SPED 5386: Strategic Reading and Language Project Page

Readers Theater can help make repeated readings enjoyable for students while building their fluency and confidence. This resource talks briefly about the benefits of Readers Theater including the opportunity for differentiation due to the multiple parts teachers can write. I found this resource especially valuable because it included actual Readers Theater scripts based on a science article. The scripts are divided into grade level groups up to fifth grade.

There are added links at the bottom of the page to helpful Readers Theater resources. My favorite is to an article by Melissa Stewart, science children’s book author, entitled “Science Books + Readers Theater.” In it she explains how to adapt an informational text into a script. (The link itself is dead but I was able to find another link online which I’ve included under this description.)

I would recommend this resource because though repeated readings are helpful, they can be boring and tiresome for struggling readers. Getting to “play a part” can make this activity fun for them. For teachers, the idea of writing a script based on nonfiction text doesn’t seem too difficult, and students would get to learn content area information while building fluency.

This resource details the steps in an activity called "Reading Connected Text Fluency." The teacher writes a sentence on the board and points to each word as students read it slowly. Students read the sentence again, this time with expression. The teacher models what this should sound like beforehand. They then read the sentence quickly as the teacher points to each word for no longer than a second. Students read it independently until they are fluent. Lastly, they come up with a who, what, when, where, or why question about the sentence to ask a partner. Each pair asks and answers their questions to conclude the activity.

This resource not only provides an activity that is easy to do, but also contains a link to sentences teachers can use so they don't have to make up their own. The sentences vary from short to passage-length. There's even a lesson available to specifically target text accuracy.

This resource is perfect for educators who need a short, engaging fluency builder that scaffolds the components of accuracy, expression, and rate of reading. There is even the added area of comprehension through students thinking of their own questions about what they have read.