Gods and Gifts Activity Book: 50+ Activities and Games for Decoding, Reading Comprehension, Writing, and Speech (HOT ROD Decodable Books)

The Gods and Gifts Activity Book is based on Gods and Gifts: Three Greek Myths Retold from the HOT ROD Series of Decodable Books. The chapter book is needed for most of the activities. Downloadable PDFs and online Boom Card games explore over 50+ activities supporting decoding practice, reading comprehension, writing, and speech-language development. Learn how the activities described below fit into the 24 categories of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. See the introduction to each section to discover how activities connect to the Science of Reading. Speech-Language Pathologist will find 16 different ways to work on the R and S sounds and discover methods for supporting literacy while addressing both language and articulation simultaneously. Parents can support reading skills at home through games and reading practice. Use this resource in person or via tele-education. Developed for teachers, dyslexia interventionists, speech-language pathologists, and parent educators, it promotes collaboration between these groups.

*DECODING – Work on reading short vowel words and closed syllables at the word and sentence level. Includes initial and final consonant blends
*ARTICULATION: Explore /s/ and /r/ sounds, initial blends for both, and final blends including /s/.
*PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS: Work on sound and syllable deletion. Develop awareness of rhyme, alliteration, rhythm, and stress.
*COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY: Sort words by phonological and semantic features.
*MORPHOLOGY: Explore Prefix PRO, Suffixes -S, -NESS, -LESS, -FUL, -EN.
*STRUCTURED WORD INQUIRY: Use a Matrix to build Word Sums for the base elements REST, HELP, SPECT
*ETYMOLOGY: Use etymology and character names (Prometheus, Epimetheus, Pandora) to generate words for PRO, EPI, and PAN.
*VOCABULARY: Explore words before, during, and after reading. Build strategies for using context to derive word meaning. Create vocabulary foldables. Play games with definitions and multiple-meaning words.
*SENTENCE AWARENESS & CONSTRUCTION: Combine short sentences using coordinating conjunctions. Answer WH- questions to build sentences. Determine if sentences are complete or incomplete. Decide if a subject or predicate is missing. Determine if multiple-meaning words function within a sentence as nouns, verbs, or adjectives.
*PLOT STRUCTURE: Use the storyboard for story retells and summaries.
*GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS: Support writing at all levels. Create compare/contrast essays.
*COMPREHENSION: Use the PAGES Strategy. Use signal words to determine text type. Practice answering questions using the RACE format.
*CREATE: Brainstorm funny titles for Zeus' hobby books. Create a list poem to go inside Pandora’s Lunch Box

Carolee Dean, MS, CCC-SLP, CALT, is a board-certified speech-language pathologist and a dyslexia interventionist with 20 years of experience working in public schools. She is a former president of the Southwest Branch of the International Dyslexia Association and a frequent speaker at educational conferences. Dean serves as an adjunct instructor in the Master’s in Literacy and Special Education program at Providence College and is the author of Story Frames for Teaching Literacy: Enhancing Student Learning Through the Power of Storytelling (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2021). She is also the author of award-winning young adult fiction.