Roaring and Ready to Read!
Growing Independence and Fluency
Rationale:
Students become fluent readers by reading the same books over
and over, also known as repeated readings. When students re-read
the same story, it helps them with the words they may have
struggled with the first time reading the story, and it also
helps to build confidence, fluency, and comprehension. This
lesson is designed to help students with these areas of fluency.
Materials:
- Stopwatches for each pair of students
- Read-Aloud Book: Caps for Sale
- Student Book: Iggy Pig’s Big Bad Wolf Trouble
- Poster board with Velcro tigers that moves across the field
- Checklists for every student
Procedure:
1) “Today we are going to look at one book and see how smoothly
and accurately we can read it. I’m going to keep up with your
progress by moving this tiger across the field. Every time your
reading improves, Mr. Tiger will get closer to the watering
hole. Once he’s reached it, you’ve met your goals!”
2) “First, I’m going to read Caps for Sale; it is a story about a peddler who
wants to sell his hats, but once he falls asleep, some monkeys
mess with him. Will he be able to find his hats?” [Read the
story modeling poor fluency. Run through periods, have a lack of
expression, make reading errors, but model cross-checking as
well. Have the students practice recording mistakes and the time
it took to read. Then read the story again, as the students will
with their own stories, and model reading the story with
appropriate expression, stopping at periods, and a proper pace
to demonstrate what fluent reading sounds like. Show how the
tiger moves across the field (once for every difference in the
number of mistakes made from the first reading to the second,
and then again with the third).]
3) "Next, you're going to read a book about a pig who is having
a birthday party. He has to send out his invitations to his
friend, but there is one animal who wants to cause trouble at
his party. Will Iggy Pig's party turn out well?" [Have all the
students work in pairs. The students will read
Iggy Pig’s Big Bad Wolf
Trouble to each other. As they read to each other, let
them note the number of mistakes made, how fast it took for
their partner to read, and whether or not they read
expressively. Then they will switch and do the same for their
other partner. After the class is all finished reading, place
all the tigers on the board so the students will be able to see
their progress. The next day the students will read the stories
to one another again, noting the same things, hopefully to find
improvement.
4) For the assessment, the teacher will spend one-on-one time
with each student. In this time, students will be reading
Iggy Pig for the third time while the teacher makes the
same notes as the students did for each other, as well as asking
students comprehension questions to make sure they were also
paying attention to what they read (Example questions are: Name
some of the animals Iggy Pig invited to his party. What did the
Big Bad Wolf plan to do at his party? What was Iggy Pig trying
to find out from each of his friends for the party?). This will
be used as assessment. Also, this will be an opportunity for
students to move their tiger. Every week, a few students should
be selected who have not made it to the “water hole” yet, so
they can reach it. Once there, the students will get a special
treat for working so hard.
References:
Website for a similar lesson:
Touchdown to Reading
by Morgan Warner
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/warnergf.htm
Slobodkina, Esphyr. Caps
for Sale, 1940. Harper Collins, USA.