Sprawled on the classroom floor, the children thought they were preparing to put on a play.

They didn't seem to notice how their teacher, Deborah Ocharzak, kept sneaking vocabulary and reading lessons into the mix.

"Who can tell me what 'hearty' means?" Mrs. Ocharzak said, pulling a line out of "Tacky the Penguin." The children started shouting answers.

"It might be a big breakfast," she agreed with one of them, but in the play it describes an action.

"Let me hear you make a hearty laugh," she said.

The children held their stomachs, rocked side to side and the sound of "ha, ha, ha" rang off the walls.

Tacky, you see, is an odd bird who greets others with a hearty slap and, instead of a polite "Hi," he offers a loud "What's happenin'?" He does cannonballs instead of graceful dives, marches to the beat of no drummer at all and sings about cows' wings.

"Overall, would you say 'Tacky' is a realistic play or a fantasy play?" Mrs. Ocharzak asked, sliding in a little more learning.

"Fantasy," the kids responded in chorus. Prodded, they recognize realistic aspects of the play -- penguins do march and penguins do dive. But other aspects trump the answer. "Penguins can't really talk," said a girl named Emily.

"Anytime you have animals talking, it's probably going to be a fantasy," Mrs. Ocharzak agreed, understating the case a bit.

The children, third-graders from St. John of God School in McKees Rocks, were at the recently opened Father Ryan Arts Center, also in McKees Rocks, as part of a new Readers' Theater program. They are bused to the center once a week to study, rehearse and eventually perform plays under the direction of their own teachers, with input and extra instruction from professionals connected with the arts center.

The idea is that the pressure of an impending performance, the deep study of a particular play, the drama instruction and the professional venue will help the children approach the exercise a little differently and will enhance their reading skills.

Essentially, if you're going to act out "Tacky the Penguin," you're going to be motivated to really understand "Tacky the Penguin."

"I want you to count to three, close your eyes and rub your temples," Mrs. Ocharzak said to the children, "and I want you to think very, very hard about what the message of 'Tacky the Penguin' is."

"Tacky's weird!" one of the kids shouted.

"That's not the message."

"That you shouldn't be scared!" That's closer---- Tacky stands down some hunters -- but "that's not the message."

"It's OK if you're different," a girl named Emma offered.

Indeed, Tacky's very oddness became a welcome asset after it confused and frightened away the hunters. And with that, it was time for the children to head to the theater.

Children always part of plan

Pat Moran, director of the Father Ryan center, said the Readers' Theater program is perfectly in line with her vision for the center. "It was always my intent to have children in the building all day," she said.

The arts center has been doing programs in Sto-Rox schools for several years, she noted, and it now can take the next step by bringing the children to the center.

There, they can study pottery in real pottery studios, learn dance in real dance studios, see and display art in a real art gallery and act in a real theater. And it can go beyond Sto-Rox; Ms. Moran said the center hosted a seminar for all of Montour's art teachers and is exploring opportunities with other schools.

"I see this building as a beacon of hope in the community," arts center program director Jim Critchfield said.

He also thinks the center has a direct impact on learning.

"Simply moving them from the school here to the theater makes a huge difference," he said. "It gives a little more focus to it, makes it more special."

"I just think it's wonderful," said Sister Anna Marie Gaglia, principal of St. John of God School. "I wanted the kids to experience the place. The environment draws something else out of them."

The St. John of God group is joined in the program by three third-grade groups from Sto-Rox. This initial effort is supported by a grant from the Benedum Foundation. If it is deemed a success, "the sky's the limit," Ms. Moran said.

The nervousness of the children was obvious as the "Tacky the Penguin" cast perched on stools on the theater stage, with an audience of teachers and other children watching.

"There-once-lived-a-penguin-the-penguin's-name-was-tacky-tacky-was-an-odd-bird," the little boy playing Narrator 1 mumbled without pausing.

Dennis Palko, St. John of God drama teacher, jumped right in.

"What is a period?" he asked aloud. The students answered, "It's at the end of a sentence." The teacher asked, "What does it tell me to do?" The kids answered, "Stop."

But it's more than that, he said, adding, "You need to finish one thought before you start another."

Mr. Palko coached the boy on slowing down, thinking about the meaning of the words and emphasizing the ends of the sentences. "I don't just want to hear you read," he said. "I know you all can read."

The difference in Narrator 1 was palpable: By the end of the session, he was sitting bolt upright on his stool, belting out cheerfully that "Tacky was an OOODDDD bird!"

His classmates started catching on to the enthusiasm.

"We'll catch some pretty penguins," the one hunter chanted with gusto. "And march them with a switch," his partner chimed in. "We'll sell them for a dollar ..."

"And get rich, rich, rich!"

Their plan would, of course, fail in the face of Tacky's oddness.

But first, Mr. Palko had to get Tacky to act appropriately odd.

"What's happening?" the boy playing Tacky said in an ordinary voice the first time.

Mr. Palko stepped in. "Tacky's supposed to be weird, right? He's not just supposed to say, 'what's happening?' You can really have some fun with this line." He demonstrated, belting out "wha's happenin'!?!?' in a variety of odd ways.

The boy playing Tacky watched with a gleam growing in his eye.

"Whuzz happenin'?!" he said with the hint of a growl.

Mr. Palko smiled. "We're getting there."