If You Want Students to Read Widely and Well-Eliminate Round-Robin Reading

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CHAPTER 16
If You Want Students to Read Widely and Well—
Eliminate Round-Robin Reading
Kelly Johnson
Diane Lapp
Key Points for This Chapter
Round-robin reading does not support fluency or comprehension.•
Reading fluency can be enhanced as readers engage in echo •
reading, repeated readings, Readers’ Theatre, and neurological
impress.
Reciprocal teaching, collaborative conversations, and RAFT are •
strategies that support comprehension.
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF CLASSROOM PRACTICE
Because Mr. Lambert has many students who, for a myriad of reasons,
have difficulty reading the seventh-grade social studies text, he often asks
them to take turns reading a chapter aloud as a whole class. When reflect-
ing on this practice, he shared, “It’s hard to keep students focused when I
have them take turns with one after another reading.” Noting his students’
lack of engagement, he said, “The proficient readers just figure out when it
will be their turn, mark the paragraphs, and then read ahead; they really
aren’t with us.” When he added, “Those at grade level are often so bored
that they lose their place, and those below are sometimes too embarrassed
From Exemplary Instruction in the Middle Grades: Teaching That Supports Engagement and Rigorous Learning.
Edited by Diane Lapp and Barbara Moss. Copyright 2012 by The Guilford Press. All rights reserved.

Eliminating Round-Robin Reading 261
to read because the text is too hard for them,” it was obvious that this prac-
tice was not working well for anyone.
Realizing that there was a problem with this practice, Mr. Lambert
confided that he tries to make variations. He sometimes calls on each stu-
dent, and other times he asks the student who has just finished reading to
call on the next reader. Mr. Lambert thinks that by having his students take
turns reading out loud, from the same text, they are building their reading
fluency and comprehension. Even though he’s not completely comfortable
with this practice, he believes that it allows him the opportunity to “fill
in” the unknown words or concepts that seem to be interfering with each
student’s comprehension. He feels it also makes most of the students “pay
attention” because they don’t know when they will be called upon to read.
DEFINING THE TARGETED PRACTICE
The instructional practices that Mr. Lambert is questioning are called
round-robin and popcorn reading. Round-robin reading is defined in The
Literacy Dictionary as “the outmoded practice of calling on students to
read orally one after the other” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 222). Popcorn
reading is similar, except that students call on one another to read.
WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY
ABOUT ROUND-ROBIN AND POPCORN READING?
The research is quite negative regarding round-robin reading as a positive
instructional practice. In fact, Opitz and Rasinski (1998) suggested that
it may even cause students to subvocalize while reading along with the
student who is doing the oral reading. The result of subvocalizing is that
instead of supporting fluency it may have just the opposite effect of caus-
ing readers to slow down their silent reading in order to keep pace with
the oral reader who is reading at a markedly slower pace. In addition to
slowing down the silent reader, this practice suggests to students that how
reading sounds—how they pronounce the words—is more important than
grasping the meaning being conveyed by the text (Kelly, 1995). Hoping to
sound proficient to their classmates, the oral reader who is often nervous,
anxious, and embarrassed (Sloan & Lotham, 1981) focuses more on word-
by-word reading, which only impedes fluency and comprehension (Dane-
man, 1991).
Many educators agree that reading is comprehending, and, if not com-
prehending the student is merely word calling. Being a proficient reader
involves one’s ability to construct meaning by using prior knowledge of

