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Joey Bruno, left, and Brent Burns, first graders at McNair Elementary School’s summer school, read their lines from “New Frog in the Pond” during a readers’ theatre performance.

Kindergarten through fifth grade summer school students at McNair Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District showed off their reading skills during two sessions of readers’ theatre.

“Readers’ theatre is all about using your voice to make literature come to life,” McNair Summer School Site Coordinator Philip Pietroburgo told the audience of parents, grandparents and guests. “The emphasis is to give children a chance to express themselves.”

In readers’ theatre, the focus is less on props, costumes and make-up and more on projecting the actors’ voice, with or without a microphone.

Kindergarten students began one session with a short piece called “Sunflowers.” They each wore a sunflower design that hung from strings around their necks. The first grade followed, reprising the sunflowers piece in its own way, along with additional stories of “Fish School” and “New Frog in the Pond.”

Some of the older students participated in longer acts. “The Statue of Liberty” featured a TV newscaster and cameraman, a father and his two children, the famous statue and others. It gave this large cast of students many lines. At one point, the students recited the famous statue’s facts and figures – one of the statue’s two index fingers is eight feet long.

Hannah Ratty, who will start fourth grade at McNair this fall, portrayed the newscaster.

“I tried not to be nervous,” she said of her role. “I would really like to see the Statue of Liberty up close to see how big she really is.”

“Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue” allowed the fourth and fifth grade students a chance to
not only act but to speak with a Texas accent. Pecos Bill is a legendary cowboy, immortalized in tall tales of the American Wild West that boast about his abilities and courage.

Jamie Foelsing, an incoming fifth grade student at McNair, played a supporting role as one of the Texans in the Pecos Bill story.

“I thought it was easy at first to speak with a Texas accent but once I got more into it, I forgot how the accent worked so I had to try again,” Foelsing said. “It was challenging, trying to make my voice loud enough and use my Texas voice at the same time.”

Foelsing said she might want to visit Texas one day, as she has a family member who lives there.

Zachary Moravec, who will start sixth grade at Hazelwood West Middle School this fall, played the role of Jack, the narrator for the Pecos Bill story.

“I couldn’t say anything in that accent without going back to my normal voice,” he said. “Our teacher helped me with that. I like how the Texas accent is different from ours.”

“Readers’ Theatre is a powerful tool for promoting literacy development,” Pietroburgo said.

“One of its greatest benefits is that it brings the words on the pages of a story to life. Children add their interpretive imagination to text in order to deliver their lines with expression and body language. This makes reading more meaningful and fun. It also creates a model for children to use when they read independently. Even when our reading is silent, the voices in our minds can be lively and distinctive for each character.” (story courtesy of Hzelwood District Communications dept.)

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