Readers' Theatre for Young Children

Susan Thomas is a middle-school guidance counselor, teacher, anad social
worker in Milton, Ontario.

Readers’ Theatre is a welcome resource for nursery- and primary-school
teachers. Over 100 poems, songs, and counting rhymes are pleasantly
illustrated on single-page masters. Most of the old Mother Goose
favorites like “Little Boy Blue” and “Hey Diddle Diddle” can be
found in this collection, alongside some newer and lesser-known titles.
This collection could provide material for an entire year of choral
reading with young children.

With respect to the issue of copyright, the book asserts that
permission is “granted for a single, one-time duplication of the
required number of copies for each script.” One can imagine these
scripts being reproduced on an overhead transparency and colored or
labeled with marking pens to make them more exciting to a young
audience.

Follow-up instruction strategies suggest reprinting, cutting, and
pasting the words of each script to allow for “cloze” and
“micro-cloze” tasks. Although additional black-line masters for
follow-up activities can be purchased, most teachers of young children
would easily come up with a variety of other activities to support the
oral readings.

The book assumes a mastery of early childhood education strategies on
the part of the user. For those teachers with a creative edge, this
collection provides a wide variety of fun-filled rhymes in a
user-friendly format.