mae5243’s blog

Reader’s Theater

By
Mark Ensley

What is Reader’s Theater?

 Reader’s Theater involves children in oral reading reading parts in scripts. Unlike traditional theatre, the emphasis is mainly on oral expression of the part.
 Students read from a script and using only their voices, facial expressions, and bodies, they interpret the emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and motives of the characters.
 Look for stories that are simple and lively, with lots of dialog or action, and with not too many scenes or characters.

What is its Purpose?

 It is used to add fun, excitement, and meaning to classroom oral reading activities.
 Used to impart information, or teach facts, ideas, and concepts.
 It provides repeated reading practice—an important factor in building fluency. Repeated reading practice also improves students’ confidence in, and enthusiasm for reading.
 Ideal for ELL’s because it provides them with an opportunity to practice reading in English. Reader’s Theater promotes self- confidence in the ELL.

When is it Most Useful?

 Reader’s Theater is most beneficial to the student after a story, idea or concept has been covered.
 Reader’s Theater is a valuable tool for any classroom. The element of drama enables students to realize that reading is an activity that permits experimentation — they can try reading words in different ways to produce different meanings. Using volume, pitch, stress, and intonation.

How do you Use it in the Classroom?

 Steps:
1. Assemble students into groups and provide them with scripts. Or you can have them make up their own scripts.

2. Ask students to read through scripts silently. Assigning parts and highlighting respective parts with highlighters. Students are not required to memorize their lines- only to read with feeling.

3. In groups, each member is assigned a part by group leader. Group adds suggestions for improvement to group
members not teacher. This is group led with teacher supervision.

4. Instruct groups to read out loud to class with different parts assigned to different group members.

Now its Your Turn!
Objectives:
 Split up into groups
 Read over dialogs provided
 Mr. Ensley will call on some groups to read their dialogs to the class
 Please make it enjoyable for the class.

Applying it to Your Content Area

 Social Studies: Read excerpt(s) from “Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry”
 English: Read excerpt(s) from “The Hobbit” or “The Giver”
 Foreign Language: Read dialog between two native speakers
 Physical Education: Can be used as a review for upcoming muscle and stretching test

Applying it to Your Content Area:

 Music: Students can come up with a dialog between Strauss and Liszt about the use of the piano in concertos
 Art: Students develop a dialog between Pablo Picasso and Normal Rockwell on the use of shadow
 Science: After watching an informational film about ants, the students develop an interview between an expert on ants and a student
 Math: Students develop dialog between Alfred Lloyd Wright and Daniel Burnham using their Geometry books (architecture)

Sources:

 http://bms.westport.k12.ct.us/mccormick/rt/whatrt.htm
 http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE09_Spanish.html;
 http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=172
 http://literacyconnections.com/ReadersTheater.php
 http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=carrick/index.html
 All images were brought to you by Google Images

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