To Fluency and Beyond!

Kelly MacLachlan

Growing Independence and Fluency

 

 

Rationale: A crucial milestone in reading is comprehension. In order to comprehend during reading, students must be able to read fluently. They must be able to read with expression, smoothly, automatically and accurately. The goal of this lesson is to help students with their fluency by working on their reading speed.. Children will be able to recognize the importance of automatic fluent reading, which will help them to gain more meaning and understanding from the text. This lesson is designed to help readers increase their fluency and reading ability.

 

Materials: Whiteboard, Pencils, Markers, Paper, Class set of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, Buzz Lightyear Progress Chart for each group(Velcro Buzz can move from Earth, to a Star, to the Moon with child’s reading progress), stop watches for each pair of students, Peer fluency sheets for students and teacher:

Name: ________________ Evaluator: _________________Date: ___________

I noticed that my partner:

                                                          After 2nd         After 3rd         

Remembered more words                _______          _______

Read Faster                                       _______          _______

Read Smoother                                 _______          _______

Read with expression                       _______          _______

 

 

Procedure:

• Say, “To become even better readers, we need to work on our fluency. Reading fluently helps us to read quicker and more correctly, while also reading faster! When we become fluent readers, we are able to understand the stories we read with a lot less work! To fluency and beyond!”

• Say: First, I’m going to show you how readers may discover new words when they haven’t become fluent yet. If I came across a word I didn’t know, I would probably decode it like this (write sentence on the board): I need to listen to my dad. I can read it up until this word (point to listen), so I can sound out the sounds that I know lll-i-s-t-en, lis-ten. Then, as I kept reading the sentence, I would know because of the context that the word was listen! I need to listen to my dad. Then, I can hop right back into the story and know what’s going on. It is so much easier to read when I can understand the words I see.

• Say: Now, we are going to read silently to ourselves. When we read silently, we are able to sound things out in our heads and reread any sentence we have trouble with. I am giving each of you a book called If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  I have never given a mouse a cookie, but the boy in this book does give a mouse a cookie! What do you think will happen and why do you think he gave the mouse a cookie? Go read at your desks and we will discuss it together when we are all done.

• Once students are all done reading, have them come back to the mat to discuss the book. Say: Did you like this book? What did the mouse want when he got the cookie? Were there some tough words in this reading? Tough words are a good thing because it allows us to learn them and understand them better if we see them again! We are going to see the words in this book a lot today because we are going to reread this book with partners!

• Assign students to a partner and have them go to a designated area in the room. Explain the fluency literacy rubric. Make sure they have their copies of the book, along with a stopwatch, pencil, and a Buzz Lightyear progress chart. Say: You and your partner are going to practice being fluent readers by reading this book to one another. You will each read it twice, and can have Buzz on Earth to start, move to the star after your first reading, and to the moon after your second reading. The faster you read, the faster Buzz can reach the moon! While one partner reads, the other partner will use this stop watch to time him. You then write down how long it took and if you noticed any differences in their reading. You can move Buzz and read the book one more time. Then it is the other partner’s turn to read while the other times him and takes notes. Make sure you only move Buzz when your time has improved! To fluency and beyond!

 

 

 

Assessment:

Have each student use their paper and markers to explain and illustrate their favorite scene from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Individually call them up to have them explain their writing and illustrations to you to see how well they comprehended the story. Also, have them read the story to you one last time. You will time them and keep track of their fluency ability. Finally, when they are all back at their desk, ask questions for comprehension: What happened when the boy gave the mouse a cookie? Why do you think the mouse kept wanting more things? 

 

References:

 

Joffe Numeroff, Laura. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. HarperCollins, 1985.

 

Long, Ali. Reading Fast is a Blast!

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/longgf.htm

 

Picture of Buzz Lightyear- http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Lightyear

 

On Your Mark, Get Set, READ! Growing Independency and Fluency by Shelby Avant; msavantdapperdesigns | Growing Independence and Fluency