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Choral Reading and Echo Reading are both classroom strategies to build reading fluency for students. In this article, you will learn more about each strategy, why they are beneficial, how to prepare for them and how to facilitate them in a classroom setting. To find out more about why reading fluency is an important skill, read this article.
What is Choral Reading?
Choral reading is an activity whereby the teacher and students read a given text together at the same time, so that it sounds like a chorus.
Why does choral reading help fluency?
Some of the benefits of choral reading are that students who are shy about reading aloud have the opportunity to practice reading aloud without the fear that their voice can be heard in case they read incorrectly. It also provides the opportunity for them to hear others read the same text. Choral reading also builds students’ confidence in reading out aloud.
How would you facilitate choral reading?
In a choral reading scenario, a teacher would project a text on a screen so that it is visible to all the students. Alternatively, all students would have their textbook open to the same page and passage. The teacher might read the entire text first as students listen. Then the teacher would explain to the students that as soon as s/he begins reading, the students should read along with him/her. If they are reading from a book, students should be encouraged to slide their fingers under the words as they read them. Choral reading allows the teacher to set the pace and prosody of reading, so that students can follow easily. Almost any text (fiction, poetry and textbook content) can be used for choral reading. Watch this video for an example of choral reading.
What is Echo Reading?
Echo reading is slightly different to choral reading, in that the students repeat the reaching after the teacher has read. So in this scenario, the teacher will read two to three sentences out loud with expression. After the teacher finishes, the students would then repeat what the teacher read, thereby creating an echo of the teacher.
Why does Echo reading help with fluency?
Similarly to choral reading, echo reading allows students to hear the correct pronunciation, phrasing, pace and prosody of text, before they attempt to read it. Echo reading works well with slightly more difficult text, so that the students hear how more complex words are pronounced before being asked to repeat them. When teachers read with the correct intonation, students have a model to follow of how sentences should sound. Similarly to choral reading, students should follow along with their fingers when echo reading. You can watch an example of echo reading here.
How to facilitate Echo Reading
The process of echo reading is much like choral reading, but instead of students reading at the same time, the teacher would read a few sentences And then the students would repeat those sentences.
When echo reading, the teacher should read enough sentences so that the students aren’t memorizing the words but actually reading them.
How to Prepare for Choral and Echo Reading
One of the most important parts of preparing for choral and echo reading is choosing the most suited texts for these activities. Here are some general guidelines.
Choosing texts for Choral and Echo Reading
When choosing texts for Choral and Echo reading, there are a few points to keep in mind
Most of the words in the text should be words that students are familiar with
A small proportion of words in the text should be unfamiliar so that students are challenged to read more complex words. In some cases, the teacher may want to pre-teach some of the more complicated words, both in terms of how to pronounce them and also explain their meaning.
Texts with dialogue provide opportunities for students to practice reading with expression and intonation.
Poems are wonderful for choral and echo reading and are a good way for students to enjoy and understand poetry.
Further Considerations
Although both activities are typically teacher-led, as students emerge as fluent readers, teachers can pick students to ‘lead’ choral and echo reading passages. Students can take turns to play the teacher role in these activities.
Both Choral and Echo Reading are easy-to-implement strategies for teachers to use in a classroom. Both strategies are known to improve reading fluency, expression, and comprehension of texts. They are also good ways to increase students' confidence in their reading.
To read more about Echo and Choral reading, here are. some resources you can look at. They include sample lesson plans, ideas and passages for practice.
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