Playbooks® are the leading Reader's Theater materials!

Playbooks® have been used by 6 million students nationwide since 2001

WE BELIEVE THAT EVERY STUDENT SHOULD HAVE FUN LEARNING TO READ!

Playbooks® is the most popular social-interactive reading enrichment program in the nation with its patented Roleplay Reader® format of color-coded dialogue text, with easier and harder roles in the same story. Playbooks® materials have been making a difference in schools since 2001 and provide the most comprehensive tools for effective Reader's Theater implementation.

Thousands of schools and after-school and summer programs nationwide have purchased Playbooks® and used the role-play reading technique year after year, while positively affecting the reading skills of millions of students.

All American! All products printed and processed in the U.S.A.

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An Overview on Reader's Theater?

See an overview on how to use Reader's Theater in your classroom!

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Reader's Theater Methodology

Reader's Theater is a method of reading a story aloud, like a play, without memorization, props, or a stage. Students are each assigned a character role and read their part with expression, meaning, and enthusiasm. The method is best used in small, non-threatening groups of approximately 6 students so students can become practiced at their roles prior to reading/performing in front of a group or audience. 

Plays inherently come with built-in strategies to help students read better. The acting out of story dialogue compels readers to work more closely with the text to interpret and project meaning into the experience. As a result, students show improvement in vocabulary, comprehension, and retention. 

Repeated readings in multi-leveled small groups (high, medium, and low readers together) also provide the practice of "Repeated Guided Oral Reading" which is the only proven method of building reading fluency. Reader's Theater also meets 50 Common Core Standards!

Reader's Theater gives students an outlet for creative expression and a safe platform for building reading confidence, which translates into success in many other areas of their lives.

READ MORE ABOUT READER'S THEATER METHODOLOGY

Introducing

Why Playbooks®?

Playbooks® Reader's Theater stories are unique because each character's dialogue is presented in a different color throughout the story, and more importantly, the roles are written at different reading levels. This allows teachers to assign easier roles to younger or struggling students and harder roles to older or more advanced students while they all read the same story together in a small group.


According to a Loyola University study, word recognition and reading comprehension improves 27% when text is presented in color compared to bold text, and 35% when presented in color compared to contrasting fonts.


Reader's Theater Methodology & Playbooks® are widely applicable to a range of educational settings!

Our customers include the following types of programs and many more:

Why We Are the Best!

Patented Format

Playbooks® are the ONLY Reader's Theater books that are color coded and multi-level. Playbooks are easier to read and allows teachers to include students of different levels.

This specialized format is protected under U.S. Patent #7,456,834. Only Playbooks Publishing, Inc. can provide you this ultimate format. Don't settle for lesser copycats


Color-Coded

Each reader’s dialogue text, not just the name in the margin, appear in a different color, making it easier for students to follow their character roles, quickly see where their part starts and stops and how much they will read, and easily be prepared for their next turn to speak. This also helps to create a sense of ownership and security in their role which leads to increased reading confidence and involvement. Color does not represent the level of the role, however, so that students do not know they've been assigned an easier or harder role. 

Multi-Leveled

Easier and harder roles in the same story help students avoid stumbling in front of their peers, allowing them to read aloud with confidence and accuracy. Playbooks® multi-leveled character roles are edited using a proprietary leveled word dictionary and strict sentence structure guidelines, so students achieve ultimate success and fluency among their peers. We do not simply assess what an author has written to determine what level the text might be; we actually edit and level the roles!

Research Based

Research shows four repeated readings sufficiently improve reading fluency. Most traditional texts can NOT hold students’ attention for up to four separate readings. Reader’s Theater truly engages students and is the most popular form of “repeated guided oral reading”, creating a fun experience for students and teachers!  Check out the study for our Playbooks® program. 

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Playbooks® have Proven Outcomes!

CentroNia’s Community Engagement and Education Department in Washington, D.C. implemented Playbooks® Reader’s Theater curriculum to combat summer reading regression & reported great success!

Of the 175 students for whom they have both pre and post test data, 85% maintained or increased their reading levels over the summer!  Also, over 1/3 of these students actually INCREASED their reading levels! Their results were confirmed with alignment to student Fountas and Pinnell reading levels in the fall.

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Why Playbooks® Are Unique

Multi-Leveled & Color-Coded for Higher Engagement

Most of the Reader's Theater materials currently available are not multi-leveled or well-balanced, designed for too many readers, and can require too much preparation by the teacher. If they are "color-coded", only the name in the margin will be in color. With Playbooks®, each reader's complete dialogue text appears in a different color.


When the page only has the character name in the margin in color, a student cannot quickly identify where his or her part begins and ends. Don't accept inferior imitations of our multi-leveled and color-coded reader's theater. Only Playbooks® have this patented advanced format!

We are the only publisher that can provide Reader's Theater with the most important features for successful reading.

Color-coded text means each reader’s dialogue text, not just the name in the margin, appears in a different color, making it easier for students to follow their character roles, quickly see in the fraction of a second where their part starts and stops and how much they will read, and easily be prepared for their next turn to speak. This also helps to create a sense of ownership and security in their role, leading to increased reading confidence and involvement.

Color does not represent the level of the role, however, so that students do not know they've been assigned an easier or harder role. Character colors are selected randomly from Playbook® to Playbook®. Colorized dialogue text is important! According to a Loyola University study, word recognition and reading comprehension improves 27% when text is presented in color compared to bold text, and 35% when presented in color compared to contrasting fonts. Only Playbooks® can present actual dialogue text in different colors while also providing multi-leveled roles within the same story. This is a patented format, and this simple difference is important and can be crucial to ultimate student success.

Easier and harder roles in the same story help students avoid stumbling in front of their peers, allowing them to read aloud with confidence and accuracy. Playbooks® multi-leveled character roles are edited using a proprietary leveled word dictionary and strict sentence structure guidelines, so students achieve ultimate success and fluency among their peers. We do not simply assess what an author has written to determine what level the text might be; we actually edit and level the roles!

Playbooks® carefully balance character roles so that all readers participate throughout the entire story, even the struggling readers! The whole idea is to build reading confidence, fluency, and participation for all readers and not just give smaller, more insignificant roles to lower-level readers. Only Playbooks® include optional reader's theater games that provide additional reinforcement of story content and allows students to really ham it up!

No other publisher can legally duplicate our multi-leveled and color-coded format. So, go with the company that pioneered it!

PLAYBOOKS® In the Press

AfterSchool Today Magazine

Playbooks® is featured in another issue of AfterSchool Today magazine as is labeled: "What Afterschool is Using."

AfterSchool Today Magazine

Playbooks® founder and national reader's theater expert, Dianna Cleveland, wrote an article about the methodology of reader's theater in the premiere issue of AfterSchool Today magazine.

See Playbooks® In Action

Playbooks® In Classroom

See how we partnered with one group on their after school program.