Oh, the Books You'll Read!
Courtney Walker
Growing Independence and Fluency Lesson Design
Rationale: Fluency is a key skill that every reader must learn to acquire. Fluency leads to efficient reading and excellent comprehension. Gaining fluency skills will help readers to read more effortlessly. Once students are able to spend less time on decoding and instead effortlessly recognize words, they may focus their attention on comprehending the message behind what they are reading. There are many strategies that can be used in order to improve reading, such as cross-checking, mental marking, and re-reading. Students will use cross-checking abilities in decodable texts and repeated readings to practice and work towards gaining fluency skills.
Materials:
· Pencils
· Timer/stopwatch for each pair
· Class set of Sarah, Plain and Tall
· Sample sentences on white board for teacher to model
· Peer Fluency Sheet (one for each student)
· Teacher Fluency Check (one for each student) with attached comprehension questions
Procedures:
Introduction:
References:
Abagail Rickerson, Something Smells Like Fluency,
https://acr0040.wixsite.com/abbyrickerson/growing-independence-and-literacy
MacLachlan, P. (1985). Sarah, Plain and Tall. New York, NY: A Charlotte Zolotow Book, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Peer Fluency Check
Name of Reader: ____________________
Date: _________________
1st Time: ________
2nd Time: ________
3rd Time: ________
I noticed that my partner…
After which read? 2nd 3rd
Remembered more words
Read faster
Read smoother
Read with expression
Teacher Fluency Check
Name of Reader: _______________
Date: _________________
Time: ________
Words x 60/time in seconds: _______WPM
Comprehension:
1. What was this paragraph about?
2. Describe the problem happening in the story.
Materials:
· Pencils
· Timer/stopwatch for each pair
· Class set of Sarah, Plain and Tall
· Sample sentences on white board for teacher to model
· Peer Fluency Sheet (one for each student)
· Teacher Fluency Check (one for each student) with attached comprehension questions
Procedures:
Introduction:
- Begin the lesson by saying, “Alright class, today we are going to work on becoming fluent readers. We know that our goal is to become fluent readers, but what does that mean? What do you think of when I say a fluent reader? Wait for responses. Fluent readers are able to read quickly, smoothly, and with expression because they recognize words automatically. This also helps us understand what we are reading because we don’t have to stop and analyze each word. This makes reading more enjoyable.”
- Say: Now let's look at a sentence written on the board: Jim hops on a log. Everyone put your listening ears on. I want you to tell me if I sound like a fluent reader when I read this sentence aloud to you. J-j-j, /i/-/i/-/i/, m-m-m, Jim, h-h-h-h /O/-/O/-/O/ p-p-p-p s-s-s-s, hops, o-o-o n-n-n, on, a, l-l-l, /o/-/o/-/o/, g-g-g-g, log. Jim hOps on a log? Hmm that doesn’t make sense, Jim wouldn’t hope on a log, that doesn’t make sense. Jim hops on a log? Oh! Hops! That makes more sense! Did you notice that when I read the sentence, I got stuck on the word in the middle? To figure out what that word was, I reread the sentence from the beginning and tried what I thought the word was, hOps. That did not make sense, did it? So I went back to reread to figure out what the word could say that would make sense. This strategy is called crosschecking, and it is super important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers! Since I figured out these hard words while reading it helped me become fluent. Thumbs up if you think I read that like a fluent reader. Exactly, no I wasn’t reading like a fluent reader because I had to decode the words in the sentence. Here's how a fluent reader would read that sentence: Jim hops on a log. I read the sentence effortlessly, and it was much easier to understand! Now turn to a partner and practice reading the second sentence on the board. Kat loves to swim in the pool. Read it aloud to one another until you read it fluently.
- Assign partners for each students and pass out the books. “Now we are going to practice being fluent readers by reading Sarah, Plain and Tall. In this story, Anna lives with her little brother and her father. All they need now is a mother! Her father makes an ad for someone to come live with them and be their mother, and a woman named Sarah responds to the ad! Her name is Sarah, but she is worried about leaving her home if she came to live with them. Let’s read to find out what Sarah decides to do.”
- Students should read the first three pages silently to themselves. Then they should each read a chapter aloud to each other. Explain to students that while they are reading to not help each other out.
- Pass out recording sheets and stopwatches to each group. Say: “Now we are going to play the fluency game. Put your listening ears back on to hear how to play! Reader 1 is going to start the game off and Reader 2 will be in control of the timer. Reader 2 is going to time Reader 1 reading the first two pages, and then he/she will record the time on the sheet I have handed out to you. After recording the information, Reader 2 will read and Reader 1 will record. Do this three times each. As you listen to your partner read aloud the pages, I want you to be listening for how their reading changes each time. Do they remember more words, do they read with more expression? Mark these changes on your paper. Let’s get started!”
- After the student pairs have each read through the passage three times, have the students come one at a time and read a paragraph from the first two pages. Ask them to bring their record sheet so you can attach it to the back of the assessment sheet. You will time them on the paragraph read aloud, and use the formula given to record how many words they have read per minute.
words x 60/ seconds read
Use a list of comprehension questions to assess how their fluency is affecting their comprehension.
References:
Abagail Rickerson, Something Smells Like Fluency,
https://acr0040.wixsite.com/abbyrickerson/growing-independence-and-literacy
MacLachlan, P. (1985). Sarah, Plain and Tall. New York, NY: A Charlotte Zolotow Book, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Peer Fluency Check
Name of Reader: ____________________
Date: _________________
1st Time: ________
2nd Time: ________
3rd Time: ________
I noticed that my partner…
After which read? 2nd 3rd
Remembered more words
Read faster
Read smoother
Read with expression
Teacher Fluency Check
Name of Reader: _______________
Date: _________________
Time: ________
Words x 60/time in seconds: _______WPM
Comprehension:
1. What was this paragraph about?
2. Describe the problem happening in the story.
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