262 ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE LEARNING ROUTINES
the topic and language to interact with the message shared by the author
(Flood, Lapp, Mraz, & Wood, 2006; Pressley, 2000). Popcorn and round-
robin reading do not support comprehension; in fact, round-robin reading
was found to hinder comprehension because of its overemphasis on decod-
ing and word accuracy (Gill, 2002). This is not to suggest that oral read-
ing does not have a significant place in instruction. Indeed, findings from
the National Reading Panel (NRP; National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development, 2000) suggest that teachers should provide opportu-
nities for students to read aloud while receiving feedback and guidance.
Rasinski and Hoffman (2003) suggest that oral reading, found to
enhance fluency (i.e., the ability to decode and pronounce words automati-
cally), does have a positive effect on comprehension, especially for begin-
ning readers who through oral reading and listening to an expert reader,
are able to see the connections between spoken and written texts (Graves,
1983). Oral reading is also an appropriate practice for struggling readers
(Swartz & Klein, 1997) and older readers (Rasinski & Padak, 2005), as
teachers listen and assess the next steps in their instruction. The key to facil-
itating positive effects for all students from reading aloud is that it occurs
voluntarily, in a low- anxiety environment (McCauley & McCauley, 1992),
while being paired with a proficient reader (Osborn & Lehr, 2004) who can
serve as a model of fluent reading. Our intent here is to offer instructional
alternatives that support the benefits of oral reading while eliminating the
negative consequences of round-robin and popcorn reading.
WHAT ARE SOME ALTERNATIVES?
To begin identifying alternatives, let’s consider the reasons Mr. Lambert
uses round-robin and popcorn reading as instructional practices. His first
reason was that he believes these develop reading fluency. As you think
about this, do you see the fallacy? How is it possible to develop fluency
when the text is not at the independent reading level for many of the stu-
dents? Second, fluency involves mimicking a fluent reader. Most of the stu-
dents in this class are not serving as a model of fluency because they can-
not read the text either fluently or accurately. Finally, Mr. Lambert is not
modeling for his students how a proficient reader sounds or interacts with
a text; instead, he is interrupting their reading to offer explanations, cor-
rect pronunciations, offer word definitions, call attention to punctuation
problems, and clarify comprehension confusions. His well- intended inter-
ruptions deter any possibility for fluent reading.
Mr. Lambert’s second reason for using round-robin reading is that
he thinks that as he hears the students reading aloud, he is able to eradi-
cate any comprehension problems. Since there is no conversation occurring

Eliminating Round-Robin Reading 263
among the students and him about the information being read, it’s unlikely
that Mr. Lambert is really able to assess any of the students’ comprehension
strengths or needs. Also, he is only hearing them read a couple of times for
a very limited amount of time. What he is really observing is that the text
may be at the frustrational or instructional levels for many of the students,
and therefore round-robin or popcorn reading is an inappropriate strategy
to support comprehension development.
Finally, Mr. Lambert said that round-robin or popcorn reading causes
students to attend to the text because of fear of embarrassment. While try-
ing to anticipate when it might be their turn, students are not concentrat-
ing on the text or what their peer is reading. Instead they may be reading
ahead to gain familiarity with the text so that they will not be surprised by
unknown words when it is their turn. Nervous anticipation is certainly not
motivating. Popcorn reading also encourages students to catch their peers
who are not attending and subsequently embarrass them.
Since Mr. Lambert’s purpose for using popcorn and round-robin
reading to motivate instruction that supports students’ reading fluency
and comprehension was not being met, let’s consider other, more efficient
instructional practices that he might implement.
Fluency
To begin to develop fluency, students must be reading a text at their inde-
pendent reading levels. This supports their being able to decode efficiently
and thus allows them to place their focus on comprehending what they
are reading. Additionally, students need to hear a model of fluent reading
(Shaywitz, 2003). This can occur through listening to:
1. Repeated reading, which involves repeating a reading modeled first
by the teacher or another proficient reader.
2. Choral reading, which means reading together with others who are
proficient readers.
3. Echo reading, or the student echoing or repeating what the profi-
cient reader has just read.
4. Readers’ Theatre involves a dramatic reading of a text or script by
the students.
5. Neurological impress, which involves the student and teacher read-
ing together while tracking words.
Let’s look inside other middle school classrooms for examples of how
teachers are using instruction other than popcorn or round robin reading
to develop students’ reading fluency which means their ability to read effi-
ciently, rapidly, and precisely.

