Implementing Reader's Theatre as an Intervention to Improve Prosody

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Reader?s Theatre as a Title I classroom intervention for fourth and fifth graders to improve prosody, and ultimately fluency,as measured by AIMSweb benchmark assessment (aimsweb.pearson.com) and weekly progress monitoring. Reader?s Theatre is a pedagogical strategy in which students present a piece of literature to an audience, which increases motivation for using the strategy of repeated reading. The strategy of Reader?s Theatre was utilized with fourth and fifth grade Title I students for a period of ten weeks. This study was precipitated by the recent implementation of Response to Intervention (RtI) in the school district, and examines students who were categorized as ?below? grade level achievement on an RtI benchmark assessment. Results of the study indicate that this intervention did have a positive effect on the fluency rates, the progress monitoring scores, and the benchmark scores achieved by the students.