Beaut Ideas - Revisiting a Book

Teaching Ideas and Units - Beaut Ideas

Revisiting a Book

Leanne Banfield at Geeveston District High developed this strategy. It was first published in the Hartz district newsletter, Literacy in Hartz.

A version of readers theatre can be used to help children revisit a guided reading text in a fun way.

First, children need to be involved in discussions about how to know when a character is speaking and what speech marks represent. Once they’ve chosen a character from the text to work with, they can use a pro-forma such as the examples below to investigate the character’s qualities.

Write the favourite thing that your character says

Book Title:

Author:

Character:

Describe your character. Is your character bossy, friendly, mean, funny?

What types of things does your character say or do that are funny, bossy?

Each child then takes on their character in a re-reading of the book. First they practise with the teacher and discuss features of the reading such as how the character’s voice might sound.

Finally, the book is put together as a whole, each child reading their role. The teacher may take on the narrator’s role until the children are ready for this themselves.

More information

For information about using readers theatre to share students’ individual reading choices, see Carol Arnold’s teacher interview.

For more information about strategies for Guided Reading, see Guided Reading at Lindisfarne North.

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