From Issue # 8 Spring 2005
Using Readers Theatre
in a Kindergarten Classroom
by Kelly A. Kroon
As a forensics participant in high school and college, I was exposed to many different forms of drama and public speaking, including Readers Theatre. I hadn't thought about Readers Theatre until recently when I ran across an article on using Readers Theatre with kindergartners. I picked up the magazine in the staff lounge and paged through it while I warmed my lunch.
I was intrigued by the thought of using Readers Theatre in kindergarten; wasn't it something used primarily with older kids, as a category in forensics? Focusing more on my empty stomach, I grabbed my lunch and forgot about the article. Or so I thought.
Little did I know that the idea had taken root in my brain. While wrestling with choosing a research topic for my Master's Degree, the idea started to sprout.
Drama and oral performance are passions of mine, and I work with kindergartners, so it seemed natural for me to look into the use of Readers Theatre in kindergarten.
As I researched Readers Theatre, I became more and more excited. What a fun way to get kindergartners started in oral reading! I hoped that by using Readers Theatre in kindergarten, I could help students become more comfortable with speaking in front of a group of people and be more fluent when reading out loud.
My project ran from February to May of 2004. During that time period, several times a week, for 15-20 minutes, I worked with kindergartners on Readers Theatre. During these lessons, we read through various scripts and discussed the different performance aspects of Readers Theatre, such as speaking loudly and clearly and making one's voice sound like a certain character.
After each lesson, I reflected in a journal about what we had done. I used these reflections to note how the lesson went and to monitor the progress students were making in their abilities to read aloud. Anything unique, such as one little boy's especially good voice for a character, was also recorded.
Through my reflections, I was able to document the ways the children improved as we practiced stories. They spoke louder and tried to sound like the character they were playing. They enjoyed taking on different roles. They also were able to coach one another on becoming a better reader, for instance, by asking someone to speak up. I was happy to note that the children were asking me when we would next work on Readers Theatre.
As part of this project, I felt it was important for the children to apply the oral reading skills they were learning. To that end, I scheduled a Readers Theatre Showcase to be held near the end of my research project. Six stories were performed, with each child being in two stories. Family and friends were invited to the performance.
I surveyed the children, before and after the Showcase, asking them how they felt about speaking in front of a group. Before I started working with the kindergartners on Readers Theatre, only 21% of the children said they felt comfortable speaking in front of others. After the four month period of my project, 50% of the children said they felt comfortable speaking in front of others. I asked the children who gave me a negative answer what they thought about the Showcase, and they all said they enjoyed that performance.
I also videotaped the children reading a short poem. In the initial videotaping, there was one child who could read the passage without help. This child read it quickly and without emotion; she almost seemed bored. Most of the other children would repeat after me, phrase by phrase, for the first reading, then would retell the story in their own words the second time through. In general, the children seemed uncomfortable trying to read the passage while being videotaped. They were unsure as to what to do with the script and where to look. Many of the children spoke so softly, it was hard to hear them.
At the end of the project, the children were taped reading the same passage. What struck me this time was that they seemed more confident. They may not have been able to actually read more, but they were more comfortable in retelling the story and in being videotaped. They made eye contact with me and put emotion in their voices. They handled the scripts with ease and spoke loudly enough. The child had who initially read the passage without help did so again, but this time, she added inflection, controlled the pace of the reading, and seemed to enjoy it more than the first time she read.
As the project progressed, the students started rehearsing the specific scripts in preparation for the Readers Theatre Showcase. After three months of practice, the children performed the stories for their friends and family. I was overwhelmed by the size of the audience. The room we used was packed. Some children seemed a little nervous, but they performed well. The biggest problem was with volume. Some of the children didn't speak loudly enough, even though it was something we had practiced.
In evaluating the performance, I became aware of a number of improvements that could have been made. Six selections were too many! I wanted each child to be in two selections, but that wasn't necessary. Also, the children were not as familiar with some of the selections, so those readings were harder to learn. What would work better is a short script of a familiar story, with lots of repeated phrases and lines that are short. For example, one selection was I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (traditional children's story). It worked well because each child said the same line as the story progressed. The selection, Ladies First (Dixon, Davies, and Politano, 1996), was the hardest one for the children because it was unfamiliar, the lines were too long, and it contained very little repetition of lines.
A couple of weeks after my Readers Theatre Showcase, I found myself in the audience of a presentation at our local library. That performance ran much better and I learned a lot from it. An adult was the narrator, standing at a podium, cueing the children when it was time for them to speak. At the Readers Theatre Showcase, I stood behind the children, whispering their lines if they needed help, and cued the next person. I think that was a distraction to the audience. The library performance was fairly short-about five minutes-and the lines were repetitive and they had rehearsed just two times prior to performing. The children enjoyed the performance and so did the audience. What I learned from this performance is that even a short performance is enjoyed and appreciated by the audience. The library performance also reinforced the need to use familiar, repetitive stories with young children.
Overall, I feel that Readers Theatre is a good tool to use with kindergartners. I saw children who initially were afraid to read in front of their classmates become poised and confident in front of an audience that included family, friends, and strangers. I heard children who could barely speak above a whisper on their first read-through of the story talk loudly enough so those in the back of the room could hear. I was able to enjoy the transformation as the children became their characters.
Readers Theatre serves the purpose of helping the children gain confidence as public speakers while having a lot of fun. It also gives children a chance to improve their oral reading skills through practice and performance. Readers Theatre gives kindergartners a positive first experience of being in front of a group and will help them with future public speaking. It also gives students another outlet for the creative play that young children are so good at doing.