264 ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE LEARNING ROUTINES
Repeated Readings
Rather than use round-robin or popcorn reading, Mr. Lambert could have
used repeated readings to improve his students’ fluency. Repeated readings
(Samuels, 1979, p. 404) is the process of “rereading a short, meaningful pas-
sage several times until a satisfactory level of fluency is reached.” Research
findings (Kuhn & Stahl, 2000; O’Shea, McQuiston, & McCollin, 2009;
Valleley & Shriver, 2003) identified repeated readings as an instructional
practice that supported the fluency development of students in both elemen-
tary and advanced grade levels.
To use the strategy of repeated readings, Mr. Lambert could first have
directed his students’ attention to the social studies passage they were study-
ing. After setting the purpose, he could have asked his students to silently
read the passage. Next, paired with a partner, one student could have taken
a turn reading the paragraph while the other listened. The two could have
then repeated this process, with the listener becoming the reader. To be sure
that the students were also comprehending, Mr. Lambert could have set a
timer for 10 seconds during which the paired students could have shared a
retell. As the students read, listened, and engaged in retelling, Mr. Lambert
could have circulated among them listening in to assess their fluency and
comprehension. He could also have had them write their retelling, which
he could also have quickly read. If he had detected that they were having
difficulty with reading fluently or comprehending, he could have modeled
both the reading and retelling processes for them.
The repeated reading process continues as students pair with different
partners to again take a turn reading or listening to the text and then sum-
marizing it. If Mr. Lambert had assessed that the students needed to reread
the passage yet again in order to gain fluency for comprehension, he could
have asked students to read the same paragraph again silently or through
whisper reading. This process would have given students an opportunity to
read a selected paragraph multiple times; each time the student heard and
read the paragraph read aloud, fluency was improved.
Choral Reading
Another research- supported strategy (Cox & Shrigley, 1980; Dowhower,
1987; Gamby, 1987) Mr. Lambert could have used with his students is
choral reading, also referred to as unison reading. Found to support the
development of students’ abilities to sound out words, read fluently, and
comprehend (Homan, Klesius, & Hite, 1993; Mefferd & Pettegrew, 1997),
choral reading involves the teacher and students looking at the same text
and reading in unison as much as possible. Sometimes students will read
slightly behind the teacher’s voice because they are not as familiar with

Eliminating Round-Robin Reading 265
the text. Because the paragraphs in the social studies text were several
sentences long, Mr. Lambert could have chosen headings, subheadings,
repeated phrases, and/or captions to choral read with his students. Read-
ing entire paragraphs together can be difficult and often results in some
students reading ahead and some falling behind. Reading parts of a text
together as a whole group is also an effective engagement strategy since all
voices are heard in unison. Ideally, there is little room for side conversations
or off-task behavior if the entire class is reading all together.
Echo Reading
In echo reading the teacher and students have the same text; the teacher
reads one part alone and the students immediately reread aloud that same
part of text. This can include a word, sentence, caption, heading, and so on.
Mr. Lambert could have used echo reading to model for students how flu-
ent readers sound. This is also an excellent engagement strategy because the
“sea of voices” often keeps students attending to the text. Teachers should
chunk the text carefully. If too much of a text is read first by the teacher
at one time, the students can get lost and/or forget how that chunk should
sound. Echo reading been found to support the development of both flu-
ency and comprehension fluency (Dowhower, 1994) and to be an effective
oral reading intervention (Stahl & Heubach, 2005).
Readers’ Theatre
Readers’ Theatre is another highly motivating instructional strategy with a
sound research base (Worthy & Prater, 2002; Young & Rasinski, 2009) that
Mr. Lambert could have used to improve his students’ fluency and engage-
ment. Readers’ Theatre is a way to involve students in reading aloud as
they “perform” by reading scripts created from narrative and non- narrative
text. These performances are usually done while students hold their scripts
in their hands; no memorization of lines, costumes, or props are needed.
Mr. Lambert could have taken the chapter from the text his students were
reading and created a script. Creating Readers’ Theatre scripts is a great
way to differentiate instruction because more fluent students can take on
the parts that have a lot of lines and struggling readers could take on a role
in the script that has fewer lines. For tips on writing and performing Read-
ers’ Theatre in your classroom and a variety of downloadable scripts, visit
www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html.
Just like actors on stage, Mr. Lambert’s students could have improved
their fluency and comprehension of the text because the script would have
been read several times prior to “performing” in front of the class. Readers’

