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Popcorn reading, which is also known as Round-Robin reading, is a classroom practice in which students go around the room taking turns reading a text out loud. Typically this is done with longer passages, like textbook chapters or chapters in a book of fiction. The very short version of my message today is that popcorn reading is a terrible practice and you should stop doing it.
We’ll get into why it’s ineffective, and what to do instead, in a minute. First let’s talk about why we use this practice.
When I subjected my students to popcorn reading—and I did occasionally do it when I was an English teacher, because I didn’t know any better back then—I did it for a few reasons. First, it was a way of “getting through” content consistently; if everyone was listening to the same text at the same time, they were therefore all learning it. No one was getting ahead, no one was falling behind. The other reason, honestly? It kept everyone still and quiet. And for a teacher, keeping everyone still and quiet is sometimes an absolute necessity, especially when you don’t have a lot of effective teaching and classroom management strategies at your disposal. Other teachers have reported that they use it because students like it and because it provides reading and listening practice. When we look at its lack of actual effectiveness, we’ll see that most of these reasons fall apart.
So what’s wrong with it? I’ll just give you the three most important reasons, which are backed by research you’ll find below.
- It’s terrible for comprehension. Listening to a text read aloud, with multiple interruptions, by readers at various skill levels, is a recipe for awful reading comprehension.
- It delays fluency development. Yes, both emerging and experienced readers need practice in reading aloud, but doing it in the high-pressure environment of a popcorn reading session is not the ideal scenario for that to happen.
- It creates anxiety and reduces confidence for less-skilled readers. Those who are already proficient may enjoy the opportunity to practice and perform, but others usually feel a great deal of anxiety and humiliation during popcorn reading. Not only does this interfere with the comprehension that was supposed to happen during the reading, it also reinforces negative beliefs they may already have about their skills as readers.
So what should we be doing instead? This paper by Johnson and Lapp and this article by Todd Finley both offer a long list of alternative practices, but I’ll give you just a few here:
- If you’re trying to develop fluency, try echo reading, where the instructor reads one short part of the text, and the student repeats after them. This can be done one-on-one or with a whole class. By modeling what a proficient reader sounds like, it gives students more practice in good reading with expression, rather than just decoding on their own.
- If you want students to actually comprehend the text, try reciprocal teaching, a small group strategy in which students read small chunks of the text then take turns with the jobs of summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Independent silent reading, with appropriate scaffolding like anticipation guides and guided notes, works toward the ultimate goal of having students become independent readers.
- Finally, teacher read-aloud offers all kinds of benefits: Students hear the text read correctly and smoothly, so they can build an understanding of the text without constant interruption. This also models for them what proficient reading aloud sounds like, so they are only getting good examples, rather than being forced to listen to hours of less-skilled reading.
Research:
Ash, G. E., Kuhn, M. R., & Walpole, S. (2008). Analyzing “inconsistencies” in practice: Teachers’ continued use of round robin reading. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25(1), 87-103. [link to PDF]
Hill, C. H. (1983). Round robin reading as a teaching method. Reading Improvement, 20(4), 263. [link to abstract]
Johnson, K. (2012). If You Want Students to Read Widely and Well—Eliminate Round-Robin Reading. Exemplary Instruction in the Middle Grades: Teaching That Supports Engagement and Rigorous Learning.(260-273). Edited by Diane Lapp and Barbara Moss. [link to PDF]
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Jennifer, thanks for all the great articles and passion about our profession through these tough times. I have to disagree here though, because this technique is just one of many and it is not a bad one. First, we should not avoid asking students to do anything that makes them the slightest bit uncomfortable. They should be in the slightly stimulated zone between comfort and panic (https://medium.com/redsquirrel-tech/optimal-learning-exists-between-comfort-and-panic-142caa0ba0cf). Secondly, we read CONSTANTLY in school and we just don’t have time to make every passage a complex activity with summarizing and so on. Thirdly, the suggestion that the teacher simply reads brings us back to the much maligned teacher-centric lesson. We need to have many tools in our toolkit, and there is no reason to demonize this one. My take after 29 years in the primary classroom!
Hi Joanna,
As a first-grade teacher myself (32 years, retired), I understand the importance of having kids read aloud. Not only is this a way for them to practice reading with fluency and voice, but it also lets us listen in and assess individual needs. Then we can pull the strategies from our toolbox that can meet those needs. It’s just that popcorn reading isn’t the way to go.
We do want kids working at their zone of proximal development, where that bit of struggle takes place. But we should be supporting that struggle during some kind of guided practice, strategy group, or 1:1 conference, not a popcorn read. This is especially true for struggling readers and readers with dyslexia.
The activities we ask kids to do don’t need to always be complex – if developing comprehension, then yes, summarizing might be something to work on, but you could also ask kids to partner read and talk about things they learn from the pictures that they can’t learn from the text. That’s an activity that is intentional and super easy to implement.
