Here are some tips to help you adapt a Reader’s Theater script for your classroom needs:
- To use a script with the whole class, divide the class into several groups and have all groups read the script and then perform it for one another. Allow students who have the same part to work together to determine characterization, voice, and expression. Or use a script with a whole group by allowing several students to choral-read certain parts.
- Assign a part, such as a narrator, to be read by several students together. If you pair a stronger reader with less-capable readers, you provide modeling and support for the less-capable readers. Change the name of a character to fit the gender of the reader.
- Assign a part or parts to the teacher, principal, or other adult helper.
- To add readers, assign groups of readers to read specific parts.
- For scripts with narrators, assign a new narrator or narrators per page or scene.
- Students who don’t have a part can take responsibility for turning the lights on and off, or bringing props onstage. They can also dress up and appear onstage as extras.
- Have students help you find additional speeches or parts, such as introductions and conclusions.
- Add songs so that more students can participate in the performance.
What’s New @ Benchmark Education?
Reader’s Theater Word Plays – Language arts instruction has never been so much fun!
More posts about Reader’s Theater:
Read the 5-part Reader’s Theater Series:
- Reader’s Theater Day 1: Multiple Reading Opportunities
- Reader’s Theater Day 2: Echo-Reading
- Reader’s Theater Day 3: Choral Read and Table Read
- Reader’s Theater Day 4: Repeated Read/Rehearsal
- Reader’s Theater Day 5: Performance
Reader’s theater often creates a buzz of extra excitement for your students. But if they have not learned how to channel their excitement, it can lead to behavior problems. Before using a script, explain your expectations to students, model correct behaviors, and provide opportunities for students to practice correct behaviors in a controlled environment. You can observe and make notes to provide feedback during these times. Provide independent practice time for students to demonstrate correct behaviors.
For a student who has behavior problems, provide guidelines that explain the consequences of not behaving. Monitor the student’s success. Privately acknowledge the student’s accomplishment.
Several scenarios follow; each has its own set of potential behavior problems. In each case, you will want your students to understand what is expected of them and learn the indicated behaviors so that they can become good performers and respectful, cooperative listeners.
When working with a teacher-led group, students:
- meet quietly with the group
- practice listening to others as they read
- wait for their turn to read
- follow along while the script is being read
- follow instructions for what to do outside of the reading group
- ask for help when needed
In a rehearsal group, students:
- act responsibly when the teacher is not present
- know when it’s appropriate to help another student or make suggestions
- ask for help when needed
When not in a reading or rehearsal group, students:
- know the purpose and expectations for the activity, including standards of quality
- follow instructions for what to do when given seatwork or other activities
- know what supplies are needed, where to get them, and how to use them
- complete and turn in activity work
- clean up after an activity
- ask for help when needed
When part of an audience, students:
- demonstrate active listening
- stay silent during a performance
- give appropriate comments regarding the story, characters, and performance, using character names rather than the names of the performers
When performing, students:
- speak and act their parts
- are courteous while others are performing
- speak in a loud, clear voice using expression and fluency
- enunciate for understanding
- prompt others if necessary
- accept both criticism and praise appropriately
Read the 5-part Reader’s Theater Series:
- Reader’s Theater Day 1: Multiple Reading Opportunities
- Reader’s Theater Day 2: Echo-Reading
- Reader’s Theater Day 3: Choral Read and Table Read
- Reader’s Theater Day 4: Repeated Read/Rehearsal
- Reader’s Theater Day 5: Performance
It’s showtime! Everyone’s hard work during the past few days has led up to a performance. Since performers frequently do their best work in front of a live audience, invite students to present the script to their classmates, schoolmates, teachers, parents/guardians, office staff and principal, and other members of the community.
Remember, however, that reader’s theater scripts are NOT to be memorized. Performance is done “book in hand,” as when actors do a staged reading of a play.
Still, it is a live performance. And the same performing-without-a-net energy that makes live theater so vital can turn into an actor’s nightmare.
Here are some tips on how to deal with performance flubs and audience curveballs from storyteller and reader’s theater maven Aaron Shepard, author of Readers On Stage:
- If the audience laughs, stop speaking until they can hear you again.
- If someone talks in the audience, don’t pay attention.
- If someone walks into the room, don’t look.
- If you make a mistake, pretend it was right.
