Popcorn is a really simple reading game that one of the teachers at my last school taught us. The only thing you need is a fairly decent length reading passage. You want each student to get the opportunity to read at least a few sentences.

You, as the teacher, start the game. You read a random amount from you passage. It can be a few words or a few sentences. You can stop at the end of a sentence or in the middle. But when you’re done reading you say “Popcorn… (Name)!” (inserting a random student’s name).

That student then has to pick up reading where you left off. The student reads a random amount and when finished, the student says “Popcorn… (Name)!” and picks another student to read.

You can set the minimum amount a student has to read. I tend to set it based on the personality of the class members. If I have students who are especially anxious about reading out loud, I tend to set the minimum at one sentence. But if you have a class full of kids who love to read, set it higher. If you have students who will happily read the entire passage out lout for you, set a maximum amount they can read. A lot also depends on the level of the class and the length of the passage. If the students aren’t very advanced or you have a relatively short passage, you can set the minimum amount at just a few words.

Once the students get the hang of the game, they’ll try to trip up their classmates.  One fun variation on the game is when students pause in the middle of a word rather than in the middle of a sentence.

The eventual goal is to have the students reading quickly and fluently as well as paying attention.  You want the reading to bounce back and forth around the room, just like a kettle of popping popcorn.  And that’s where the name of the game comes from.