Choral Reading

With the number of people discussing poetry, I thought teachers might be interested in the many ways to choral read a selection. Most will be familiar to all but some may be new. (#13 is especially effective in a Remembrance Day service. ) Choral Reading 1. unison • everyone reads the poem together 2. two part arrangement • one group speaks alternately with another 3. soloist and chorus • one child reads specific lines, rest join in on other lines 4. alternate lines • one pair of children reads lines, then next

pair reads next lines etc.

5. echo reading • one person (or teacher) reads a line and the group echoes back 6. one word at a time • each child in turn reads one word of the selection 7. closure • one person reads the poetry line while others chime in on the last word 8. increasing/decreasing volume 9. increasing/decreasing tempo 10. effects • accompany choral reading with sound effects, music, movement, gesture, clapping rhythms 11. divide into groups • each group comes up with its own interpretation of the poem • each group could also rearrange the order of the lines of the poem 12. reader’s theatre • read as part of reader’s theatre with one character or a group chiming in verse at intervals • read poem as different characters or voices – elderly/ a baby/ a child, an optimist/ a pessimist , Little Red Riding Hood/ wolf etc. 13. combine selections • combine 2 poems (or songs) with one group reading a line or lines from one poem and the other group alternating with the second poem e.g. In Flanders Field & Imagine (Lennon) 14. round • read in a round with each group starting and ending at different times

Sources: Booth, David. Building Literacy Techniques . Pembroke Publishers, Markham, 1996 Fountas, Irene and Gay Su Pinnel. Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6 Heineman, , Portsmouth, 2001 Swartz, Larry. Drama Themes. Pembroke Publishers, 1988 Swartz, Larry. Drama Themes: Completely Revised. Pembroke Publishers, 1995. Courtesy CherylP