- If you drop something, try to leave it until the audience is looking elsewhere.
- If someone forgets to read, see if you can read the part instead, or make something up, or maybe just skip over it—but don’t whisper to the reader.
- If readers “fall on their rear end,” pretend they didn’t.
Also, check out a live performance of Casey at the Bat:
Read the entire Reader’s Theater Series:
- Reader’s Theater Day 1: Multiple Reading Opportunities
- Reader’s Theater Day 2: Echo-Reading
- Reader’s Theater Day 3: Choral Read and Table Read
- Reader’s Theater Day 4: Repeated Read/Rehearsal
During Reader’s Theater rehearsals, students get down to work, reading and rereading their scripts. Of course, since they are rehearsing for a performance, it is not perceived as tedious — it is fun!
As the students prepare their parts, it is the time for the teacher to be the director and a critical observer!
As the director, do not interrupt students during their rehearsal; rather, take notes and offer your comments afterward, preferably in private conferences with each student. This approach, which you can liken to a dress rehearsal, lets the students feel the flow of a performance without interruption.
This video demonstrates one approach to an in-class Reader’s Theater rehearsal:
Do you have Reader’s Theater video to share?
We’d love to see your dress rehearsals and performances in action! Leave a comment below if you’d like to send your video in to be featured on this blog.
In case you missed it, here are the previous Reader’s Theater posts:
- Reader’s Theater Day 1: Multiple Reading Opportunities
- Reader’s Theater Day 2: Echo-Reading
- Reader’s Theater Day 3: Choral Read and Table Read
A choral-read is a group read-aloud. Students get to practice a range of expressiveness, pausing, pacing, and other aspects of fluency.
A table read is the first time students sit down together to read their individual parts.
Reading pedagogy refers to this initial practice session as the first repeated reading; I prefer the term “table read” as that is what professional theater people call it the first time actors sit down to read their parts.
(And it sounds more fun, too!)
Enjoy this brief clip that demonstrates choral-reading:
Have you been following our Reader’s Theater blog series?
In case you missed it, here are the previous Reader’s Theater posts:
In my last blog, I introduced Day One from a Five-Day Lesson Plan in Reader’s Theater. During this blog, I would like to focus on Day Two. As I mentioned previously, Day Two focuses on echo-reading. During echo-reading the teacher reads the script out loud, again, stopping after each time a character speaks. I call this an exchange: It can be a one-word response to a few-sentence monologue. The students repeat each exchange, hopefully mimicking (echoing) the dramatic expression, etc.
Day Two in a Reader’s Theater lesson can also include opportunity to focus on other parts of the script. Pointing out any stage directions in the script and discussing what they mean with regard to the character’s feelings and emotions builds understanding of how students should sound during readings. Here’s an example:
More Reader’s Theater Resources:
As I have discussed previously, the “secret” to reader’s theater success as a reading strategy is that it gets students reading—and rereading—willingly.
At Benchmark Education Company, we advocate for a five-day lesson plan with Reader’s Theater. Using one Reader’s Theater script during the daily literacy block over the course of a week gives students multiple opportunities to read and reread the same material, with a specific purpose. These multiple reading opportunities can, and should, take different approaches, which helps keep the students engaged and focused, while effectively developing their reading fluency.
For the next few entries, I will discuss five different reading strategies:
- Day One—Model-Read
- Day Two—Echo-Read
- Day Three—Choral-Read
- Day Four—Repeated-Read
- Day Five—Performance/Staged Reading
Day One—Model Read
The teacher reads aloud the complete script, giving life, inflection, dramatic expression, etc., to each character part. Students listen and read along silently. Alternatively, the teacher can display the script on a whiteboard and play an audio recording of the script as performed by professional actors. Note the text highlighting feature on the sample below:
More Reader’s Theater Resources:
After reading this title you might be thinking: “punctuation” and “engaging” in the same sentence?
Think about it: Punctuation, after all, is really just one way that readers and writers control the pace of a text. Periods, commas, semicolons, and especially those specialty punctuation marks ellipsis and em-dash all denote a specific amount of time in which the reader pauses. How these punctuation marks differ (and the pause-time that corresponds to each) is best understood through the rhythms and cadences of natural speech, i.e., dialogue. And what reading format is exclusively dialogue? Reader’s Theater!
Allow me to demonstrate how you can use Reader’s Theater to teach an engaging lesson on punctuation.
