Reading Activities to Teach Los Deportes in Spanish Class

Do you teach a unit on sports in your Spanish classroom? One of my favorite activities during a unit is a gallery walk! It’s great to get students moving and getting lots of input with short reading selections. I can’t wait to share some of my favorite reading activities to teach los deportes in Spanish class!

I’ve found that the more movement and variety I add to a reading activity, the more students actually want to participate. It’s like a little trick I keep up my sleeve. They think they’re just walking around or chatting with classmates, but they’re soaking up vocabulary, picking up on sentence structures, and making real connections with the content. It’s one of those moments where language learning feels natural and fun instead of forced.

Readings for Comprehensible Input

One of my favorite strategies to help students develop their confidence in reading is gallery walks. Students get a lot of opportunities to interact with both the grammar and vocabulary from the unit. They become more confident as they read several paragraphs and are successful at understanding the meaning in the short selections!

I love using gallery walks because students can focus on a small reading at a time, instead of seeing all of the text at once. This helps them not to be overwhelmed when they realize they’re actually reading a lot in their second language!

Students also like that a gallery walk allows for them to get up and out of their seats – or sometimes, even outside of the classroom!

Find Someone Who..

I started posting the readings around the classroom with a scavenger hunt activity. I love that this requires them to read for a specific piece of information in the paragraphs, not just wander around and look at them! This helps my students stay on task and use time well.

This scavenger hunt also has students work with comparisons and opinions found in the readings. The characters express their opinions about the sports, and students respond to the statements based on what they comprehend.

Writing Activity for Los Deportes in Spanish

As students finish up the gallery walk, it’s nice to have an extension activity. In this activity, students read about the sports equipment each person has, then writes a sentence to describe which sport that person plays.

Then, students work more with sports vocabulary, equipment, and locations as they complete the table with the missing information. They can always return to the readings for more support if they need it!

Reading Comprehension for Google Slides and Boom Cards

Another option for these readings is to use the reading comprehension questions! Each short reading has three comprehension questions so students can read and check for understanding. These are available as both Google Slides and Boom Cards, in case you prefer one over the other! Click here to check out the Boom Cards reading comprehension set!

Reading Activities to Teach Los Deportes

Click here to check out these reading activities to teach los deportes in Spanish class! The best thing about these passages is that they can be used in both printable and digital formats, which makes them great sub plans, and easy to post in your Google Classroom or secured LMS for any absent students.

These short readings are a great way for your students to get lots of input! It includes 12 short readings about different characters written in comprehensible language. Each reading includes vocabulary supports at the bottom of the page to help your students be successful.

In this reading activities bundle, you will have access to over 225 short passages. Click the image below to check it out in my shop.

You can also find these reading comprehension activities in Boom Cards format! Boom Cards are great for distance learning and can also be used for stations. Check them out here.

---

Make It a Team Effort

One way I love to level up these readings is by turning them into a partner or small group challenge. After students have read a few of the gallery walk selections, I’ll have them team up and compare answers to a few comprehension questions or create their own mini sports profiles based on the reading.

They might pick a character from the reading and fill in more details. What does this person do on the weekend? Which sport do they not like and why? I’ve even had students create simple Instagram bios or short voice recordings based on what they read. It’s creative, fun, and keeps the vocabulary moving.

Working together helps them practice in a low-pressure way, especially with topics like likes, dislikes, and comparisons. It’s also a sneaky way to keep them reading more without them realizing just how much they’re doing.

Don’t Forget to Mix in Listening

Another way to keep it fresh? Turn the readings into a listening activity. You can read a few of the short passages aloud or record yourself ahead of time and play the audio. Students then match the reading to a picture or answer comprehension questions based only on what they heard.

This keeps them practicing the same input in a different format and works great for reinforcing vocabulary and sentence structure. It’s also ideal if you’re planning for a sub or want a no-prep way to revisit older content.