Banana Game
Get a roll of raffle tickets that have the same number on both ends of each ticket. Find a paperback book that is the learners’ interest level and no harder than one year above their instructional level. Read to the players, substituting “Banana” for key words (about 4 per page). Whoever are the first learners to call out the correct word, they get one ticket each. A player rips ticket in half, putting half in a zipper-lock plastic bag, and the other half in a bowl for a drawing at the end of the book. Do this for the entire book, substituting “Banana” for the key words and handing out tickets. At the conclusion of the book, put several incredibly-valuable prizes out (plastic aliens from Oriental Trading, for example). Players set out their tickets from their zipper lock bags in front of them so that the numbers are right side up. Draw tickets out of the bowl, giving the first ticket winner first choice of the prizes, second ticket winner second choice, and so on. We have a final drawing to see who gets to keep the book!
Banana 75
This is played like Banana, except for three differences: (a) it is timed; (b) spaces for each letter of the banana-ed words are placed on a paper or projected on the wall, and (c) letters are filled in left to right with every wrong guess. Points are awarded for each space not filled in. Timer is stopped when the points reach 75. The Grade 2 record is 5 minutes, 31 seconds, Grade 3 record is 4 minutes, 25 seconds, and the Grade 4 record is 3:30. Can you top that?
Storyscope
Storyscope is another great context game. Any number of students can play. The teacher reads at least three pages of a grade-level story to the students, then asks the students to guess five words they think will occur the most often on the coming pages. The guesses are written on paper or on the board. The guesses words must not be basic sight words (word wall words) like “said” or “and”, but rather words that are inferred from the “flow of meaning” to this point (main character names, significant objects, possibly a word having to do with setting).
After the words are written down for all to see, the teacher reads the next page of the story, and the students listen for “their” words to be read. If a student hears one, (s)he just repeats the word aloud. A mark is made next to that word.
Five new words may be added to the list at the end of each of the next five pages, until there are as many as 25 words to keep track of. If the teacher reads any of these twenty-five words, a student can call out the word and have it marked down.
A good score on Storyscope is to accurately predict at least 80% (20 of 25) of the list words. The Grade 1 record is 90%, the record for Grades 2 and 3 is 86%, and the Grade 4+ record is 96%. Can you top that?