The Me They Hardly See (Grades 2-4)

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. Check out our special format below.

Playbooks® are the ONLY Reader's Theater books that are color coded and multi-level. Playbooks® are easier to read and allow 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. 

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 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. 

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 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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