Reader's Theater

To help improve my students' fluency, we performed Reader's Theaters. I had two goals: help increase their words per minute ratio with repeated readings, and help improve their reading with expression. I divided the students by reading levels into 4 groups. Then I looked for scripts that correlated with their reading levels. Instead of reading a Back-and-Forth book nightly, they read their Reader's Theater script. I sent the script home with a CAFE Parent Pipeline about Fluency to help parents understand our goals.

To prepare for their presentation, the students made a hat for their character. We created them out of a sentence strip, a half sheet of white paper, and markers. The students write their character's name on the sentence strip, draw their character on the half sheet, and connect it to the sentence strip. I helped with the stapling of the strip to fit their head. The students loved this! They wore their hats with pride!

While they presented, I filmed their Reader's Theater on my Flip Video camera. At the end of the year, I put their Reader's Theater video on their end-of-the-year DVD. What a great memory!