Reader’s Theater for the Year

Reader’s Theater was a HIT in my classroom last year. We used it at least twice a week.

Oh, my!! I LOVE this puppet theater. Rowdy in Room 300 posted this on her blog and I cannot wait to make it. I love using Reader’s Theater in the classroom. My Reader’s Theater packs have character cards for headbands, but I totally want to put them on craft sticks now and let them act it out in the puppet theater!

Readers Theater- fluency, comprehension, and reading activities in the classroom

These are the headbands that we have always used. Another option: put them on craft sticks!!

Reader’s Theater Process in my Classroom:

Group children in tiered groups so the higher students can help the lower students.
Assign each student a part.
Groups work together to practice their lines 4-5 times.
I then partner 2-3 groups together and assign who presents first, second, and third.
After the groups have performed their plays, I tell them all to trade scripts and they start over.

I always have 5-6 different stories a day for the groups so they aren’t all doing the same thing.

[Keep track of which groups do what scripts so they aren’t doing the same story all the time.]

It’s Showtime

Practice, practice, practice.

Practice makes perfect.

My students learning their scripts.

It’s performance time!

Performing for their teacher!

Groups performing for each other!

I love the enthusiasm of the group watching!

My Reader’s Theater comes with highlighted scripts and headbands.

A big question I get about my Reader’s Theater is if the highlights show through if you print it black and white. When you print black and white, they show up gray. If you are okay with gray, it’s perfectly fine to leave it that way. Your students should still be able to find their lines. However, I like having parent volunteers or even responsible students to help out during free time.