Reader’s Theater: A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to a Workshop

Last week, one of the workshops that I led was titled Motivating Struggling and Reluctant Readers. In preparation for this program, I had gathered all kinds of research about motivation and what really makes kids want to read. I had it boiled down to a few basic things:

1. Allow them to choose what they want to read.

2. Respect their choices—comics, graphic novels, gaming manuals, and websites are all valid sources of reading material.

3. Help kids know what’s out there to read: Read aloud, bless books.

4. Build in success—don’t require kids to read things that are too hard. People WANT to do things they feel they CAN do.

In the vein of building in success, one of the things I had planned to promote was reader’s theater. It’s fun and engaging. It makes kids want to reread which helps to build confidence and fluency without raising and eyebrow.

And then a funny thing happened.

Two nights before the presentation, my seven year old son Nathan was reading at bedtime. He had pulled out his old friends Elephant and Piggie. Instead of curling up next to me to read aloud like he normally does, he decided he needed to “perform.” On this particular evening, Are You Ready to Play Outside? (Amazon affiliate link) looked like this:

Through his hand gestures and expressions, Nathan internalized the meaning of the words he was reading. He was able to take a book that he loved and make it dramatic and theatric—all without a script.

As he read, Nathan reminded me that reader’s theater doesn’t have to be a time consuming, over-the-top production. We don’t need to run out and purchase commercially produced materials in order to be able to implement this variety of shared and performance reading. The requirements for reader’s theater are actually quite simple: eager students and books. The rest comes naturally from rereading. .

Whole Class Novel: A Worthwhile Trade?

I am still thinking about the fourth grade class that I recently visited that was struggling with book choice. You might remember that I told you that “I dusted off an old, whole class set of Shiloh tucked on a shelf.” For this lesson, it was convenient that these books were lying around. When the children shared why the book interested them and why it didn’t, each student was able to relate and contribute to the conversation. Looking at the same book unified our discussion. Like I said, very convenient.

But, after this lesson ended, I couldn’t stop thinking about this class set of books. Once upon a time, these books were used as “the whole class novel.” The teacher passed them out, the students took turns reading aloud or read assigned chapters silently to themselves. On occasion, the teacher would read aloud. The class talked about the book and sometimes, they completed packets with comprehension questions and activities—Shiloh word finds and Shiloh vocabulary crossword puzzles.

Most of the teachers I know have wisely abandoned this practice, but some fiercely defend it. “We have great conversations,” I am told. “How else will students know what to notice in their books,” I am asked.

I don’t mean to be disparaging because I have experienced great conversations spawned from a shared text. However, I have a question to the whole class novel die-hards: What becomes of the eight students in my fourth grade class who felt for a number of reasons that Shiloh was not right for them? Several of these readers think it is too hard…and they are right. They are struggling readers. What message do I send when I say, “sorry, you have to read it anyway?”

I’ll tell you what these kids are thinking: I’m stupid. I hate reading. Reading is boring.

In What Really Matters for Struggling Readers Richard Allington writes, “ I know of no evidence that suggests that any curriculum plan that had all children working in the same books…ever produced high achievement in children.” With no research to support the whole class novel, it is difficult to condone a practice that might have a detrimental impact on a student’s passion for reading. In my mind, encouraging reluctance and perpetuating failure isn’t worth the few periods of teacher dominated conversation.

The Perfect Match

Without fail, each time I visit a school, I encounter teachers exasperated by chronic book abandoners, students insistent upon reading books that are too hard, and kids whining that reading is boring. These complaints stem back to the same central issue: book choice. Good teachers know that when books don’t fit, readers can’t do what they need most in order to improve: read more pages, more often. It’s no wonder teachers are exasperated! This is just too important to ignore!

So, what are we to do?

My answer has been to remain vigilant about teaching children how to choose books. This week (and mind you, this is FEBRUARY), I revisited the importance of previewing a book with a group of fourth graders. I modeled how to think about the front cover, the back cover, and reminded them to look inside. For guided practice, I dusted off a whole class set of Shiloh tucked on a shelf and asked the group to think about whether this would be a just right book for them.

