I decided to work
with a reader’s theatre script because it looked like so much fun. My teacher recommended that I work with just
one reading group so that each person could have a distinct part, and we
decided together that the low reading group would benefit most from this extra
practice with reading out loud to improve fluency. My teacher provided me with a short book the
group had recently finished: ‘Balto: The Bravest Dog Ever,’ which I translated
into a script. Some of the lines were
copied word for word out of the book, while others were shortened or cut out
completely to make it a manageable length.
Still, I made sure that the gist of the storyline was still included in
the script. I gave out parts according
to gender, and then children with few character lines were also given narrating
parts. I chose to give the lead role of
Gunnar to a child who I have particularly seen struggling with reading, Ryan,
hoping that he would rise to the occasion and practice his lines until they
were fluent.
I
introduced the reader’s theatre on February 13th. The previous week was the hundredth day of
school, and I had also led a reader’s theatre that day so I knew that the
children had experience with the concept and I had some strategies in mind
about how to present the script. I
reminded the six children that they were my actors, and that an actor’s job is
to show the audience how his character feels.
Since they were going to be standing in one place and didn’t have a set
or costumes, I told the children that they would have to show all these
emotions just with their voices. This, I
explained, was called reading with fluency.
They already knew this, and were able to give me examples of reading a
line with and without fluency. I gave
each child a highlighter, and they went through to highlight their lines. Next, I asked them to read over their lines
to make sure they knew all the words and to put clouds around cloudy
words. I asked early finishers to look
through everyone else’s lines for new cloudy words, too. I let the children direct a review of any
words their peers had “clouded” since I knew they had seen all of the words
before when they read the book. Once
everyone was comfortable with the vocabulary, I called for quiet on the set and
we ran through the script. Some
children, particularly Collin and Abby, were more expressive with their lines
and engaged in the activity from the get-go.
Others, including (to my disappointment) Ryan, had trouble paying
attention enough to follow everyone else’s lines. Thus Ryan and occasionally
other children were constantly being reminded by the other children that it was
their turn. Throughout the script, and especially
once we finished, I reminded the children to follow along with all the lines,
not only their own, because good actors are always prepared for their next line
to come up and do not have to be reminded that it is their turn. I tried to get the children excited about
having a whole week to practice the script before they performed it again, and
some did seem enthusiastic, promising they would practice every night.
The
next week, I met with the group again.
Unfortunately, three of my six actors had lost their script at some
point in the week, so we had to re-copy and re-highlight lines. Still, I noticed that all six children read
their lines more fluently to some extent.
Ryan still had to be reminded several times to follow along, but when
his lines came up, he usually read them with emotion, however slowly. If he or the other children didn’t use
emotion this time through, I stopped the show and had them try again. Only a few vocabulary words proved problematic
this time through, far less than the first time, and even these the students
either self-corrected or peer-corrected before I had to step in.
I
think that overall the reader’s theatre went well. The children told me they enjoyed it, and
this showed through in most of their reading.
I also saw improvement in word recognition, reading speed, expression
and fluency. I learned the hard way,
though, that it is near impossible to be sure all children are practicing their
learning at home as you ask them to, so I think reader’s theatre might be
better served with daily practice only within the classroom.
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