266 ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE LEARNING ROUTINES
Theatre groups should also provide a retelling and a summary of their
script so that comprehension can be assessed.
Each of these instructional practices would have allowed students to
listen to a fluent reader and then to practice what they were hearing multi-
ple times, in a nonthreatening manner. Throughout each oral reading event
they would have been able to practice reading the way they had heard an
expert reader reading. Together they and Mr. Lambert could have noted
pace, tone, phrasing, and expression. While reading, Mr. Lambert could
also have identified new content and academic vocabulary and invited stu-
dents to repeat these. Through these oral reading activities, these students
would have been supported to move their attention from word-level decod-
ing to fluency and comprehension (Hoffman, 1987). After modeling his
reading with his students, Mr. Lambert could have listened to see if they
were also becoming more fluent. Additionally, he could have had a conver-
sation with them about his reading, and what they thought they needed
to do in order to also be more fluent readers. This approach would have
supported their metacognitve development as they reflected on themselves
as readers who have the goal to become fluent readers. This level of engage-
ment would have ensured that students were focused participants because
they would have had to be attending to the task at all times.
Neurological Impress Method
If, after modeling and practicing fluent oral reading with a whole class
or groups within the class, a teacher assesses that an individual student
still needs additional practice, he or she can use the neurological impress
method (NIM) to support the student’s fluency development. This method,
which was developed by Heckelman (1969), has been found to be a very
effective practice for developing reading fluency while not sacrificing com-
prehension (Flood, Lapp, & Fisher, 2005; Klauda & Guthrie, 2008; Miller
& Schwanenflugel, 2008). NIM involves the teacher and student reader
together, tracking words as they read. Here’s how the NIM works:
1. Identify the text segment that you and the student will be reading.
The identified material should be read by having the student place
his or her finger on yours as you track the words together. For older
students, you may want to track together using a pencil or some
other type of pointer.
2. Begin by inviting the student to sit slightly in front of you so that
you can point to the text the student is reading and also so that
you can read directly into the student’s ear. If the student is right-
handed, read into his or her left ear. Do the opposite for a left-

Eliminating Round-Robin Reading 267
handed student. To ensure success, begin with easy reading materi-
als. As the student’s confidence and fluency develop, the difficulty
level can be increased.
3. Before beginning to read, explain that you are going to take the lead
in reading the material and that the student is to read along with
you as you point to the words. Start reading at a slightly slower
pace than normal for you. While reading, be sure to point to each
word. Do not vary the procedure even if the student complains that
you are going too quickly. You want the student to practice reading
fluently while hearing a proficient reader (you) do so.
4. Use NIM with the student for 5–15 minutes two to four times per
day. As you begin to notice that the student’s fluency is improving,
increase your rate until you reach your normal reading rate.
NIM is a multisensory approach of hearing, seeing, reading, and say-
ing the word, and, like the other practices we have identified, it supports
reading fluency. These are practices that Mr. Lambert could effectively use
with individuals, groups, and his whole class to accomplish his goal of sup-
porting the reading fluency of his students.
Comprehension
Mr. Lambert was also intent on supporting each student’s comprehension.
To do so a teacher must first understand each student’s reading strengths
and needs in relationship to the text and topic being studied. Although this
may be a difficult task for teachers who teach six periods of 35 students each
day, it must be realized that if the instruction is too easy or too difficult for
most of the class, then only a few are really receiving any instruction.
Mr. Lambert probably was using round-robin reading because it is
easy to implement and also because his teachers had used it. Even though he
had been taught more efficient instructional practices, he, like many teach-
ers, returns to the ways he was taught (Ash, Kuhn, & Walpole, 2009; Hill,
1983) even when he knows it is not having a positive impact on his students
(Beach, 1993). Teachers take this route because of their familiarity and
ease with a practice and, in the case of round-robin reading, because they
can hear the strategies the student is using to decode an unfamiliar word
(Eldredge, Reutzel, & Hollingsworth, 1996). However, they cannot decide
anything about the student’s comprehension because there is no conversa-
tion after the student finishes orally reading his or her segment of the text.
While it is very important for teachers to accurately assess a student’s
performance during reading, this information can be more efficiently gained
by listening to the student read individually or in a small-group reading set-
ting that does not submit the adolescent reader to embarrassment if he or

