Literacy: Read and Lead
Supplementary Activities

Story Strudel
Time: 20 minutes
Materials: Clock, Paper and Pens/Pencils
Directions: This activity is used as a brainstorming technique for creative writing; however, we will use it as a fun introduction to the importance of literacy. When you meet with your youth provide each of them with paper and a writing implement and ask them to sit in a circle. Instruct them to write the following lead-in sentence at the top of their page: “One day, I was on my way to a service project when . . .” Once everyone has this sentence down on their page, explain that they will get 30 seconds to continue the story. When 30 seconds is up, they must finish the word they are writing and pass their paper to the left. With the new piece of paper that the person to their right handed to them they are to continue their story without taking the time to read what their neighbor had written. Continue to cycle the papers through until each youth ends up with the story they started. Spend the next 10 minutes having each child read aloud the story they have in front of them.

Facilitator’s Note: As a possible follow-up project or an extension of this project have each of your youth edit their story. Due to the nature of the activity there will be many grammatical errors and misspellings and this would be an excellent opportunity for the youth to learn editing skills. Their goal should be to make the story, no matter how random, read smoothly.

Reading Time
Time: 10-30 minutes (flexible)
Materials: Age appropriate books or reading material for each youth
Directions: This is an easy activity that promotes reading, sharing, and encouraging others to read. When your youth arrive at your meeting space tell them that today is going to be a reading day. What this means is that they will each pick out something to read and find a quiet space to read what they picked-out. Once they have selected their reading material make sure they understand that in a little while the group will gather in a circle again and everyone will share what they read or learned and why they liked it or didn’t like it.

Facilitators Note: Depending on when and where you club meets you might have a very rambunctious group or a very subdued group. As a facilitator you will have to keep an eye out for youth that are not reading (either distracted, distracting, or asleep). Perhaps it would be good to set some ground rules such as “I will not distract my neighbors” or “I will focus on reading.”

Partners in Poetry
Time: 30-40 minutes
Materials: Paper and Pen/Pencil
Directions: When your youth arrive pair them up into poetry teams. If it is a nice day, lead your youth to a suitable place outside. If it is raining, make sure that you have an intriguing object for each team to observe. Once in place, explain to your youth that, along with their partner they are to observe an object (flower, ant, book, stapler, really anything!!!). Without speaking or sharing any thoughts with their partner they should independently write down all the observations and descriptive words they can about their object. After 10 minutes of observation ask the partners to compare notes. Then give each group the remaining 15 minutes to write a poem based on their combined observations. Make sure to remind them that poetry is a free expression of words and does not necessarily need to rhyme or have a strict meter/rhythm. Once the time is up, have the group circle up and read their poems to each other.

Scrambler
Time: 15 minutes
Materials: blackboard, grease board, or flipchart
Directions: Write the following sentence where all your youth can see it:

“uyo smtu eb het neghac oyu swih ot ese ni eth drowl.”

Ask one of your youth to read the sentence out loud and then ask the rest of the group if they understood what he said. Nobody understands it? Good, because it is complete gibberish, just as written text would appear if you were illiterate (well, the letters still carry phonetic values, but it is close). However, this sentence has a whole lot of meaning, it is just a little scrambled. Tell you youth that there is a secret message hidden in this sentence, and if they unscramble the words they will discover what it says. Spend the next few minutes letting the youth work as a group to decipher the message. When they are done it should read as Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quotation:

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
 

Word Search
Time: 15 minutes
Materials: Word Search sheet (included in this packet), pencil
Directions: Instruct the youth that they have ten minutes to find all the hidden words in the word search worksheet. In the last five minutes of the activity, review who was able to find what words. Talk with your kids about how difficult or easy it was to find the words, and how much harder it might be to find the words if they could not identify the words. Click here for Word Search 1 or for a bit more difficulty, choose Word Search 2.
 

Additional Resources:
Amber and the Mountain by Tony Johnston
Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair by Patricia Polacco
Papa’s Stories by Dolores Johnson
Raising Sweetness by Diane Stanley
A Story for Bear by Dennis Haseley