Reader’s Theater Reading Strategies: Day 1, Multiple Reading Opportunities

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:

• Reader’s Theater: Punctuation Can Be Engaging!
• Reader’s Theater Scripts

Editor, Benchmark Education Company
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