Establishing Guidelines For Using Readers Theater With Less-Skilled Readers

The author reviews recent research findings concerning the benefits of readers theater for building oral reading accuracy and fluency and then identifies key guidelines for instructional implementation. Recommendations and conclusions place the focus on guidelines for classroom teachers who might want to experiment with readers theater as they work with children who face reading difficulties. Establishing Guidelines For Using Readers Theater With Less-Skilled Readers Steven D. Rinehart West Virginia University The author reviews recent research findings concerning the benefits of readers theater for building oral reading accuracy and fluency and then identifies key guidelines for instructional implementation. Recommendations and conclusions place the focus on guidelines for classroom teachers who might want to experiment with readers theater as they work with children who face reading difficulties. 66 Reading Horizons, 2001, g (2) LIKE A NUMBER OF OTHER reading teachers, I have witnessed first hand some of the classroom benefits of readers theater. I have seen students gain fluency on practiced text and excitement for the chance to read aloud before others. Past support for taking valuable instructional time for readers theater activities has rested mostly on anecdotal evidence, tangential research, or what some might feel is common sense. However, several studies have recently presented more empirical reasons for why readers theater is good practice for all readers, including those who are struggling. The intent of this paper is to highlight these findings and clarify key instructional principles. In addition, the emphasis will be placed particularly on the importance of these guidelines for teachers who might want to experiment with readers theater as they work with children who are facing reading difficulties. Opportunities for successful reading To improve, struggling readers need ample opportunities for successful reading (Allington, 1983, 2001; Clay, 2002). Like all readers, they need a chance to read text that contains words that they have come to know or are in the process of learning, to experience fluency with many books, and to even reach a level of independence with some examples. Such opportunities are important because engaged and sustained reading leads to improved word recognition, gains in fluency, and hopefully a burgeoning of confidence. From an anecdotal viewpoint, one gets better by doing, and poor readers need a chance to do. And from a theoretical viewpoint, readers need to gain automaticity with orthographic processes and familiarity and repeated readings may enhance these kinds of gains (Dowhower, 1987; Rasinski, 1990; Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1993; Samuels, 1979). This concept underlies in some respect what has been called the "Matthew effect" (Stanovich, 1986). In this Biblical analogy the rich get richer. That is, the good readers get better because their continued success in literacy activities not only sustains but also generates its own improvements and growth. But the poor get poorer. That is, poor readers fall even farther behind because, in part, the difficulty itself becomes an impediment for practice. Thus, their gains are slower overall. It is ironic indeed that in some school contexts those readers who need so much more practice may be the very children who have fewer chances to succeed (Allington & Walmsley, 1995).