Emily Rhoney
Readers Theatre is a great strategy teachers use to help students develop better fluency skills, feel more connected to the text, and increase their comprehension skills. A teacher will select a text that has several parts (ex: Three Little Pigs) and read the story to the students several times. Then, the students will be assigned a specific portion of the text to practice reading. After the students spend time practicing reading through the text the students will read the story in front of the class and may even act out a few parts in the text.
I really liked using this strategy with my first graders. We used Reader’s Theatre with the story: Three Billy Goats Gruff. All of my students enjoyed acting out their roles in front of their classmates. It was amazing to see how all my students, with a variety of reading abilities, took to this activity. I was very proud of their accomplishments. Using Reader's Theatre with my students really helped my students develop better fluency and comprehension skills. I plan on using this strategy again in my classroom. My students want to do Reader's Theatre with every story we read now.
Comments (2)
Emily- I have Reader's theatre as a strategy too. I have not used it very much in the classroom with my Kindergarten students. I learned from your post and my research that it is a great way to build fluency and the students really get into it because they can be "in front" of the class. I was pondering about the stories to use, but after looking at your strategy, it would be easy to use a scaled down shorter version of a familiar read like the one you chose. I bet it would work well with rehearsed books, like Brown Bear and the very hungry caterpillar. These students are ones I use in shared reading so even my struggling students can feel successful.
Posted by cheryl serrill | March 13, 2010 9:07 AM
Posted on March 13, 2010 09:07
I love Reader's Theater too! It's a great way to get students into the story, especially those who don't "like" to read. They don't really realize they are reading and working on their fluency skills. I have all the props for The Three Little Pigs, if you want to do another story with your children. I too used Reader's Theater as one of my instructional strategies that WORKS!!!
Posted by Meredith Bromley | March 13, 2010 9:40 PM
Posted on March 13, 2010 21:40