Fortunately, fifth graders bounce. And because kids have a natural enthusiasm for acting out, the play always seems to go on. In the twenty years that I’ve been using read aloud plays in the classroom, I’ve seen just about everything: pratfalls, costume malfunctions, emergency ad-libs… And because read aloud plays are an effective way to teach fluency, comprehension, and content, I’ve also witnessed the blossoming of many a young reader. All of you who have made read aloud plays a staple of your reading instruction have no doubt had a play performance disaster, or coached a young Bill Shakespeare, or had an otherwise shaky reader come alive on stage. What are your favorite reader’s theater moments? Share your best drama disasters and most inspiring on-stage stories by e-mailing me at lewis@jeffnet.org. I’ll post as many as I can on my soon-to-be-launched website, ReadAloudPlays.com, and in so doing encourage other teachers to utilize this amazing instructional method. To make it worth your while, I’ll even e-mail you a free play!

For those of you who’ve yet discover the magic of reader’s theater, download my free article Why Use Drama?, and then take a look at dozens of professionally-crafted read aloud plays at my storefront on TeachersPayTeachers. Happy directing!