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Growing Independence and Fluency Lesson

 

Score Big with Fluency

 

By: Madison Johnson

 

 

 

Rationale: To help students become successful readers, teachers must help them read fluently, accurately, with expression, and consistently.  By reading fluently (increasing their pace and accuracy in reading), readers are able to spend more time on comprehension instead of focusing on decoding words. Through reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading, students improve their fluency and grow in their competency as readers. This lesson’s objective is to help students’ improvement in reading by using reading strategies, repeated reading, and by charting the speed in which they read.

 

Materials:

  • The Berenstain Bears: “Too Small for the Team”

  •  Stopwatches (class set)

  • Cover up critters

  • Personalized graph to chart reading time

  • Sentences written on the board:

Procedures:

  • Explain: “In order to become expert readers, we need to be able to read fluently.  This means we read the words quickly, automatically, and effortlessly.  The main goal of fluency is to improve our sight vocabulary and help us better recognize words so that we can better understand what we read.  To become fluent in reading a book, we need to read it a few times. This strategy is repeated reading.  Through repeated readings, we can get better at reading aloud, and silently, and become great readers!”

  • Model: “Let’s practice how to find out a word by crosschecking.  If I came to the sentence ‘How come you’re surprised?’ and I didn’t know the word ‘surprised’, I would use my cover up critter to decode each part of the word and then finish the sentence using the word I decoded to see if the word made sense. ‘How come you’re /s//u//r//p//r//i//s//ed/. Suuuurrrpprrriissedd. Surprised! Like not what you thought. The sentence says, ‘How come you’re surprised. That makes sense now.  I had to reread the sentence so I could get the word automatically the next time I saw it.”

  • Say: “Now I’m going to show you what a fluent reader sounds like compared to a non-fluent reader.  Let’s look at this next sentence (written on the board).  “Coach doesn’t pick smaller cubs to play’  If I were not a fluent reader, I would read like this: ‘Coooaaachhh doesn’t pick smmmaallllerrr cccuubss to pppllaaay.’  I read that so slow and spaced it out so much that I’m not even sure what I read!  Now listen to the difference in how it sounds when I read it fluently.  ‘Coach doesn’t pick smaller cubs to play.’  I understood what I read and I comprehended the message because my words flowed together.  Now I want you to try.  Read the sentence fluently: “Coach doesn’t pick smaller cubs to play”

  • Say: “Today we are going to read Too Small for the Team.” Booktalk: “Sister Bear is a super soccer player. She’s fast on her feet. She dodges and dribbles like a pro. She kicks the ball with the power of a cub twice her size. She’s a shoo-in at soccer tryouts…except for one little problem. Everyone thinks Sister Bear is “too small for the team.” Will Sister Bear ever get her shot at playing on the soccer team? Or will she be stuck on the sidelines.”

  • Each student will receive the first page of the book and a cover-up critter. “Now please begin reading Too Small for the Team.” Give the students 5-10 minutes to complete the task. Teacher will walk around and assess if students are moving along in their independent reading of the book. After the students have finished reading, have a discussion about what was read.  Teacher will assess comprehension of the text by listening to and recording student responses. 

  • Explain to students what they will be doing next with the stopwatch and the checklist. “I am going to come around and number you—you will either be Partner 1 or Partner 2. First, Partner 1 will read the story and Partner 2 will time them. Then, partners switch roles.  After reading, you will talk to your partner about what you read (evaluating comprehension).  Then, Partner 1 will read the book aloud, while Partner 2 marks the checklist (read faster, read smoother, remembered more words, read with expression).  Then partners switch roles.  Repeat these steps once more (so that there are 2 timed readings and 2 checklist readings per child).”  Model this with a student if necessary for your students to understand what they are being asked to do

  • Assessment: At the beginning, perform individual assessments while students are completing their partner repeated readings by walking around and listening to students read.  Have the students turn in their score sheets after the repeated readings are finished.  Pull each student aside individually at the end, have him or her read after they've been practicing, and graph their speed so they can see their improvement as time goes on.  Also use this time to go over whether or not they were reading smooth, fast, with expression, and if they remembered more words.  If a student did poorly, have them try again with the teacher. (Ask two comprehension questions): “What did Sister Bear start off doing with the team? Did she stay on the sideline?”

  • Partner Evaluation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fluency Chart:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher Fluency Checklist:

Name of Student:

Reading # 1

Time:

Total Number of words:                        

WPM:

Miscues:                                     

 

Reading # 2

Time:

WPM:

 

Did The Student:

Read smoother?

-Yes

-No

 

Read with more expression?

-Yes

-No 

Miscues:

 

***WPM is computed using the formula; words read x 60/seconds***

 

 

References:

 

Joa, Katherine. Practice Makes Perfect. 

https://sites.google.com/site/katherinesreadinglessons/home/practice-makes-perfect

 

McGehee, Mary Hope.  Reading is Our Expertise!

https://sites.google.com/site/ctrdmaryhope/home/gf-

 

Murray, Dr. Bruce. Developing Reading Fluency.            http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html

 

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