ENTER BELOW FOR ARGOPREP'S FREE WEEKLY GIVEAWAYS. EVERY WEEK!
FREE 100$ in books to a family!
Round robin reading (RRR) has been used in classrooms for over 200 years and is still used by over half of K–8 teachers today. Despite evidence that RRR is unsuccessful in improving fluency, understanding context, and comprehension, it continues to be popular.
Teachers continue to employ the round-robin reading approach in their classes despite a growing body of studies showing how harmful it may be. Individual pupils read aloud from a text assigned to them by the teacher during round-robin reading. After reading a tiny piece of the material, a new reader is selected, and the process begins again.
Educators believe that this method aids them in teaching decoding, fluency, vocabulary growth, text comprehension, and student engagement. On the other hand, studies imply that children have limited opportunities to improve their fluency or word identification because they are only forced to read a brief amount of the text.
As a result, when a reader encounters a difficult or unfamiliar term, other students tend to rush in, denying the reader the opportunity to figure it out on their own. Students’ fluency suffers due to not reading the book in its entirety.
As a result, readers are forced to narrow their concentration to just a few key ideas and leave the rest of the text to their memory. These acts do not affect student engagement or comprehension.
You can use many different reading tactics instead of round-robin reading, which can considerably more effectively engage kids.
What are some effective approaches to reading? Guided reading is a popular teaching approach right now. Fountas and Pinnell’s Guided Reading: Responsive Teaching Across the Grades is a fantastic resource for this method.
Self-sustained reading, in which students select books that interest them and read them independently, is another common reading technique. Teachers frequently invite their students to discuss or write about what they have read in reading journals.
Teachers need to move on to different methods of teaching reading once they discover from evidence-based research that round-robin reading does not assist pupils in learning to read successfully.
After just a few courses, students often grow significantly more at ease in smaller group situations. Those who are more at ease with their surroundings can better acquire and retain information.
Teachers and children may benefit from round-robin reading, but there are some drawbacks. Consider the following limitations if you consider implementing this activity in your school.
Round robin reading might induce children to feel worried rather than engaged in the book because the practice’s major motivator is knowing where to pick up the prior reader. While reading, students may get distracted by whether they are starting at an appropriate time in a given passage or whether they are reading the allotted piece correctly (rather than truly comprehending what they are reading).
Consequently, you may alienate pupils rather than make them feel more comfortable reading aloud.
According to the International Literacy Association, regarding fluency and word recognition, round-robin reading is a poor choice. Put another way. Kids do not have enough time to fully comprehend what they are reading, much less understand its significance. If you use round-robin reading, you also do not have the time to provide your students with relevant and helpful comments.
Round robin reading will harm fluency and language acquisition for the entire class if pupils have difficulty reading words out correctly. Students will pick up on their peers’ reading errors since teachers do not have enough time to remediate small ones.
It is common for pupils to read aloud at a slower pace than they do while reading silently during the learning process. Students reading in a round-robin fashion tend to read ahead of others who are not doing as well, which leads to a chasm. Naturally, pupils would read slower to keep up with their peers.
In RRR, students alternate reading from a shared text while the other students follow along in their copies. Several variants of the approach show marginal benefits over RRR. Their reading transitions are just different:
After reading aloud, a student cries out “popcorn” and selects another student to read.
In their chapter in Fluency Instruction: Research-Based Best Practices, combat Reading is described by Gwynne Ash and Melanie Kuhn.
Students write their names on Popsicle sticks and place them in a can. The next reader is chosen at random.
Touch Somme describes how the instructor taps a child to read.
Only one graduate research paper indicated an advantage to RRR or its modifications, noting tepidly that perhaps RRR isn’t as bad as everyone claims. There is no empirical data to support the claim that RRR helps kids improve their reading fluency or comprehension, say Katherine Hilden and Jennifer Jones.
The reader is shamed. Imagine how terrified ESL students and poor readers are when forced to read in front of the class.
Limits understanding. Reading aloud too slowly, quickly, or haltingly decreases comprehension, an issue aggravated by turn-taking pauses.
Stunned by fluency and articular Poor reading fluency and pronunciation. Correcting errors reduces fluency.
Oral reading in other formats can improve children’s fluency, comprehension, and word identification. Still, silent or independent reading should occur significantly more frequently as students progress into middle and high school.
Other oral reading activities, such as RRR and its cousins, have substantial advantages over RRR. As you will see in the following list, many of them share similar characteristics.
The entire class reads a piece together with the teacher as a choral reading, which keeps the public exposure of struggling readers to a minimum. In a 2011 study that included a hundred Grade 6 students, researcher David Paige discovered that 16 minutes of this activity can greatly enhance comprehension and fluency.
When the instructor omits a single word from an oral reading, pupils must repeat it.
In this method, two students read each paragraph of the material alternatively. This means that the two students cover the entire book section by section.
Include vocabulary training, a plot synopsis, or an anticipation guide before students begin silent reading. Listening to an audiobook can also help achieve similar outcomes.
Students emulate the teacher’s tempo and inflections by echoing what the teacher reads. Teachers can model fluency for students by reading aloud to them and pausing to illustrate comprehension methods while they follow along in their books.
Students emulate the teacher’s tempo and inflections by repeating what she has read before them.
Teachers can model fluency for students by reading aloud to them and pausing to illustrate comprehension methods while they view at the material in their books.
Students read aloud to a younger classmate to read to a buddy in a different grade.
Literacy academics Katherine Hilden and Jennifer Jones say that using timed repeat readings can improve fluency. Having heard an instructor read aloud (expressively) a brief paragraph that is adequate for their students’ reading level (90–95 percent accuracy), the next practice reading it out loud (loudly, rapidly, and dynamically). To help children monitor their progress, a second child records their times and errors.
Students read back to each other.
Choral reading by students.
Pupils read aloud in groups.
Students can incorporate extension activities into the week by taking the text home if additional practice is needed.
These and other well-known strategies like reciprocal teaching, reader’s theatre, and radio reading can serve as simple replacements for round-robin reading in your classroom, according to my experience.
It is up to you and your pupils to determine which reading methods work best for you and your class. The following courses from Advancement Courses go in-depth on reading exercises you may use in your classroom right away.
Try some of these other, more effective strategies rather than relying on round-robin reading to get your pupils’ reading skills better. This course will teach you how to help your students improve their reading comprehension, increase their vocabulary, and encourage them to try different literature.
Comprehension Strategies Help your pupils build critical reading and thinking abilities by coming up with effective techniques for helping them understand what they are reading. In this course, you will learn how to create effective reading teaching materials that will assist your students through each step of the reading process.
As a teacher, you may help your pupils develop critical thinking skills by teaching them the art of close reading. You will learn how to excite and inspire pupils while meeting Common Core State Standards for close reading. Over 240 online, self-paced professional development courses for K-12 educators are available through Advancement Courses.
When pupils are forced to practice regularly, it might become boring. Rather than merely a means of entertainment, reading should serve as a tool for comprehension. Oral reading is designed to assist children in learning to read correctly.
Youngsters need to read the chapter’s material to understand its themes. However, it is common practice to require pupils, particularly those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, to read aloud in front of the class, the teacher, and their peers.
The Round Robin Reading Strategy is one of the most widely used methods of oral reading (RRRS). Children are forced to read chunks of a chapter aloud, impromptu, without any prior rehearsal, in this method. In some ways, this may be beneficial, as kids can be taught to read correctly and become better readers.
Nevertheless, if the children cannot comprehend and grow apprehensive about the entire reading process, it will be of little use. Today, we will look at various viable alternatives to the Round Robin Reading practice.
Shipping calculated at checkout.