268 ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE LEARNING ROUTINES
she stumbles while reading. This smaller format also gives the teacher an
opportunity to gain insights about the student’s comprehension by interact-
ing with the reader at the completion of reading.
Reciprocal Teaching
In order to improve his students’ comprehension, Mr. Lambert could have
used reciprocal teaching with them. Reciprocal teaching, which has a sound
research base (Hashey & Connors, 2003; Palinscar & Brown, 1984; Slater
& Horstman, 2002), places students in groups of four with each taking on
the role of (1) predictor, (2) questioner, (3) clarifier, or (4) summarizer. As
students read the targeted text in groups of four, they stop periodically to
“teach” the information to each other by predicting upcoming information,
asking questions, clarifying confusing information, and summarizing as a
means of self- review. As students are working in these reciprocal teaching
groups, Mr. Lambert would be free to visit each group and listen in on the
conversations the participants are having. This practice provides a better
picture of how well students understand the text and if reteaching is neces-
sa r y.
Let’s look inside another social studies class and listen in to a group of
students who are using reciprocal teaching as a way to engage in a conver-
sation about medieval Europe.
Pr e D i c t o r : I think this section of the chapter will talk about how the
people in the towns worked in different jobs. The picture on this
page shows one person baking and one person making shoes.
Qu e s t i o n e r : I wonder how much they got paid in those days.
su M M a r i z e r : Let’s read and see what it says and if we’re correct. (Stu-
dents read the section on Medieval Europe and the towns.)
Qu e s t i o n e r : I was right. It does say that people worked as bakers and
made shoes. The shoes were made out of leather.
su M M a r i z e r : Yes, this section was about how people in the Middle
Ages worked in many jobs. One other job was farming, and the
methods they used for farming weren’t efficient.
Qu e s t i o n e r : What’s that mean? Efficient?
cLa r ifi er : Doesn’t it mean that the ways they used to farm weren’t
that good?
su M M a r i z e r a n D Pr e D i c t o r : YES!
su M M a r i z e r : So many people worked as farmers until the farming
methods became efficient. Then they didn’t need so many farmers,
so some of the people became bakers, shoemakers, and weavers.

