What Happens When Struggling Readers and Writers Produce and Read Their own Scripted Stories?

Abstract

This research study is an attempt to determine what happens when struggling readers and writers produce and read their own scripted stories. The purpose of the study was to take a successful method of supporting struggling readers; reader's theater, and integrate student created scripts to see if reader's theater could be used to support struggling writers as well. This study was conducted with eight second grade students struggling with both reading and writing. Research took place over three sessions where the reader's theater process was implemented each time. The first session was done in original reader's theater format with scripts provided by the researcher. The second session incorporated a script that was created interactively by the students and researcher. The third session the script was created independently by student groups. Research resulted in improvements in fluency, especially in the area of reading pace, overall comprehension, and self-esteem in terms of confidence in reading and writing ability, self-awareness of strengths and needs for improvement in both reading and writing, as well as social interaction, and group work abilities.