Initially I struggled with the dreaded "washing machine" story, but eventually I came up with a lesson that worked quite well much to my surprise!
I started out by reading the story out loud to my class with funny body movements for the words "washing machine", "dirty clothes", "soccer", "Hurray", "dirty" and "Good job!" As I read, I did a certain movement to denote these specific words. I made it wacky and fun and the kids loved it. After I read it once or twice (depending on the class), I followed it up with questions to check their intial comprehension of the story. Marshmellows might have induced some of their motivation to answer the questions:-)
Next, I had the whole class stand up and read the story out loud and together with the accompanying body motions. I started with the first line and went from there. I would have the students read the lines several times so as to ensure that EVERYONE was reading out loud and hopefully remembering it. Also, they have a ton of fun acting out the words!
Next, I made a comprehension worksheet with true/false questions, multiple choice, and fill-in-the-blank questions. I gave them a few minutes for that. Once they were finished, pairs of students changed papers and graded each other as I went over the answers.
Lastly, after assessing which students were and were not grasping the story (based on the amount of correct answers on their worksheet), my co-teacher and I divided the class. She pulled the weak students aside and went over the story in more detail and maybe with a bit more translation. I gave the stronger students individual sentences of the story script, which they had to put in the correct order. Once they were done with that, I had a speed reading competition of the script. They loved that as well. Competition rarely fails!
