Here’s a competitive reading activity I came up with on the fly the other day. You could consider it one of those “sneaky” re-reading strategies, almost like an annotation task, but more fun. It’s no frills, has an element of chance (like Lucky Reading Game), and adds a novel twist to reading any text. Here are the instructions I project:

1. In your notebook, write down as many X as you can, in English.
2. When the time is up, we’ll review, and you get a point for each detail the teacher calls out.
3. Most points wins!

What’s “X?”
Anything you want. We just read about Sagittarius from sīgna zōdiaca Vol. II, so X was “facts about Sagittarius.” Students feverishly read through pages to scoop up details.

What Details Get Points?
Anything you want. In the zodiac example, I set a timer for 5 minutes, then started reading back from the beginning, making up points as I went (e.g., “If you wrote down something about Sagittarius being the 9th sign, give yourself a point). Just like The Monitor Assessment, I also gave points for details as a way to check comprehension.

What Do Students Win?
My go-to reward is “glory and honor,” which honestly is enough for students. Besides, they get a laugh out of the fanfare knowing I won’t try to bribe them into playing games with anything other than winning as the purpose.