Growing Independence and Fluency
Growing Independence and Fluency: Fishing for Fluency
Rationale: Being a fluent reading means that the reader can automatically recognize sight words and read quickly with a better understanding. One of the purposes of this lesson is to teach elementary students how they can become fluent readers. Students gain fluency when they read, decode, crosscheck and reread words. Reading classic literature and answering questions about the material encourages students to work on their comprehension.
Materials: Word Count Sheet, Book: The Rainbow Fish, Cover Up Critter, stopwatch, pencil and paper for teacher
Procedures: 1. Say: It is important to be able to read words in stories so that we can understand what the stories say. Learning words helps you read more smoothly and quickly, too! Reading books over and over again helps us to remember words and then read more quickly. Before we can read book or even reread, we need to remember how to read words that we have trouble with.
2. Say: “Let’s review before we begin. What should we do if we do not know a word? (Write the word Fish on the board) Let’s say I was unsure of this word when I saw it in the text. I would use my cover up critter to figure out the word. I would make the /f/ sound, then the /i/ /s/ /h/. Blending it all together I would get /f//i//s//h/. Oh! That word is fish!”
3. Write the following sentence on the board: I love to play games. Say: “I will read this sentence that is written on the board, and I would like for you to pay close attention as I read it.” (read the sentence very slowly and without fluency). “IIIIII lllllooooovvveeee tttooo ppppplllllaaaaayyyy gggaaaammmeesss” Did you see that I read it very slowly and it was kind of hard to understand what that sentence is talking about? Now I am going to try and read it again like a fluent reader. (Read sentence with fluency) “I love to play games.” Wasn’t that a lot easier to understand? By learning the words by sight, I was able to read and understand them better. That is why we are going to practice rereading sentences so that every time we can make it sound better than before. Let’s also try to add expression to your rereadings!”
4. Say: “I am now going to split you into pairs and give each pair a copy of the book: The Rainbow Fish. Have you ever used your imagination to go to another place? Let’s see what happens to the Rainbow Fish next!
5. I will assign partners. Each group will have a stopwatch, Fluency recorder, and a word count sheet. I will have each student read the first six pages once to themselves. When they have read it through once, I will explain to the students how to use these sheets and what they are looking for when the reader is reading to them. The teacher should already have goals that the student should reach and you will explain how to use the running man chart. I will assign one student to be the reader and the other student to be the recorder. Providing a model about how to use the timer, the recorder will keep track of how many times and how long it takes the reader to read the first six pages. The recorder will tell the reader when they can begin and when to end. Every time the recorder will record how many pages were read and the time. Once that reader has had three read alouds of the first six pages, the recorder will fill out the partner check sheet. The students will then switch roles.
Assessment: By calling up each individual student, I will ask them to read aloud to me. I will see if their speed and emotion in reading has changed.
Word Count sheet:
Name: __________ Date: ___________
The first time I read ___________ words. The second time I read__________ words. The third time I read__________ words.
References:
Feeding into Fluency by: John David Phillips
https://johndavid2332.wixsite.com/jdp0058/growing-independence-and-fluency
Fluency recorder: https://sites.google.com/site/sophiessuperlessons/growing-fluency-design/fluency.jpg?
“The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister
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