Stop, Plop, and Roll

Purpose

During a reading assignment (in any subject area), students participate in an interactive game to better comprehend what they are reading.

Materials

• Dice (1 for each student pair) or device with digital dice
• Reading assignment
• Stop, Plop, and Roll game board (projected) (English/Spanish)
• Stop, Plop, and Roll game board – Math (English/Spanish)

Instructions

1. Organize students into thinking partners.
2. Project the Stop, Plop, and Roll game board.
3. One student whisper-reads a short section of text aloud to their partner (paragraph or page) then stops and plops down the text.
4. The other student rolls the die and verbally responds to the correlating question on the Stop, Plop, and Roll game board, focusing only on the paragraph or section that was just read. The reader may add value to the roller’s response as appropriate.
   NOTE: Students do not write their answers at this point; they only respond verbally.
5. Students switch reader/roller roles and repeat steps 2-3 until the reading is completed.
6. Students roll one last time and perform the task focusing on the whole text. Together they think, talk, and write their response.
7. Observe students’ thinking and ask clarifying comprehension questions as needed.

Classroom Management

• Model the strategy using a “fishbowl” where a pair of students demonstrate the strategy while the class circles around and observes.
• Allow students to roll the dice ten times to get it “out of their system,” roll dice on a book to avoid noise, or use virtual dice.
• Consider using the activity as a learning station.

Differentiation

• Promote access to text by providing auditory, summarized, or electronic text in manageable chunks.
• Promote access to text by providing visually supported text, partnering with a supportive peer for read-alouds, and/or allowing text-to-speech support.
• Provide response support by partnering with a supportive peer, allowing the use of sentence stems for each task, and/or allowing speech-to-text or word prediction support.

Think It Up!

• Have students think more deeply about the concept by responding to a Think It Up prompt as an exit ticket or journal entry:
  • Summarize the text with 5-7 of the most important words.
  • Write a one-sentence summary of the text and compare it with a friend.
• Encourage students to use lead4ward’s Thinking Stems (English/Spanish) to frame their responses, if needed.