As a writer, especially as a writer of dialogue, I like to think of punctuation as my tools, or weapons. One analogy you can use with students is to explain that punctuation is not dissimilar to the various strokes in a tennis player’s arsenal: topspin, slice, lob, and drop shot; each has its own specific use and changes the pace of the point. Punctuation marks likewise have their own specific use and also change the pace of a sentence. (FYI, you can extend the tennis metaphor and explain that when speaking, or exchanging, dialogue characters take turns, as when tennis players hit the ball back and forth.)
Here is a simple way to show/explain the differences in these common punctuation marks:
Period (.) – Tells a reader to stop, that an idea is completed.
Question mark (?) – Tells a reader that a question is being asked and is characterized by the voice going up (reflecting an interrogative tone).
Exclamation point (!) – Tells a reader to use emphasis, to speak loudly and with forcefulness.
Comma (,) – Tells a reader to pause, briefly, before continuing.
Semicolon (;) – Tells a reader to pause a bit longer than for a comma but not as long as for a period.
Em-dash (—) – Tells a reader to make a brief pause (even briefer than a comma), as when adding a thought; also used in lines of dialogue at the end of a clause to show that one character is interrupting another.
Ellipsis (…) – Tells a reader to slow down the pace of dialogue; it may also be used to show that a character is…thinking.
To demonstrate the differences among these punctuation marks, use a Reader’s Theater script (preferably one that has some instances of the lesser-used em-dash and ellipsis) and show HOW these punctuation marks function. Read specific sentences aloud; have the students echo-read (repeat). Once again, because the text is written as dialogue, it will have a natural rhythm and sound; the punctuation marks will make sense for how they control the pacing. To underscore how each of the punctuation marks differ, substitute one punctuation mark for another, such as reading a sentence where an ellipsis is replaced with an em-dash or where a period replaces a semicolon. Or reading the following three sentences, in which the end punctuation changes the meaning of the same three words:
He did it.
He did it?
He did it!
Here is a live example:
Here is a typical scenario when it comes to using Reader’s Theater in the elementary school classroom: It’s Friday afternoon, your students are restless, and you are working with one particular reading group on a strategy they haven’t quite grasped. What to do with your other reading groups? Give them Reader’s Theater scripts and let them have fun while they practice reading, rereading, and building fluency skills.
Win-win, right?
Well, yes; but there are so many more ways to “keep winning” with Reader’s Theater throughout the week. Which is not to say it ISN’T a fine Friday afternoon activity; it’s just that Reader’s Theater is fine for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – and in the mornings, too!
Sample Reader's Theater Script from Benchmark Education.
In this Reader’s Theater blog series, I will be discussing some of the ways Reader’s Theater can be incorporated into your daily curriculum. But first, let’s revisit WHY Reader’s Theater is such a good Friday afternoon activity.
Readers’ Theater:
- Gives students an authentic, and motivating, reason to read – and reread
- Gets groups of students working together, improving listening and cooperation skills
- Helps build fluency, which in turn helps improve comprehension
To sum it up, Reader’s Theater engages students. They like to practice reading the scripts (Hint: Call it rehearsing and they won’t grumble.) and they love to perform the scripts. It gives students the opportunity to release their inner ham. And you’d be surprised how many reluctant readers come out of their shell under the guise of playing a part or taking on the “voice” of a character.
Because Reader’s Theater gets students’ attention and keeps their interest, it is also a perfect vehicle to extend lessons in reading strategies, comprehension skills, vocabulary and word study, writer’s craft, content-area connections, character education, etc.
Foremost, of course, Reader’s Theater is ideal for developing fluency skills. And when I say fluency, I mean reading with expressiveness, pace, phrasing, intonation, and inflection (lumped together they comprise what is called prosody). Although reading quickly (rate) and accurately are important components of fluency as they help students develop automaticity, just because students can properly decode text doesn’t necessarily mean they understand what they are reading.
Reading with prosody, however, requires that students understand what they are reading. Which brings us back to the foundational skill of comprehension, which is why we read in the first place.
Please join us next week for some ideas on how to teach an engaging lesson on punctuation. (What was that? Did he just say that with Reader’s Theater you can make learning punctuation fun? This I gotta see.)
Stay tuned!
Get more information on Reader’s Theater Scripts.
