This activity takes a little time and explaining to catch on, but when you do, both you and your kids will greatly enjoy it. You will need a book with lots of dialogue and the number of characters that matches (or is close to) the number of participants. The more participants you have, the better – everyone will be involved, and even those who do not get a part to read will be busy watching the others and listening.
What you do is you assign each person to be a certain character from the book. They will read the words of that particular character whenever he/she speaks up. You will also assign someone to be the Author; this person will read all the narrative, descriptions and remarks inside of dialogues. I recommend that you choose the most advanced reader for this part since he usually starts the story and does most of the watching of who reads next. It is probably best if you will be the Author yourself when you first start.
Here is how you do it. Imagine that you are going to read the following passage:
It was dark and scary in the barn.
“I’m not going there,” Tim said.
Jenny laughed and teased, “Chicken!”
You will assign one person to be the Author, another one to be Tim, and another one to be Jenny. The Author starts, reading, “It was dark and scary in the barn.” Then he stops and waits for the person playing Tim to read his part. It may take some time for “Tim” to figure that it is now his turn to read, and he might need to be prompted (which is okay; it will be happening less and less as your children catch on and get the taste of this activity). Now, the person playing Tim reads, “I’m not going in there.” Here he needs to stop. If he is new to this, he will probably attempt to go on and read the words “Tim said” as well – but those are the Author’s words, so “Tim” needs to stop. The Author reads, “Tim said. Jenny laughed and teased”… Then the Author stops, allowing the person who plays Jenny to step in and read her part, “Chicken!”
It will start slow, and there will be some mistakes and long pauses at first. Be patient. Start with a well-familiar story that your children have already read. You may also want to let them read it again after the roles are assigned, so that they can prepare and pick their lines. Give the shortest and easiest parts to your youngest kids, they will be delighted to be involved. If your youngest ones cannot read yet, they can just sit there and listen.
You will be surprised how quickly the children understand what role-playing reading is about and grow to enjoy it. You can pretend that you are doing a radio show, or recording an audio book – or you can actually make one! This would be a very exciting project. Assign the roles, spend some time practicing, and then record your reading on a tape, CD, or “.wav” file on your computer. Imagine how happy your children will be to have done their own audio book, with their names on the cover – and drawing a nice cover can be another engaging task.