More and more, teachers are requesting educational resources that go
beyond traditional teachers guides and activity sheets. So while I do still
have those kinds of materials on my website, I’m also offering resources that
delve deeply into the nonfiction reading and writing process from an author’s
point of view.
Some of these resources focus on books I’ve written and describe various
stages of my creative process in detail, while others provide more general
information and highlight books written
by a wide variety of nonfiction authors.
On Mondays this year, I’m going to be sharing some of these resources and
providing ideas for how they might be used in the classroom. Today, I’m going
to focus on the Readers Theater Scripts.
Readers Theater is a reading activity that employs theatrical
techniques without the hassle of props, costumes, or sets. Instead of
memorizing lines, students read directly from scripts, using intonation, facial
expressions, and gestures to create characters that transport the audience into
the story.
This fun, whole-class
activity has many benefits. For starters, it builds fluency, vocabulary, and
comprehension, and studies show
gains carry over to new and unpracticed texts. In addition, Readers Theater promotes
cooperative interaction among students, improves listening and speaking skills, and helps even the shyest students
develop self-confidence when reading aloud.
Children get excited about
Readers Theater because they’re natural performers and love using their
imaginations. This activity allows emergent, struggling, and more advanced
readers to participate in the same performance with equal success. Perhaps most
importantly, it gives
repetitive reading a purpose because students want to do well during the
performance.
Using Readers Theater to
introduce and reinforce life science concepts can be especially powerful. Here’s
why:
—Students are more likely to retain ideas and information when they’re
incorporated into a fun activity.
—Students feel a connection to the creatures
they portray and may learn to see the world from the animals’ point of view.
—Students gain a deeper understanding of animal
behaviors and lifestyles.
—Students discover how living things interact.
—Students become more aware of the roles plants
and animals play in their environment.
While many Readers Theater scripts include just ten or twelve parts, the ones I’ve created have twice as many
roles, so no child is left out. The parts vary in complexity to accommodate
students at a variety of reading levels, and the scripts include a variety of
choruses to keep everyone involved and engaged throughout the reading.
Recently, Minnesota
teacher Pam Patron Warren suggested another great use for the scripts on my
website. She uses them as paired passages with the book they accompany. This
approach allows students to see examples of the same information being
presented in two different ways.
For example, the books Feathers:
Not Just for Flying and Under the Snow have a lyrical voice, while
the readers theater scripts are more lively and humorous. Students can compare
the two texts and discuss why I wrote them differently.
Because the animals become
characters that speak in the scripts, students can also discuss how the shift in
point of view turns the writing into informational fiction, while the books themselves
are expository nonfiction.
Pam says these paired-passage
lessons are “fun and accessible to all the kids in my class.” I encourage you
to give this teaching strategy a try.
For more information about Readers
Theater, including tips for writing scripts based on books you love, check out this article.