Reader's Theatre for Little Ones!

Hello to Jeannie and all her friends!  I'm Tammy from Forever in First, and I'm very happy to be here.  I hope by the end of this post that you'll be happy I'm here as well.      

Some kids just really enjoy a great readers theater moment.  You know the ones, right?  Without any inhibitions, their faces and voices are bursting with expression.  It's like they're without a care in the world.  They simply just love to read.  They make choosing a readers theater script simple, because they can make anything sound easy and enjoyable.  Then there's the group of struggling readers.  Picking a script for them is quite the opposite and sometimes impossible.  It can be frustrating.  Where are the scripts that are at their independent level?  

A few years ago, I realized that the scripts for these kids were right in front of my nose.  As a class, we learn a poem each week.  At the end of the week a copy goes into each child's poetry anthology that goes home every night.  My kids have numerous opportunities to become fluent with these poems at school and at home on a daily basis.  They know them inside and out, even the kids who struggle.  Here is where my epiphany took place.  Why not turn these poems into readers theater scripts?  

Here's the very first poem we learned in my class at the beginning of the year.

Here's how I turned it into a readers theater.  Easy cheesy.  

click on the pictures for your own copies

There are typically five or six readers reading in the same group.  It really doesn't matter if there are only two parts.  When two or three are reading the same part, that just means more support for those who need it.  Now their little faces and voices are more likely to experience the joy of reading without any inhibitions.

Thanks again for reading, and a big thanks to Jeannie for letting me hang out with you all.