If you’re looking for a unique way to keep your child engaged in reading over the summer, you might want to consider doing some choral reading at home. In case you’ve never heard of it, choral reading is a literacy technique that helps students build their fluency, self-confidence, and motivation to read. It takes a minimum of two people to participate, but the entire family can join the fun!

During choral reading activities, the teacher is an active participant and helps set the pace and model proper pronunciation. As participants rehearse a particular passage aloud in unison, they will learn to assimilate the following important reading skills: (a.) decoding skills, (b.) effective and fluent oral reading skills, (c.) sight vocabulary, and (d.) pronunciation skills.

It is important to make sure that choral reading is a fun learning experience, so you must find appropriate materials to use. Rhymes, poetry, and lyrics are especially suited to choral reading because of their rhythm, meter, patterns, rhymes, and characters, but the choice is up to you.

Here are some simple suggestions to help you get started:

1. Choose material that will be fun to read and have a printed copy available for each participant. One person reads aloud to the group or all read silently.

2. Make sure the participants understand the meaning of the piece thoroughly by discussing the selection.

-Who is the speaker?

-What is the setting?

-Under what conditions was the piece written?

-What is the theme? What is the author trying to say? Explain the central idea of the piece.

-Define new words.

-Clear up vague meanings.

3. Teach the participants to:

- Begin together,

- Speak at the same rate of speed, and

- Finish at the same split second.

4. As you read the passage together, avoid the pitfall of a sing-song, dull, monotonous reading. Work for variety.