Not only does reading provide students with access to information and hours of pleasure, but it also leads to greater language proficiency. 

As English language learners develop their reading comprehension skills, they usually make strides in other areas, such as grammar accuracy and vocabulary building. 

Previously, we explored ways to enhance students' reading comprehension through pre-reading activities. In this post, our focus will be on post-reading activities, which are activities that are done after students finish reading a text. 

Here are nine post-reading activities that will engage your students and help them have a deeper understanding of what they've read.

1. Write a Summary

If students can summarize a piece of writing, you can be sure they've gotten the gist of what they've just read. Refer to our lesson on How to Write a Summary if they need a refresher on giving a condensed overview of a text.

2. Create a Quiz 

Give students the chance to step into the teacher's role. Have students come up with comprehension questions—short-answer or true/false—to test their classmate's understanding of the text.

3. Play a Game

Put students into groups of three or four. Have them put away the text. Give them five minutes to think of as many facts as they can about the reading. The team that comes up with the most facts wins.

4. Do Further Research

Ask students to do online research on the topic and report findings back to class.

5. Retell the Information 

Have students sit in a circle. As they go around the circle, each student adds a sentence about the text, preferably in the order the information appeared in the reading.

6. Make an Outline

As students make an outline of the reading, the main ideas and details will become clear. If students need help writing an outline, try our lesson on How to Write an Outline.

7. Write Questions 

Have students write 3–5 questions they have about the topic that the reading didn't answer. 

8. Write a Story

Encourage students to choose 8–10 new or interesting words. Challenge them to write a short story using those words.

9. Identify Target Structures

Tie in the reading with a grammar lesson. Have students go back through the lesson and identify target structures (e.g., present perfect, modal verbs, articles, etc.).