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
