Every year I watch students ace my figurative language quiz and then miss simile and metaphor questions on the very next passage assessment. They knew the definition on Friday. By the following Thursday, in a different context with unfamiliar text, the recognition is gone. That gap between knowing a term and identifying it under pressure is the real instructional problem, and a single lesson does not close it.
RL Standards spiral review for grades 6 through 8
Six bundles, 120 questions, every RL standard covered, no prep required.
Get this resource on TPT →Vocabulary research is consistent on this point: students need between six and fourteen meaningful exposures to a term before it moves reliably into long-term memory. One anchor chart and one quiz is two exposures. For students with language-based learning differences, that gap is even wider, because a single high-stakes format rarely reveals what they actually know. Low-stakes repetition in varied formats is what builds durable recognition, and that is what these games are designed to provide.
I use this pack after direct instruction, never before it. In my classroom it works best as bell ringers in the week before a major assessment, as an early finisher activity during independent reading blocks, or as a sub plan when the lesson for the day is review. The irony family is worth extra attention here. Dramatic irony, situational irony, and verbal irony are three distinct concepts that students routinely collapse into one, and the games give you a natural entry point for that conversation without turning it into another lecture.
