88 Reader’s Theatre
Sarah Spindler
Strategy Overview
- “With reader’s theater students work together to present an oral reading of a script, typically adapted from literature, plays, or other written texts. Reader’s theater is an engaging activity used to promote reading fluency, especially oral expression” (Reading Rockets).
- This is important because rehearsal and repeated reading aid readers who struggle with fluency (Mraz et al., 2013).
- This can be used after reading a story; many readers theatre scripts are adapted from popular children’s books.
Strategy in Action
- A detailed description of this strategy is available at ReadWriteThink.
Related Resources
- This site has a great set of instructions for implementing Reader’s Theatre: readingrockets.org/readers-theater
- Here is a website with dozens of free readers’ theatre scripts: Reader’s theatre scripts
- Here is a free script of the three Billy Goats Gruff. This PDF also includes masks that your actors can cut out and use as their costume.
- Here is a link to an RT version of The 4 Little Pigs. Masks are included here as well. The 4 Little Pigs
References
Mraz, M., Nichols, W., Caldwell, S., Beisley, R., Sargent, S., & Rupley, W. (2013). Improving oral reading fluency through readers theatre. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 52(2). https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol52/iss2/5
