Growing Independence and Fluency Lesson
Rational: Students must be fluent readers to have a meaningful reading experience through literature. Fluent reading is recognizing words automatically and effortlessly. Students that reach this point will be able to the meaning behind a text which will aid in reading comprehension. This lesson is designed to teach reading fluency by having students repeat timed readings. After this lesson, students should be able to read texts quickly, effortlessly, and with expression. This will ultimately improve fluency.
Materials:
1. White board and marker
2. Copies of the story “Spring” in the book Frog and Toad are Friends.
3. Stopwatch for each pair of students
4. Coverup Critter
5. Pencils for each student
6. Fluency checklist
Procedures:
1. Begin by saying, “Today we will be working on becoming fluent readers. What do you think that means? (wait for students to respond). Fluent readers are able to read quickly and smoothly with expression. This helps us understand what the stories are about and makes reading so much more fun!”
2. Point to the sentence written on the board: “Spring is here.” Say: “I want you to listen to how I read this sentence. (Read slowly and pronounce each sound: s-s-p-p-r-r-i-i-n-n-g is h-h-e-r-r-(e) Was that easy or difficult to understand? (wait for response) That’s right! It was sort of difficult to understand. Let me try again. (read the sentence a little faster) Was that better? (wait for response) Okay! Let me try one more time. (Read the sentence fluently) Spring is here! It makes more sense now, doesn’t it? Do you all understand how I got to that point? After rereading it a couple of times I was able to read it smoothly and understand it better! Our exercise today has us doing just that.”
3. Say: “When you get to a word you don’t know, you can use your cover up critter to sound it out! For example (write the word “frog” on the board) Lets take the word “frog”, ill use the cover up critter to cover up the vowel first. O makes the /o/ sound. Now that ive figured that out, ill cover up the letters before the o. F makes the /f/ sound, now we put that together with the r which sounds like /r/, /f-//r/. Combine that with the /o/ and you get /f/-/r/-/o/. Now for the last letter, g. It sounds like /g/. When you put them all together you get /f/-/r/-/o/-/g/…… frog! Its easy when you use your cover up critter and break it into parts.”
4. Give a book talk about “Spring.” “The forest is warming up and Toad is ready for the beautiful spring weather! Frog, however, wants to sleep in just a litttttle longer. Toad comes up with a plan to get frog out of bed early for spring. Let’s read “Spring” to see if Toad’s plan works!”
5. Explain to the class that they will be doing repeated reading with a partner. Say, “We will be doing a repeated reading with this story so that we can learn to be more fluent readers! I will read the first page out loud. I want you all to pay close attention to how expressive I am with my reading.” Read the first page
6. Divide the students into partners. Pass out the copies of the story, timers, reading time sheets, pencils, and fluency charts
7. Once the students are in their pairs, give the instructions. Say: “I want you all to take turns reading and timing with your partner. The reader will read through the story at the pace they read best, and the timer will time the reading and write down the time on the time sheet. This is not a race, so take your time and work on understanding the words. After you are done reading, your partner will stop the timer and record the time. You will now swap jobs and do the other task. The timer will say “begin” and start the timer as the reader begins to read. After each reading, write down your partner’s times and fill out the Fluency checklist. You each will read and time each other three times. This will show your progress!”
8. While students are reading, walk around and monitor progress. Try not to give too much help but a little is okay. While you walk around, ask “Why do you think Frog wanted to sleep a little longer? What Month did Frog want to sleep to? What month was it really? What did toad do to get frog out of bed? Did it work?”
Assessment: Students assess each other by filling out the fluency checklist and the time sheet. The teacher assesses each student by using the fluency formula to determine words per minute. The teacher will also ask questions as they walk around to determine reading comprehension.
Reading Time Sheet:
Name:
Date:
1st Reading: _______
2nd Reading: _______
3rd Reading: ________