Eliminating Round-Robin Reading 269
cLa r ifi er : So the townspeople weren’t farmers for a very long time . . .
just until the land got better. Then many more jobs were available
for these people.
Pr e D i c t o r : I bet the next section of this chapter will tell about how
people traded the things they made.
As these students interacted, it was obvious that they were compre-
hending the material as they asked questions, clarified issues, summarized
information, and made predictions about the content in the next sections
of the text. Unlike popcorn reading, reciprocal teaching gave these students
an authentic reason to engage with the text and each other.
Collaborative Groups
There is considerable research suggesting that students learn best when
they are actively involved in the learning process (Johnson, Johnson, St.
Anne, & Garibaldi, 1990). Such engagement occurs as students work in
small groups because they are focused, participate more, and therefore tend
to learn and retain more of the information being taught (Frey, Fisher, &
Allen, 2009; Garmston & Wellman, 2009; Gillies, 2008).
As they studied the topic of the Renaissance period in Mr. Lambert’s
seventh-grade social studies class, he could have invited his students to
form heterogeneous collaborative groups as a way to study the topic of, for
example, reopening the ancient “Silk Road” between Europe and China.
The purpose of reading such a text would be to study Marco Polo’s travels
and the location of his routes.
Since not all students could read the text equally well, Mr. Lambert
either could have assigned one student as the reader, or he could have secured
several texts on the topic that were at varying degrees of difficulty. Texts to
meet the reading levels of all students could include (1) a passage from the
Internet titled Marco Polo and his Travels (www.silk-road.com/artl/mar-
copolo.shtml) and Cath Senker’s Marco Polo’s Travels on Asia’s Silk Road
(2007; Great Journeys Across Earth series). Some examples of tasks that
collaborative groups could have completed to evidence their understanding
of the assigned text they were reading together include the following:
Group 1• : Write a rap/song about Marco Polo’s birth and growing
up.
Group 2• : Using construction paper, make a travel brochure. Stu-
dents could include information about China, Mongolia, and the
long and difficult journey to Cathay.
Group 3• : Create and act out a skit or dramatic representation about

270 ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE LEARNING ROUTINES
Marco Polo’s journey home to Venice after traveling for 17 years.
Students could act out this sea journey chronicling many of the theo-
ries of how 600 passengers died. They could then perform this on
Photo Booth as a way to share with their classmates. Photo Booth
is a video and recording application designed by Apple for the Mac
computer. Students can use Photo Booth to create a video essay.
Group 4• : Students could research and create an iMovie about Marco
Polo’s captivity and time spent in prison in 1295.
Within each group, roles could be assigned to ensure equal distribution
of tasks. Each group could be assessed using the rubric in Figure 16.1. With
different texts each student could have silently read the text and then shared
the information. This approach would have ensured that all students were
reading, which is one of the reasons that Mr. Lambert had initially been
using popcorn reading.
The important point to remember when encouraging students to work
cooperatively in groups is to design tasks where all students have a role,
and no one student dominates the discussion or completes all the work
(Lapp, Fisher, & Wolsey, 2009). This also allows the teacher to assess both
the participation of individuals as well as the group. In order to maximize
Emerging Developing Proficient
Content Student’s project
contains few facts
about the Silk Road.
Students project
contains several facts
about the Silk Road.
Students project
contains at least five
facts about the Silk
Road.
Organization Student’s project is
difficult to understand
and unorganized.
Student’s project
is somewhat easy
to understand, and
it is organized in a
coherent manner.
Student’s project is
easy to understand,
and it is organized in a
coherent manner.
Collaboration Student groups seldom
work cooperatively and
productively.
Student groups work
cooperatively and
productively most of
the time.
Student groups work
cooperatively and
productively all of the
time.
Presentation While presenting
projects, students
seldom spoke clearly
or loudly.
While presenting
projects, students
spoke clearly, loudly,
and answered
questions accurately
most of the time.
While presenting
projects, students
spoke clearly, loudly,
and answered
questions accurately
all of the time.
FIGURE 16.1. Differentiated tasks within a collaborative group.

