7 Reasons Teachers Should Avoid Round-Robin Reading
It’s important to develop students’ oral-reading skills. But research shows that round-robin reading is at best ineffective. It may even set readers back. Here are seven reasons to avoid round-robin reading in your classroom:
1. In the real world, round-robin reading is almost never used.
We’ve never been to any business meeting with round-robin reading. Asking students to do so is inauthentic.
2. It can cause frustration and disengagement for the child reading and for those listening.
Put yourself in a struggling reader’s shoes. Can you feel the rising sense of very public frustration? Now put yourself in the shoes of those reading silently along. They don’t enjoy others’ struggles either.
3. It can be a source of unnecessary anxiety and embarrassment for students — even those following along.
Similarly, think about the anxiety a struggling reader feels knowing that he or she will be forced to reveal their struggles to the entire class. And about the shame they may feel as they struggle through a passage. Those reading silently feel acute embarrassment too — for those who struggle.
4. It leads to inattention and disciplinary issues
Let’s be brutally honest. Round-robin reading is boring because it’s much slower than silent reading. Boredom is the breeding ground of unacceptable behavior.
5. Correcting can actually stunt readers’ independence.
If the reader is waiting for correction, he or she isn’t doing the work themselves.
6. It eats up precious classroom time.
No teacher has enough time in their day. So why burn it on something that isn’t supported by research?
7. It can actually decrease listening comprehension.
When students zone out or are looking ahead in the text because they read faster than the oral reader, they aren’t listening. Who can blame them?
For more on why round-robin reading is an outdated instructional strategy, read Good-bye Round Robin, Updated Edition, by Michael Opitz and Timothy Rasinski (Heinemann, 2008).
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