I spent the morning of this week’s class observing a grade 2/3 class’s Reader’s Theatre literacy activity. Myself and two other teacher candidates were in the classroom the week prior, working with small groups of students to learn and rehearse their scripts. This is where I think this activity fits into the BC curriculum:

Big Ideas: Language and story can be a source of creativity and joy. Stories and other texts help us learn about ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Curricular Competency: Read fluently at grade level, Engage actively as listeners, viewers, and readers, as appropriate, to develop understanding of self, identity, and community, Communicate using sentences and most conventions of Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Content: elements of story, literary elements and devices, reading strategies, oral language strategies, features of oral language

When we first got into the classroom, the students were beginning their day with a soft start. They had the chance to come in, switch their “take home” books, work on art, and get settled into the classroom. Once all the students had entered and found their desks, the teacher began by saying “Let’s start our day”, and she read the schedule aloud to the class. Then, they transitioned to the carpet and began the Reader’s Theatre activity.

At the carpet, they went through attendance and distributed the book “scripts” to each group. If a group’s members were away, a student would take on multiple roles along with their own. Because the students had been practicing their scripts all week, we got to see the big performance today. Each character had a costume and unique voice. If playing multiple characters, student’s would switch costumes between each line. As each group read through their books together and performed the actions they had been practicing, the teacher would walk behind the students, pointing to their lines and whispering reminders to those who needed them. I think this really helped the students stay on track and perform as a whole unit, and I was impressed by their ability to collaborate and put together their whole performance throughout the week since we’d last seen them. The students were also working on facing the audience and “speaking all the way to the back” ie. making their voices loud and clear!

Student-made costumes for each book

After the performances, all students got up and participated in a stretch break using PE with Mr. G on Youtube! The teacher shared with us that this class loved to dance, and I could definitely tell this was the case. The video had them follow a series of stretches, with a dance break in between. This was a quick, no-prep movement break that allowed the students who had been sitting for a while to get up and get their sillies out. After the break, the students transitioned back to the carpet for their next literacy activity.

Next, the teacher read a book from Adrien Gear’s “Reading Powers” series aloud to the class, who were to raise their hand if they made any connections to the story. Reading Powers books help teachers and students understand what the brain is doing when reading & writing. #1 = Making Connections.

The book they were reading was called “A Difficult Day”, and the teacher prompted a few students by saying, “remember in math when you said it was a difficult day – you might make a connection!” The class was very engaged and loved having the opportunity to share each connection they made as they listened to the story.