Choral Reading:
A Way to Make Reading Fun
by Iyshia Smith
Many teachers are on the lookout for ways to help their students become better readers and enjoy reading simultaneously. One enjoyable way to help students develop fluency is choral reading. According to Paige (2011), “Whole Class Choral Reading (WCCR) is a classroom strategy in which all students read aloud from the same text in unison with the teacher, who models accurate pronunciation, appropriate reading rate, and prosody (expression)” (p. 435). McCauley and McCauley (1992) found that choral reading helps students enjoy reading, improve reading rate and understanding, and is also particularly helpful for English as Second Language learners. While students read, the teacher listens closely for difficult words or phrases with which the students may struggle. After the reading, the teacher gives the students corrective feedback, which may include modeling by reading a phrase or sentence using prosody or intonation or pointing out prosodic markings, such as pausing at commas and stopping at periods.
This article will provide an example of one way I used choral reading in my classroom to help students become more fluent readers with repeated readings and sight word
development. First, I selected the short fiction
rhyming book Is your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino. I informed the students they were going to practice choral reading this book until they could read it well enough to perform it for another class. Emails
were sent out to all teachers in the building, asking if they would like to hear students choral read a story that would take about 15 minutes of class time. Several teachers responded immediately, and we had an audience to get ready for---five classes---one for each level from first to fifth grade.
Repeated Reading
According to Faver (2008), “Repeated reading is a process in which a student reads a particular passage daily over several days to enhance his or her reading fluency” (p. 350). The goal of fluent readers is not only to comprehend what they are reading, but also to read at a normal speaking rate. Faver suggests there are several types of text that work well for repeated reading including “poetry or short passages of fiction or nonfiction” (p. 350).
Before practice began and throughout the preparation process, different elements of effective choral reading were stressed to the students. We discussed the importance of tone and prosody and how repeated reading helps build fluency. Next, I explained and modeled and the students practiced the importance of punctuation, the difference between a comma and a period, and how the reading should actually sound.
Classroom Close-Up
Iyshia Smith is in her second year of teaching first and second grade in Springfield, Missouri at Bowerman Elementary. She is currently in the graduate literacy program at Missouri State University completing her masters degree.
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