Looking for an engaging way to help your French primary students practise the complex sound IN/AIN while building decoding skills, reading fluency, confidence, and expression?
This 75+-page French Reader’s Theatre resource includes three short, decodable plays designed specifically for early readers. Each play gives students meaningful opportunities to practise reading words containing the IN/AIN sound in connected text — while having fun performing with their classmates!
The scripts use simple, repetitive, decodable text to help beginning readers experience success while developing their fluency.
What’s Included
3 Original Decodable Plays:
- Le lapin malin
- Le pain d’Alain
- Le lutin
Students get repeated practice with the target sound through words such as lapin, jardin, romarin, malin, sapin, pain, Alain, train, main and more.
3 Script Formats for Each Play:
1️⃣ Single-role highlighted script (colour) — Only one student’s part is highlighted so they can focus specifically on their own lines.
2️⃣ All-in-one multi-colour script — Each character’s part is highlighted in a different colour, making it easy for students to follow along during small-group or partner performances.
3️⃣ Black & white script — A printer-friendly option that students can highlight or colour-code themselves.
Character Crowns, Puppets & Props:
Each play includes character crowns students can wear while performing.
You’ll also find puppets, props, and setting pages students can use to act out and retell each story. Simply cut out the pieces, attach the puppets and props to popsicle sticks, and you have an easy hands-on extension or literacy centre retelling activity.
Printable Follow-Up Activities:
Decode, Cut & Paste Worksheets — Students decode vocabulary from the plays and match each word to the correct picture.
Orthographic Mapping Sheets — Students say each word, identify the sounds, and map them into boxes, connecting decoding and encoding.
Story Sequencing Pages — Students put key events from each play in order to practice comprehension, sequencing, and oral retelling.
Skills Practiced:
- French phonics
- Decoding words containing IN/AIN
- Previously taught sounds
- Reading fluency
- Expression and prosody
- High-frequency word recognition
- Orthographic mapping
- Encoding
- Reading comprehension
- Story sequencing
- Oral retelling
- Cooperative reading
Perfect For:
- French literacy centres
- Small-group reading
- Guided phonics practice
- Partner reading
- Reading intervention
- Fluency practice
- Whole-class Reader’s Theatre
- Oral language practice
- Repeated reading
- Fun classroom performances
Reader’s Theatre gives students an authentic reason to read and reread the same text, helping them build automaticity, expression, and confidence without repeated reading feeling like a drill.
The different script formats also make differentiation simple. Students who need extra support can concentrate on only their highlighted lines, while students who are ready for greater independence can follow the multi-colour or black-and-white scripts.
The plays are designed for students who know their letter sounds, with any sight words identified at the top of the scripts for review before reading. They are easy to prep, flexible to use, low-pressure, and FUN — perfect for bringing structured phonics practice into meaningful connected reading.
🎭 Add these IN/AIN French decodable Reader’s Theatre plays to your phonics instruction and give your students a fun reason to read, reread, perform, and practice!
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This download entitles the purchaser to use it in ONE classroom only. Thank you so much for respecting my time and effort!
