“Can You be a Speedy Reader?”
Growing Independence Literacy Design
By: Michel Fields
Rationale:
Once students have begun to master the phonics and
correspondences, it is important they become fluent readers.
Fluency is a result of practice, practice, practice. Repeated
readings are great for jump starting fluency. They also need to
be able to comprehend what they are reading. It is important to
check for comprehension as the students are reading. The
students will listen to each other read a chapter and time them
to get a reading rate.
Materials:
The Case of the Disappearing Dinosaur by James Preller (enough for
the whole class), timers, fluency charts
Procedures:
1. Say: Today we are going to work on building fluency! If you
are a fluent reader, you read smoothly, accurately, and
automatically! Sometimes we mess up on a word. That’s okay, you
can crosscheck yourself to correct your mistakes. If you get to
a word and you aren’t sure you read it correctly, finish the
sentence. If it doesn’t make sense, go back and try the word
again. [I will write a sentence on the board and model
crosschecking].
2. Before I split the students into partners, I will give them a
book talk about the book. Say:
Danika likes to perform magic tricks. Her friend Bigs asks her
to perform a magic show at his birthday party. She practices and
practices. She decides her big act is going to be to make Bigs’s
favorite toy disappear. His favorite toy is a dinosaur. When she
makes the dinosaur disappear, it doesn’t come back. Danika
doesn’t know where it went! Jigsaw and Mila put their detective
skills to work. Where do you think they find it?
3. I will read the first page of The Case of the Disappearing
Dinosaur without fluency. I will say, “When I am not reading
fluently, I pause and sometimes I stop and decode and it sounds
choppy, like this…” [Read a page.]When I am finished, I will ask
the students several questions. Say: What did you notice about
my reading? Was it easy to listen to? Did you enjoy listening to
me read like that? Now I’ll read it fluently. Listen to how
smooth I sound when I’m reading fluently. I get almost all of
the words right and it flows.[Reread the page with fluency]. I
will ask the same questions and see which one the students liked
listening to you better.
4. Say: We’re going to practice reading fluently like I just
did.
I will divide the
students into partners. Each student will have a copy of the
book, their fluency chart and one stop watch. I want you to take
turns reading and timing each other. Each of you should read the
first chapter of the book and mark how long it took you to read
the chapter. [I will have counted the # of words in the first
chapter so they can calculate their reading rate.] Once one
partner has read and recorded their words, you will switch
places with your partner. I will be walking around the room
listening to you read. Raise your hand if you have any
questions.
5. Once the students have finished reading to each other, I will
have the students read to me independently. The students will
continue reading the book silently until it is their turn to
come read to me. I will ask the students to retell what they
read.
Refrences:
1. Reading Genie Lesson, Brittany Cain:
Galloping to Fluency!
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/caingf.htm