I’ve been asked this question about Round Robin Reading many times and in multiple forms. It is usually accompanied by statements such as: “But my students really like it” or “It helps me cover material that is just too hard for them to read” or “I don’t go in any particular order, so they never know when they are going to have their turn.” In fact, these comments come up so often, that Gwynne Ash, Sharon Walpole, and I asked teachers why they chose to use Round Robin Reading or its variants such as Popcorn, Popsicle, or Combat Reading (2009; Ash & Kuhn, 2006). Our goal was to better understand the perceived pluses of these approaches and identify alternatives that could better meet educators’ instructional goals.

Key here is the fact that each student is responsible for reading only a very brief portion of the text—as little as a few sentences and, at a maximum, a few paragraphs. As a result, they have minimal opportunity to improve either their fluency or their word recognition. This difficulty is further compounded given the fact that other students often jump in when the reader encounters a difficult or unknown word; as a result, the reader never has the chance to figure it out for him or herself.

It is also the case that breaking up a text into smaller passages actually works against developing fluency; instead of building up students’ reading stamina, it actually limits it. Further, these interruptions discourage comprehension of the material. Rather than looking at the connections that occur across the selection, readers end up focusing their attention on brief passages. And whether or not students know when their turn is coming up, they often read ahead so that they can sound more proficient when their turn comes up—or volunteer “just to get their turn over with”—and then shut down for the rest of the lesson. Clearly, none of these actions contributes to either engagement or improved comprehension.

On the upside, there are alternative procedures that are far more likely to help you meet the above goals. For example, partner reading is a highly effective choice for learners at virtually every grade level (Meisinger, Schwanenflugel, Bradley & Stahl, 2004; Shanahan, 2012). And if you are concerned about engagement or comprehension, you can read aloud with one or two of your students on a rotating basis during your literacy block to make sure they are getting the most out of the experience. Echo and choral reading (Kuhn, 2009) also provide appropriate choices for younger readers, although it is important that the texts they are reading are substantive in terms of both length and challenge. Echo reading involves reading a few paragraphs to the students followed by their “echoing” the text back as a group while choral reading consists of you and the students reading the selection simultaneously.

And well-known procedures such as Reciprocal Teaching (Oczkus, 2003; Palincsar & Brown, 1986), Directed Reading and Thinking Activity (DRTA; Smyers, 1993; Stauffer & Harrell, 1975) and Reciprocal Teaching Plus (Ash, 2002) can assist students in their comprehension of challenging content.

Given the increasing demands on student reading as a result of the Common Core, I believe that these approaches can help you develop effective and easy-to-implement alternatives that truly engage your students while supporting their reading development. I hope you agree.

Melanie R. Kuhn is an associate professor of Language and Literacy Education at Boston University. This article is from the International Reading Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Reader response is welcomed. E-mail your comments to the LRP.