By Jarihope Coker Rationale: Fluent readers enjoy reading! They read quickly, automatically, and expressively. Fluency is critical aspect to reading. When a reader is fluent they no longer have to decode each individual work while reading an unfamiliar text. Because of this, fluency produces a better and faster comprehension. This lesson is designed to assist students’ in becoming more fluent readers through repeated readings of a text. By reading a text repeatedly, it will build students fluency skills.
Materials: - Copy of Frog and Toad are Friends - Sentence strips. (The boy’s favorite season is the summer. He likes how hot it is outside.) - Copy of assessment text, A Job for Karla - Comprehension questions for the assessment text - Stop watches Procedure:
1. I will explain to students what being a fluent reader means. Say: “It is so important that we all become fluent readers! When we are able to read fluently, not only will our reading levels grow but our love for reading will grow also! I want this to happen for everyone! To become fluent readers, we must also understand what this means. Fluent reading sounds nice and smooth. It is very easy to understand what you are reading when you read fluently. A story is read fluently when it is read at an appropriate speed for listening, there is accuracy in word recognition, and there is expression used by the reader! Knowing all of these things is going to help you become a fluent reader, which is what we all want to be!” 2. Say: “Becoming a fluent reader is a process that does not happen overnight. When you are trying to read fluently, there will be times when you come across an unfamiliar word. When this happens, do not be discouraged! Use your strategies that you have learned to help you decode the word. If you have attempted to decode the word and still cannot figure out the word, you should finish the sentence and see if you then can recognize the unfamiliar word. When you do this, this is using a strategy called crosschecking. I am going to demonstrate crosschecking for you. (Show a sentence on the Elmo) ‘The cat r-o-ms around the yard. Rom? Oh! Roam!’ After you have crosschecked and made a mental mark in your head, you should always go back and reread the sentence. When you are rereading the sentence, practice reading smoothly and fluently since you now know all the words in the sentence. ‘The cat roams around the yard!’ These are really good reading strategies that will help you learn more sight words, how exciting! 3. Say: Now that we know what a fluent reader is and what to do when you come across an unfamiliar word, I am going to model for you how to practice reading fluently. I want you to think and notice how much more enjoyable it is to listen to someone read fluently than it is to hear someone read non-fluently.” (Put the sentence strips on the elmo) First reading of the sentence: “The boy’s fav-fav-favorite (/It/) se-son is the summer. Oh! The boy’s favorite season is the summer! He likes how hot it is ot-sid. Oh! He likes how hot it is outside.” Say: In this example I used the crosschecking strategy to figure out what the words were that I did not recognize by sight and when decoding did not work. I noticed that the i in favorite says /i/. I also noticed that the ea in season says /E/. Crosschecking really helped me to do that! After I have gotten all of my words by crosschecking, I can reread the sentences faster and more fluently. ‘The boy’s f-favorite season is the summer. He likes how hot it is outside.’ Wow! Did you hear the difference in that time than the first time? But I am going to read it again, and this time I am going to add expression to my reading. ‘The boy’s favorite season is summer. He likes how hot it is outside!’ Wow! What did you think of that reading? I even enjoyed reading the sentence expressively, and you all probably enjoyed listening to me read it. 4. Say: “But we know that to get to this fluent stage of reading, practice makes perfect! We are going to start our practice today! As a class, we are all going to participate in a reading together. We are going to use the book Frog and Toad are Friends. This story starts of telling of frog and toad, and how they became friends! It tells about all the fun adventures they go on! We will have to read to find out what happens on their adventures! Every classmate is going to have a part, and the most important thing is that you read your assigned part as fluently as you can. I will explain to the students that I first want them to read quietly to themselves. My hope is that this will give them a chance to become comfortable with their assigned text before reading it aloud to their partner. Say: “Now that you have had a chance to read your part silently to yourself and become familiar with any unfamiliar words, I want you to read the text aloud to your partner. After one partner has read, the listener should help the reader by giving them any tips for reading more fluently the next time. Then, after the second partner has read, the listener will do the same. It will make the listener listen for the qualities of a fluent reader, which will make them more familiar with them and hopefully promote fluency among themselves. The partners will use the “partner critiquing sheet for fluency” to share with their partner what they can work on in order to better their expression and fluency. 5. Say: “Ok, now that we have all had a chance to practice our parts and receive advice on how to improve, we are going to begin our story! I am going to be the narrator and will lead us.” 6. After the story has been completed, I will facilitate a class discussion about their experience with fluency in this exercise. We will discuss things that made a fluent reader stand out, what was helpful to them in increasing their fluency, and how fluent reading helped them to enjoy and understand the content of the story more accurately. 7. Assessment: For the assessment I will have students work with a partner again. I will have a short message, A Job for Karla, for each child to read. We will have Students partner up with the same partner that they worked with earlier, and they will time each other reading this short passage. First, students will read, A Job for Karla, quietly to themselves. This should be when students become familiar with any unfamiliar words. Then, students will take turns reading this passage out loud to their partner as their partner times them. Partners will record the time is takes for each student to read the text. Students will be instructed to fill out the “fluency partner check list” as their partner reads aloud and then rereads aloud. After they have worked with their partner, the students will return to their individual desks to answer comprehension questions about the passage 8. Finally, I will have students turn in their comprehension work and I will calculate their reading per minute (words x 60/seconds). This will give me an accurate measure of the student’s reading speed and comprehension. This will give me an idea of where each student stands with their fluency skills! References:
Assessment passage and comprehension questions: http://www.meade.k12.sd.us/Curriculum/2nd%20Grade%20Fluency%20Passages/2nd%20Fluency%20Passage%2011.jpg Partner Critiquing Sheet for Fluency Name of Recorder:____________________ Name of Reader:______________________ ________________Reading Rate 81+ 76-80 71-75 66-70 61-65 56-60 50-55 WPM 1 2 3 Total words read: 1st time: ________words in ________seconds 2nd time: ________words in________seconds 3rd time: ________words in ________sec