Real Life Reading Inquiry

I observed fluency in a fourth grade classroom at a local elementary school. During my time in the classroom I was able to observe and compare choral reading and popcorn reading. The class was reading a chapter book together. The teacher, Mrs. S., had designated passages of the book to choral reading and the rest was read popcorn style. Mrs. S. began the reading lesson by selecting volunteers for the popcorn reading sections and told those students what parts they would be reading. Next, she showed the class what sections they would read as a group and asked them to highlight those sections so they would not miss them. Finally, it became time to begin reading. I have never been a big fan of popcorn reading so I was very skeptical when the teacher announced the reading lesson for the day. I thought the popcorn method may not be as bad because she was not forcing anyone to read and it would be combined with choral reading. However, it still did not work well. Among the volunteer readers there was a wide range of reading fluency skills; some readers could pronounce every word while others struggled greatly. When the students that had difficulty pronouncing words and read slowly were reading, other students in the class would begin to laugh or be very quick to correct the reader. The reader started out very excited to read but as the other students laughed, he became embarrassed and discouraged from reading aloud. I think as teachers, we must be very cautious to how our students interact with one another before we decide to use a method such as popcorn reading.

I also observed choral reading. I felt this technique was much more effective in encouraging the students to become fluent readers. During this section of the reading lesson, the students were very excited and enthusiastic about reading. They worked together to get softer and louder where it was necessary in the passage. This added more meaning to what they were reading, and therefore, made a bigger impact on the students. It was very interesting to see the comparison of how the children read when they were reading alone in the popcorn sections and then how they read during the choral reading. Every child was comfortable and not embarrassed to be reading when they all read together; they did not feel as if they were singled out.