that was somehow disrupted by the pandemic. This not only helps them see that they are coming to the Times article with a great deal of background knowledge already, but also helps them anticipate the issues they will be reading about.
14. Respond to a quote.
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Consider the following statement: "History is never neutral."
What do you think that means? Do you agree with its premise? Why or why not? Can you think of any examples that support or contradict this statement?
A particularly provocative or juicy quote or statement can often be an effective way to get students thinking deeply about a subject even before they read an article. The example above introduces our lesson plan about state history textbooks.
Sometimes the most powerful warm-up quote comes right from the article. We begin a lesson about a California homeless camp with the following quote from Markaya Spikes, a woman who was living in the camp at the time:
Homeless people are treated worse than stray animals. When someone finds a stray animal they take it home and feed it. When someone sees a homeless person they call the police.
Where is the compassion?
We ask students, What is your immediate reaction to reading the quotation? What words stand out to you? Does the quotation bring up an emotional response? Do you have any desire to respond to Ms. Spikes? What might you say to her?
Or quotes can come from famous adages, mottos or sayings. For a lesson profiling people who pursued deferred dreams later in their lives, we ask students to consider two sayings: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" and "It's never too late to be what you might have been." Then, they reflect on which they find more accurate and true to life.
15. Take a quiz.
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OK … pop quiz!
1. How many bacteria can fit on the head of a pin?
a) 1,000 b) 1 million c) 1 billion d) 1 trillion
2. How many Earths could you fit inside our sun?
a) 10 b) 100 c) 1,000 d) 1 million
This is how we start a lesson on the popularity of videos demonstrating relative size on YouTube. We don't expect students to know the answers beforehand, but it is a quick way to introduce them to mind-boggling magnitudes in the universe.
Another example: For a lesson about race and biology, we start with a short true-or-false quiz. True or false? "Race is determined solely by biology." In addition to piquing students' curiosity, a quiz like this can surface common misconceptions quickly.
We also use premade quizzes from The Learning Network, The Times or other reliable sources. If a lesson plan features a specific country, like Myanmar or Cuba, we often start with a Country of the Week quiz. And we occasionally send students to a Times science or news quiz, like we did for this lesson about the danger of added sugars in our diets or this lesson on climate change solutions.
These quizzes are always intended as learning "hooks," though, and never as graded assessments. We want them to get students thinking and to evoke their curiosity, not intimidate them.
16. Pro/con, cause/effect, problem/solution: Make a list.
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Whether it's generating pros and cons, causes and effects, arguments for and against, or problems and solutions, brainstorming a list can be an effective warm-up to get students' minds active. They can make a list individually or with a partner, and they can share examples with the class before jumping into the text. Then, as they read the related piece, they will often find their own ideas reflected.
For example, in a lesson about Marvel's first Asian superhero film, Shang-Chi, we ask students to take a few minutes to make a list of common superhero stereotypes they have read in comic books or seen in movies.
Before reading the article, "Here Comes the Bride. And the Bride. And the Bride. Mass Weddings Boom in Lebanon," we invite students to make a list of the pros and cons for a young couple thinking about participating in a wedding ceremony that might include as many as dozens, hundreds or even thousands of couples.
To introduce an article on the discovery that bird populations in the United States and Canada had fallen by 29 percent since 1970, a loss of nearly three billion birds, we ask students to make two lists, one for possible causes of this loss and another for the possible effects. And for a lesson on theater programs in prison, we challenge students to consider the purpose of prison: punishment, rehabilitation and deterrence, making a list of arguments for each.
17. Preview a text.
Sometimes an effective warm-up activity can simply be to give students a taste of the article they're about the read. If the opening lines or top images are engaging enough, then the article can serve as its own preview.
To preview an article on the popular video game Among Us, we ask students to respond to a quote from a teenager:
"A few weeks ago I went from not hearing anything about it to hearing everything about it everywhere," said Judah Rice, 16, a high school student in Texas. "People are texting about it, I know people who are on dedicated Discord servers and Among Us group chats. I have friends who get together all the time and play it."
Then we invite them to pretend they are a Times reporter who has been assigned to write an article for a mostly adult audience about the popularity of this game among teenagers. What are all of the things they would want and need to include? Why?
Previewing can also be done by having students read and react to a provocative first paragraph, like this one from a piece on the spread of misinformation:
There's a decent chance you've had at least one of these rumors, all false, relayed to you as fact recently: that President Biden plans to force Americans to eat less meat; that Virginia is eliminating advanced math in schools to advance racial equality; and that border officials are mass-purchasing copies of Vice President Kamala Harris's book to hand out to refugee children.
Or it can mean inviting students to scroll through the images and text, enough to get them to notice and wonder about the article, and make predictions for what the rest of the article will be about. That's how we start our lesson about the Tulsa Race Riots. It's also what we do with a Twitter account "written" by Katharine the great white shark, who has a lot of teach about shark behavior.
Sometimes it might make sense for the teacher to read the article's opening lines aloud and for students to react. Often it works best when students do this preview activity individually or in pairs.
18. Define key terms.
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Students will often run into unfamiliar words and terms when reading nonfiction texts, perhaps words like decolonize, divestment or gender-nonconforming.
A warm-up activity can introduce students to this key vocabulary in advance, so they can better understand the text they're about to read. One vocabulary-building strategy we sometimes use is a Frayer model, a graphic organizer that guides students to note the definition, characteristics, examples and nonexamples of the term.
For example, we invite students to define the word "decolonize" before reading the article "Decolonizing the Hunt for Dinosaurs and Other Fossils" and "divestment" before reading an article about fossil fuel divestment.
And in a lesson plan about remembering the lives of influential Latinos, we provide students with a list of 10 words from the article they may not know, such as ventriloquism and embargo, and encourage them to use this list of words and their definitions to learn what each means and to practice using the words.
We hope this collection helps to expand your teaching toolbox of warm-ups, bell ringers, "do nows" and hooks when you approach any informational text — from The Times or any other source.
But, we know, of course, that there are many more ways to introduce nonfiction texts. Let us know in the comments section or by emailing us at LNFeedback.com if you have other warm-up suggestions you think we should try. We'd love to expand our list!
Elementary School Warm Up Exercises for a Reading Class
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/learning/lesson-plans/18-warm-up-activities-to-engage-students-before-they-read-nonfiction-text.html
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