‘Choral reading is where the teacher and children read the same passage aloud at the same time.’

Choral reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of children. It helps build children’s fluency, self-confidence and motivation. Because children are reading aloud together, children who ordinarily may feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built in support. (Reading rockets)

Choral reading provides less skilled readers the opportunity to practise, provides a model of fluent reading and helps improve the ability to read words on sight.

Use a text or section of text that works well for reading aloud as a group, e.g. a text with patterned language which is not too long. Poems often work well.

You will have already read the text to them once, modelling fluent reading. Make sure they can see the text as you do so and that they follow your reading. You might briefly point out the important clues – punctuation marks like commas and full stops – which are guiding your fluent reading

Re-read the text together, both you and the children reading the text in unison

With an unfamiliar text you may need to more obviously lead the reading, giving the children confidence by taking away the decoding challenges in the text

When reading a more familiar text together, the adult may wish to drop the volume of their reading for part of the text. (Sotto voce reading.) You don’t stop reading but just play a less central role. This will give you an indication as to whether everyone is joining in, or let you observe a particular child more closely. Be ready to retake the leadership role if the text gets challenging or the group reading begins to falter. Remember each re-reading, however done, must sound good!