I’m also just wondering if we’re talking about the same thing when it comes to read aloud. Are you talking about a teacher just reading large chunks of text for the kids, followed by a bunch of comprehension questions? If so, then, no, that’s not the intention of a read aloud. As mentioned in the episode, reading aloud to kids, whether that’s a picture book or a novel during (interactive) read aloud is an effective way to model fluency and voice and support kids with opportunities for deeper thinking.
Sometimes, after we’ve been doing something for a really long time, it’s hard to give it up, especially if we think it’s good practice. If you haven’t already, whenever you get a moment, maybe take a look at some of the research found in the written version of the podcast.
Yikes, there is SO much research about why popcorn reading is not effective. Emphasizing unrehearsed reading and correcting misspelled words, which most often occurs when using round robin reading, risks leaving students with an understanding that reading is more about accurate word calling than it is about comprehension. Also, for some children, reading out loud is the single most-feared classroom activity. Poor readers lose self-esteem when required to read out loud.
The key is slightly anxious, not overly stimulated in a bit of panic. I am a Reading Specialisr with 24 years of exerience. I have had so many students that I have assessed and have had so many work with me in grades 2-8. All of the reluctant readers, without exception, test much more poorly than those who are more experienced and proficient reading aloud. Other students tease, probably out of our earshots. Reading is a key to all other subjects and unless a student who reads aloud poorly has a real aptitude for another subject, he or she is branded as a poor student. I teach middle school now and have had at least 7 students tell me that they hare reading, test as low readers, and after working with them in a small group reading aloud, they are much bettter and more confident and it will not take a considerable amount of time to do this if several groups do this simultaneously, as in guided reading.. Students are much more important than covering curriculum. Have them experience some stress in other areas please!
Thanks for this!
Do you think that it’s effective for students to silently read the text as the teacher reads aloud?
Sometimes I encourage my students to read the transcript while listening to a TEDtalk presentation, assuming it will help them to comprehend more–but maybe not–?
Just wondering if there’s any research on this or what your thoughts are. Thanks 🙂
Hi Kathy, it does seem that while popcorn reading may not be as helpful as we used to think, that reading while listening is actually a good practice. Here’s a link to an article that talks about this in more detail: Read Along While You Listen- Listenwise Blog Hope this helps!
Through my experiences as a student myself and even as an adult, popcorn reading has never helped me to comprehend anything. The main reason being that even though I was a good reader I would get super anxious (and still do now) when speaking aloud in the classroom. So I would not be listening to the other students read or even pay any attention to the material because I would be so focused on being ready when it was my turn. After my turn, I would be stressing about stumbling over words because of nervousness and thinking about how I could have done it better.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, Jessica. Your story illustrates exactly why popcorn reading should be phased out!
ok, so my experience as a teacher is somewhat limited because I don’t have decades under my belt. I took over a 8th grade ELA class, and this is a title 1 school. Most of the kids test into 4-5th grade range for reading. The huge paradigm shift that has taken place in schools since education became political and parents enforcing how education doesn’t matter. This is one of the things that leads me to believe that most of the posts here are bots. In the last year, what I learned that when I made my students popcorn read, their grades were very much improved over not or using other strategies. I obviously didn’t use every other strategy out there. Getting these kids to even attempt to read something or do their work was a task indeed. popcorn reading allowed us to go over it as a class, and for me the educator to stop in certain areas and recap or explain ideas in the text that may be confusing to students. To illustrate how my classroom usually is, half of my students wont even attempt to do the work. they just want to play games on the chromebook. now, the other half, ill get about 10% of them who really want to do the work and listen and want good grades. the rest of them just want to get a passing grade and slide on by, and we can all argue that the half that doesn’t even attempt the work may be low and be embarrassed and feel stupid if told to read aloud, but isn’t that what inclusion did the to the classrooms? stop putting students in classrooms at their level and just lump them all together? so if we have 8th grade students reading at the 2-5th grade level shouldn’t they be in classes @ that level? no, thats wrong right? because they have rights and they dont deserve that, but dont the top 50% have rights too? those top 15% who want those A’s and struggle in classes because the bottom 50% constantly disrupt?
Chris, there is quite a lot to unpack here! First of all, motivating all students to engage in learning is a struggle that most (if not all) educators have encountered at some point in their careers. In fact, Jenn wrote an entire post on this very topic back in 2016, which you can read here.
Secondly, it can be difficult to meet the needs of all students in a classroom, especially when students’ reading levels vary significantly. Another resource that might be useful to you as you consider how to differentiate your instruction to meet the needs of your learners is A Starter Kit for Differentiated Instruction. In addition, this post contains a list of strategies that can encourage students to engage in class discussions, which may help with reading comprehension.
Lastly, I’d encourage you to take some time to do some research into the harmful impacts of tracking students by ability level groups. I hope this gives you some ideas to consider!