Readers Theater : Dogs : Emergent Text for 2 Awesome Readers : Print & GO

Reader’s theater is a highly motivating way for your students to grow their oral reading fluency, comprehension, decoding skills, teamwork, and confidence. You and your little readers will LOVE this activity. You’ll be able to use it with multiple groups of students each year and will look forward to pulling it out year after year.

Thoughtful Design:

Parts for only 2 Readers: I have found that the back-and-forth dialogue makes it MUCH easier for kids to pay attention to and keep track of when it’s their turn to speak. When you get several different readers in the performance, there tends to be a lot of dozing off and “Psst! It’s your turn!”

Short-and-Sweet 2-Page Script:

This also fits perfectly with reader and audience attention spans.

Bonus: the 2-page design makes it super simple for YOU to put together in an easy-to-store and use style. You could glue the script into file folders or onto large pieces of construction paper folded in half (cheap and easy!). Labels are included for the front of the folders so the audience can see which roles readers are playing. You can laminate if you want, but don’t need to.

Word Choice:

This script is specifically designed with emergent readers in mind. Almost ALL of the words are common high-frequency words you’d see on Fry’s 1st 100 words like we, will, can, you, the, see, in, like, do. There are little pictures included to help with words that are not on the 1st 100 list. The pictures also help make the reading more interesting for the kids.

Special visual display component:

This resource comes with a special Google Slides presentation of photos that go along with the story. Using it is optional, but it WILL help the story be more engaging for the audience. In class you could position a reader on ether side of the board as you flip through the pictures. This would also be easy to display if you’re doing online learning as students read from their scripts. Link on the next page.

Extras?:

No costumes or props are needed. The main focus is for the readers to just tell the story through their words, expression, and fluency.

Performers can practice their script in reading groups, during literacy centers, or whenever else makes sense during your day. They can perform for their class, another class, or parents. You could record their performance and share it with parents via email or seesaw, etc.