Eliminating Round-Robin Reading 271
student productivity, limit collaborative groups to three or four students.
One efficient way to ensure that each group member makes a contribution
to the project is to ask each to use a different- colored marker or pen and
then to sign his or her name on the product in the same color as his or her
contribution.
Jigsaw
Another effective strategy that supports collaboration and that Mr. Lam-
bert could have used to ensure his students’ comprehension is described as
a jigsaw activity (Aronson & Patnoe, 1997; Bridgeman, 1981; Hampton,
Wallace, Keele, & Lee, 2009). To use jigsaw grouping, Mr. Lambert first
could have divided the social studies reading passage into four or five sec-
tions. Next he could have divided the class into groups of four or five stu-
dents. Each group called an “expert” group is given one part of the text to
read and learn. The purpose of these expert groups is to enable students
to read, discuss, and help each other study the material in their section.
Then they are redivided into “home” groups. Each home group consists of
representatives from each of the expert groups. Each member of the newly
formed home group teaches and shares his or her part of the text with the
others (see Figure 16.2). The time given to the sharing phase depends on the
difficulty and length of the material.
Jigsaw is an effective grouping strategy that ensures student participa-
tion because each member of the group is dependent on the others for part
of the information, which supports their attending to the text and also the
work of their peers.
RAFT
To ensure and assess his students’ comprehension, Mr. Lambert could have
assigned each group of students to write a RAFT (Santa & Havens, 1995)
which would have provided a scaffold to support their writing while also
Expert Groups: All the A’s get the first part of the
passage. The B’s get the second, and so on. AA
AA
BB
BB
CC
CC
DD
DD
Home Groups: Each member reports back to the
group. Each member is an “expert” in his or her
section or topic.
AB
CD
AB
CD
AB
CD
AB
CD
FIGURE 16.2. Jigsaw groups.

272 ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE LEARNING ROUTINES
ensuring the perspective that when doing real writing, there is an audience.
RAFT is an acronym that stands for:
R = role of the writer
A = audience
F = format
T = topic
Each group in Mr. Lambert’s class could take on a different RAFT writ-
ing assignment, which could then have been shared with the whole class.
To develop these assignments, the students could each have silently read a
segment of the text which they then discussed or they could have chorally
read the text together. How they read the text could have been based on
how fluent the group was as readers. This production would have evidenced
their comprehension of the material they were sharing in their group. Some
of these assignments could include the following:
R = Marco Polo
A = Italians
F = Letter
T = 24-year journey to Asia
R = Christopher Columbus
A = Marco Polo
F = List
T = Ways Columbus inspired Polo
R = Marco Polo
A = Marco’s family
F = Will
T = How Marco’s assets will be divided
CONCLUSION
Like Mr. Lambert, we and others (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974) believe that
as we observe the oral reading proficiency of students, we are able to assess
their fluency at automatically attaching sounds to letters, synthesizing these
sounds into words, and connecting the words to phrases and then to larger
chunks of discourse. In order to also assess comprehension, we believe that
students must be invited to retell and to share and extend their thinking
through productive collaborative talk (Lyle, 2008). As they do so, we are
able view their cognitive processing of the targeted information, which in

Eliminating Round-Robin Reading 273
turn provides the data needed to plan subsequent instruction. The instruc-
tional practices we’ve shared engage students in productive reading and
collaboration—two activities that Langer noted support “student achieve-
ment in reading, writing and English” during their middle and high school
years (2001, p. 838).
ADDITIONAL LESSON EXAMPLES
The following lesson examples from ReadWriteThink support oral reading, flu-
ency, and comprehension development and offer additional alternatives to popcorn
and round-robin reading.
Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization
www.readwritethink.org/classroom- resources/lesson-plans/audio- broadcasts-
podcasts-oral-901.html
Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project
www.readwritethink.org/classroom- resources/lesson-plans/investigating-
h o l o c a u s t - c o l l a b o r a t i v e - i n q u i r y - 4 1 6 . h t m l
The Reading Performance: Understanding Fluency through Oral Interpretation
www.readwritethink.org/classroom- resources/lesson-plans/reading-
performance- understanding- fluency-28.html
Standard Lessons
www.readwritethink.org/classroom- resources/lesson-plans/poet-shoes-
performing- poetry-78.htm
TRADE BOOK CITED IN TEXT
Senker, C. (2007). Marco Polo’s Travels on Asia’s Silk Road. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
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