I was amazed by what happened next.

Not one student—not one—finished previewing that book in under seven minutes. I watched as they touched the front cover and turned the book over. They looked inside and read a few pages. When we were done, eight students concluded that this book would not be good for them and cited reasons like “there’s so much I already don’t understand” and “I think it will take too long for me to read.” These are valid reasons not to read a book. And these are things that can’t be determined in the thirty seconds that I typically see students take to choose books.

For those of you among the ranks of the exasperated, I urge you to keep chipping away at the book choice stone. Know that just because you taught it in September and again in October, what children need to know about how to choose wisely cannot be taught in a few finite lessons. If we want children who read with passion and intention, we must stress the importance of knowing how to find the perfect match.

If you want to try this lesson, too, feel free to download my Lesson Plan, “Ways to know what a book holds in store for you by previewing it.”

Rekindling Reading Perspectives Part II

So, I finished Sarah’s Key on the Kindle. And I must say, the experience was an overwhelmingly positive one. For me, the best part was not knowing exactly how many pages I had left. Instead of feeling like I had to “save” reading for when I had extra time, I allowed myself to read on the treadmill, at the doctor’s office, on-line at the grocery store. Until beginning this experiment, I had never given much thought to how much book length and free time controlled my reading life. The Kindle has me thinking about how I can make more time for reading.

And as it turns out, it has my nine year old son thinking, too. In my house, we have been talking a lot about the future of publishing and how these devices will change the face of reading. My son, who I have introduced to you as a capable yet reluctant reader, very wisely said, “I would love it if I couldn’t see the end of my book. That’s the part I find overwhelming.”

Really? That’s interesting.

My next experiment is to download a book for him to read and see if not knowing how many pages are left help motivate him to read more as well. Could Kindle be a new tool for helping struggling and reluctant readers? One of the biggest obstacles we face with older strugglers is that they “pretend” to read books that are too hard because they want to be like their peers. If these kids were reading on Kindles, we could upload just-right reading material and nobody would have to know what they were reading. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m thinking this might be a grant waiting to be written. We’ll never know till we try.

Show Me…How I Can Teach You

Following a whole class lesson on thinking about characters we meet in stories that we like and dislike, I gathered a small group of strugglers at the bean shaped table in the back of the classroom. I presented them a short text with six characters. Before reading the text, I introduced them to each of the six characters in the story. I gave them information about how the characters were related. After feeling like I had adequately supported these readers, I sent them off to read the text independently. I pulled up alongside students one-by-one to see how things were going. Did they have questions about the characters? Were they thinking about who they liked and disliked? Things were going great until…Thomas finished reading and blurted out, “Emily’s dead!”

When Thomas spoke these words, I was startled. Emily was a character in the story but she did not die. The old woman who ran the corner store was the one who died. What is he talking about? I wondered.

My gut reaction was to say, “Thomas, stop messing around.”

But I didn’t. Instead, I looked at him and said, “Show me the part where Emily dies.”

Now don’t go thinking that this was a brilliant teaching move. In my head, I was having one of those “Okay smarty pants” moments and intended to reprimand Thomas’ outburst in a dignified way.

But, lucky for me, asking Thomas to “show me” morphed into a moment of divine intervention. You can imagine my shock when a serious-faced Thomas took me back to the text and pointed to the paragraph that convinced him that Emily died. As I listened to him read, I could hear the meaning break down. In that moment, I understood how he didn’t get who was who in the story and how he wasn’t understanding how the punctuation communicated to him when a character was speaking. I understood that he wasn’t being fresh. He was genuinely confused.

And as I talked to him, a child sitting next to him meekly confessed, “I thought Emily died, too.”

As I sit here typing this, I am grateful at the outcome of this exchange but humbled by my initial reaction. What would have happened if I had reprimanded Thomas? In one breath I profess that reading is meaning, but in the other, would I have communicated that if you’re not getting it, you’re a troublemaker? Ouch.

From now on, instead of instinctively thinking that kids are messing around when they say seemingly absurd things, I will reach for the words “show me” to inform my next move.