I’ve probably said, “I love reading” thousands of times. While true, this statement could use an addendum, such as “I love reading certain books.” If a book is boring, it’s probably being returned to the library or hidden away on a dusty shelf. See, I’ve been captivated by too many books in my life to read books that bore me. To me, signals of captivating books are thoughts like, “Please, don’t end. Where will I ever find another book that compares,” or conversely, “What?! No way. I need to know how this ends immediately!” So, for me, instilling students with an interest in reading is highly exciting. I think an interest in reading requires positive reading experiences. These experiences can happen before children learn to read, like when adults or older children read to them, and can continue as children begin having success reading on their own.
Reading success doesn’t happen quickly for everyone. When I started my current teaching position, where I provide small-group reading support for around thirty first- and second-graders, many of my students were in the very beginning steps of reading. I mostly used Fundations, a program used throughout the district that focuses on print knowledge, alphabet, phonological, and phonemic awareness, as well as decoding, vocabulary, and spelling. While most of my students knew their sounds, decoding words was and can still be laborious, which doesn’t make reading tons of fun. Slowly but surely, however, decoding is becoming easier and most of my students are making steady progress towards becoming fluent readers.
In CDP, we learned about Balanced Literacy programs, which combine guided reading, shared reading and writing, independent reading, and teacher modeled reading and writing. Although I’m required to make Fundations and another program called, Triumphs, the core of my small group interventions, I’ve also found time to sneak in some aspects of balanced literacy, such as shared reading and read alouds. I find that a short, fun read aloud can really lift spirits and change students’ attitudes about reading. Furthermore, as we work on fluency and reading with expression, I think students need to see and hear me read.
Something else that’s been improving students' fluency and expression is Readers' Theater. Over the last week, all of my students have been practicing a short script, which they will perform for their parents next Thursday night at a reading party. The script, which I adapted from a script I found on the website, Reading A-Z, has three roles: narrators, parents, and kids. Basically, the script is a back and forth between kids and parents, where the kids keep asking the parents when they can do things, like stay up late or eat anything they want, and the parents repeatedly respond “When you grow up!” It’s a great script for young kids because they’re familiar with the roles in real life! I think this prior knowledge about the roles is really helping them read with expression. I can’t wait to see how the play goes next week and plan to use Readers’ Theater in the future.
Oh, just one last thing. I introduced the topic of Readers’ Theater with Aliki’s book, A Play’s the Thing. Students loved this book, which is about a clever teacher, Miss Brilliant, who helps her students write and perform a play. Only one of Miss Brilliant’s students is unhappy about the play. We learn, however, that this student’s bad attitude isn’t due to being forced into acting, making this a great book to talk about Readers’ Theater as well as reasons children might act mean sometimes. I was pretty happy when one student left class saying, "You're just like Miss Brilliant!" I sure hope I'm like Miss Brilliant, kid. But, even if I'm not there yet, I promise to keep trying.
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