- One effective means for developing reading comprehension in seventh-grade students is to start a book club. Students read the same book and have meetings during language-arts class to discuss what they have been reading. To ensure club meetings are productive, prepare thought-provoking questions. Questions that connect events in the book to real-life scenarios are especially ideal for book club discussions.
- Create a story pyramid. Create a worksheet that comprises a pyramid with eight horizontal lines. Tell students to fill the lines as follows: Write the name of the main character on the first line. Write two words describing the main character on the second line. Write three words describing the setting on the third line. Write four words describing the story's conflicts on the fourth line. Write five words describing an event in the story on the fifth line. Write six words describing a subplot on the sixth line. Write seven words describing a third event on the seventh line. Write eight words describing the story's resolution on the eighth line.
- Set aside a sheet of lined paper and six sheets of unlined paper per student. After finishing a story or a book, direct students to envision a movie about the story. Discuss movie-making elements such as camera angles, scenes, lighting, costumes and setting. Instruct students to distill the story into six important scenes. Have the students sketch the six scenes on separate pieces of unlined paper. Direct them to title each scene. (It may be helpful beforehand to show examples of film storyboards, which movie production staffers make before shooting any movie so they have a shot-by-shot plan before filming.) Have the class use their scene sketches as the basis to summarize the story.
- Have students draw three circles of uniform size side by side on a blank sheet of paper. Have them label above the circles, "beginning," "middle" and "end." Have them write in the circles a description of the beginning, middle and end of a story. Instruct the class to answer the basic questions who, what, when, where, why and how in the descriptions. Explain to them, if they are struggling to remember any information, to read the story to gather necessary details. Have students swap their papers with a partner and compare how they described the story. They can see if they broke the story into the same sections, and discuss why they did or didn't do this.
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