Using Picture Books as Theater for Literacy

Simple Steps to Getting Started

Using picture books as theater in the classroom provides teachers with an exciting and interactive tool to encourage kids to read more fluently and get fully immersed with reading. When kids perform a picture book as a play, they use facial and vocal expression to reveal the characters and use vocal pitch and innuendo to reveal meaning. This helps children understand the nuance of words and sentences and improves their reading prosody.

Performing picture books provides kids with an exciting reason to WANT to read. They are happy to repeat their lines over and over, knowing the end result is a performance where they can shine. Kids don’t mind repeating because they are having fun, and the by-product is more improved reading fluency.

Using picture book as reader’s theater also provides an opportunity for teamwork where kids of different reading levels work together for a mutual goal. Slower readers can catch up with faster readers, through repetition and practice, then perform at the same level. This boosts confidence and inspires the desire in children to improve reading skills.

Picture books are also an excellent source material to learn about social emotional issues. Both the story and illustrations can be used to extract social emotional themes. The artwork provides insights that words alone do not reveal about the story. Performing a picture book as theater allows teachers the opportunity to explore SEL themes with kids and provide an opportunity for them to role play and put themselves in the shoes of others.

I first discovered the power of using theater in K-6 classrooms in 2008 when I was producing Booksicals musical theater presentations at local schools. Kids loved meeting the actors asking them questions about the characters they portrayed, as well as asking questions about the actors themselves. Later in my career, I did solo author events at schools, bringing props and costumes for the kids to wear during the story time. The kids really enjoyed becoming the characters, speaking like the characters and answering questions as if they were the characters. This got me thinking how using theater in the classroom could be a great tool for teachers. After meeting with teachers and educators about this, I began researching how theater and performing arts can enhance literacy and learning. I discovered that performing books as scripts not only improved reading skills and fluency but also got kids excited about books, reading and wanting to improve their reading skills.

Why use picture books as opposed to any script in general? There are literacy benefits to performing any script in the classroom. However, using a picture book specifically as a performance tool provides many advantages over a plain script. Firstly, for slower readers picture books are a nonintimidating reading vehicle and levels the playing field for them. For more advanced readers, picture books often have multiple layers of meanings from which to extract and discuss more complex social emotional issues. Performing picture books allows children of different reading levels to collaborate and work as a team towards a mutual goal of performance. Best of all, performing a picture book as a script connects kids to books, makes reading a fully immersive experience and encourages a love of reading.

Classroom TIP: Want to try this in your classroom? Here is an easy five-step exercise to try in your classroom, appropriate for grades K-6:

Step 1: Pick a favorite picture book, preferably one with many characters.

Step 2: Prepare ahead of time by copying and printing the book’s pages and collate into a “script.” Print enough copies for each child to hold or one for every two-to-three kids to share.

Step 3: Read the book aloud to the class from the actual printed book.

Step 4: Assign each child a role - either a character or narrator role. Then break into small rehearsal groups.

Step 5: Each group (of actors) rehearses their part of the story separately and performs their section of the book for whole the class.

This exercise invites collaboration and teamwork, encourages students of different reading levels to work together, increases reading fluency, and makes reading and repetition fun. This is just one of many “Literacy Through the Arts” activities you can bring to your classroom. If done as a regular part of the curriculum, using picture books as the basis of arts and theater activities helps improve reading skills and provides a vibrant tool for teaching SEL.

Susan Chodakiewitz

Susan Chodakiewitz is an author, composer, and producer. She is the founder of Booksicals children’s books and Picture Book Musicals. Her passion for igniting a love of reading in children has led her to create the Booksicals Literacy Through the Arts program, an interactive performing arts curriculum where theater and the arts become a teaching tool for literacy and social-emotional learning. Susan is the author of seven children’s picture books: The Alphabet Thief, Selah the Peach, Master Davey and the Magic Tea House, Wobegon and Mildred, Mr. Snoozle’s Exquisite Eggs, Too Many Visitors for One Little House and soon-to-be-released Mother Nature ABC verses.

To learn more about the interactive, easy to use Booksicals Literacy Through The Arts programs for school or homeschool, visit www.booksicals.com or contact Susan directly at susanchodak@gmail.com.