Abstract of

Teaching Tips
Think-Tac-Toe, a Motivating Method of Increasing Comprehension

Kelley Samblis

Many researchers agree that student choice plays a pivotal role in motivating pupils to put more into their assignments and to take responsibility. The Think-Tac-Toe strategy allows students to choose tasks that better align with their learning styles and interests and makes them accountable for revisiting important literacy skills. It is attractive because of its game-like quality. To implement the Think-Tac-Toe strategy, the teacher decides on a specific skill or concept to review, and creates nine tasks that practice that skill or concept. The students are allowed to choose three of the tasks to complete.

This article describes the concept of Think-Tac-Toe, reviews the benefits of using the strategy, and explains how to create Think-Tac-Toe grids using comprehension examples that include story grammar, main idea, sequencing, and summarizing.

Abstract from Samblis, K. (2006, April). Think-Tac-Toe, a Motivating Method of Increasing Comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 691–694. doi: 10.1598/RT.59.7.8