By RORY MOORE
Tiger Media Network
Fort Hays State University’s Science and Mathematics Education Institute hosted a Kids Literacy Camp inside Custer Hall this week. Led by Sarah Miller, an associate professor of Teacher Education, the camp featured a drama-oriented approach to improving youth reading skills by adding techniques like vocal tone and facial expression.
The SMEI Kids Literacy Camp took place in Custer Hall from June 16-18. 
Sarah Miller gathers students in a circle for an activity. 
Each student, along with Summer Noyce Scholars, share their favorite characters from literature and what they would say. 
Miller teaches three things in the reading camp: fluency, expression and voice. 
Natalie Schears helps a kid with an activity. 
Schears helps with a reading assignment. 
Miller demonstrates Reader’s Theater while reading text from The Wicked, Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House. 
Miller reads along with a student. 
A dramatic activity involving vocal tone and body language. 
The camp plays Charades.
This approach was implemented to help children enjoy literature.
“A lot of kids show up and are unhappy to begin with,” Miller said. “They think, ‘Oh, gosh! Mom signed us up for a reading camp. How boring.’ But they quickly find out that it’s going to be fun.”
Miller makes it fun with a technique called Reader’s Theater, an acting technique in which text is read with dramatic effect to increase fluency, since readers have to practice reading their lines with expression.
“They have to read them with emphasis and put emotion into it,” she said. “They also have to read it fluently. So, they don’t want to read their lines fast or slow. They have to read it at a nice, comfortable pace that somebody would want to listen to. All of these things help to build reading fluency because they’re able to build their comprehension skills while they’re putting emphasis into their characters.”
The key intention, as Miller noted, is to help young readers gain confidence in their skills.
“If you have struggles with reading, you are possibly not confident in your reading skills, which makes you not want to read,” Miller said. “This Reader’s Theater gives students confidence in their reading so they’ll be encouraged to practice at home, and eventually, begin reading more at home. It all goes back to confidence that we want to give students, so they’re able to read their lines with expression, fluency and a good voice.”