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What is Reader's Theater? It is literature interpretation and performance without the teacher headaches that go with putting on a class play! While class plays certainly have a place in education, they aren't something teachers want to do more than once or twice a year. Reader's Theater, on the other hand, takes much less preparation and is a GREAT way to improve student reading fluency. There are several approaches to putting on a reader's theater, but most include these traits:
Scripts can be found in several published books or on the internet (see sources below), or can be created by the teacher or students from literature. Books that are best adapted to reader's theater include those with plenty of dialogue and opportunity for expressive reading. Some good authors to use include James Marshall and Tomie dePaola.
A wonderful article on how to set up reader's theater in your classroom is "I never thought I could be a star": A Readers Theatre ticket to fluency by Martinez, Roser and Strecker in the January '99 issue of The Reading Teacher. In it they describe how to get the most fluency and expressive reading benefits for your students. The authors suggest preparing several scripts beforehand and then letting your students choose the script they'd like to perform. Allow 2 to 3 days for each group to practice all the parts, rotating scripts so that each student has a chance to be each character.
You will notice your students becoming more fluent as they reread over the course of the week. The class will most likely need direct instruction from you on how to increase their expressiveness and how to interpret text formats such as italics and parentheses. Emphasize to students that they will make this story interesting through their voices only -- for instance, if they want to show excitement, they can't jump up and down, they'll need to express it through their tone of voice. Toward the end of the week, students should choose their parts and begin to practice reading it to the best of their ability. Each group then gets a chance to perform for the class.
My class was always both excited and nervous about performing reader's theater, and I was always amazed at the improvement in their reading by the end of the week. We did reader's theater several times throughout the year, though my students would have been happier if we'd done it even more often! The performances are good to share with other classes and parents always love to see and hear their own children perform.
For more information try these links:
Whootie Owl's Free Play Scripts