Our mid-month newsletters focus on many aspects of Reader's Theater and are designed to provide teachers and educators with useful, free classroom materials to use with their students. These lesson plans generally include a section of Reader's Theater text from one or more of our Playbooks®, an accompanying exercise or activity, and instructions for the teacher on how to direct the students. The lesson plans are downloadable in PDF format, while an article directly in the newsletter explains the background information for the basis of the exercise.

Missed some of our past exercises? No problem, just here to visit our Archive.

Rhyming Patterns for Faster Learning

Last month's Reader's Theater exercise was a classroom debate for teaching about the upcoming election and the functioning of democracy in our country. The exercise featured excerpts from our Playbook®, The Great Rhyme Travel Machine: African American Heroes, which is about an ambitious sixth grade student, Kelly, running for class president. This month our classroom exercise will help young students to learn and practice proper enunciation of words with the use of text or stories in rhyme.

When students are presented with reading material in rhyme, they will quickly notice the pattern. Children's book author Bill Martin states, "It should not surprise you to know that even at the first grade level, a child is already something of an expert in analyzing language, a fact overlooked in most reading programs. The aim is to help him become aware of what he intuitively knows about language, and to help him explore and verbalize old and new learnings." Throughout his stories he strives to use this premise by employing rhyme and repetition.

Once students hear one of a pair of rhyming words and learn how to say it properly, they will be more likely to read the second rhyming word correctly, because they will know what it is supposed to sound like. Rhyming words are also easier for kids to remember, and the entire text will be mastered more easily than a non-rhyming piece. Reading in groups is another effective method for improving fluency, making Reader's Theater a great way to incorporate rhyming words into your teaching. Using Reader's Theater written in rhyme is not only effective, but a lot of fun!

This month's exercise will include excerpts from a rhyming Playbook® story, Babbles Bizarre, as well as a lesson on rhymes. Students will be instructed to read the lines aloud and look for patterns they may hear. Finally, students will have the opportunity to write their own simple rhymes, completing provided sentence prompts. To get this month's activity, click on the link in the box below.

Babbles Bizarre

"Hello! Hello! Hello! My name is Babbles Bizarre. I like to call my friends, To see just how they are."

Zy-Fly-More

Click here to get this month's activity for helping your students
learn to read and enunciate new words faster with rhymes.

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