Exciting Your Mind
Expanding Fluency
Jamie Ann Mathis
Rationale:
Children
communicate feelings, thoughts, and concerns through different methods
of
expression. When they feel or think something, they primarily express
their
joy, grief, and sorrow through speech. It is important to teach
children to
read with these same expressions. This develops the child’s fluency in
reading.
Teaching a child to read in this expressive manner involves changing
the speed,
inflection, volume and pitch of your voice. When children learn to read
in this
manner, it greatly increases the child’s comprehension of the material
as well
as making reading more entertaining experience. In this lesson the
children
will listen to me read an example of a “dry read” as well as an
“expressive
read” and then tell me which they enjoyed more and why.
Materials:
- Babar’s Little Circus Star: by Laurent
De Brunhoff.
Random House Publishing, New York. 1988. (Copies
for each child)
- Checklist to assess students reading
Procedure:
- Explain to children that today we are
going to learn something very exciting. “We are going to learn how to
bring books to life!!!”This is said with great excitement and
anticipation in order to attract the interest of the children.
Excitement creates excitement!
- Ask the class: “When was the last time
reading a book was fun?” (Field answers)
- Ask the class: “What would you say if I
told you I could make every book you ever read again fun?” ( Again
filed a few answers)
- Explain that, “Today I am going to teach
you how to make a book come to life. I am going to read to you the
first two pages of Babar’s Little Circus Star.”
- Have children close their eyes and
listen to you read a “Dry Read”
- Discuss the boring nature of that read.
Then ask them why it was not interesting to them.
- Have children close their eyes again and
read an “expressive read” of the same two pages. Then have the children
write down a thing they liked about the second read. Ask the children
to share with the class and write a few examples of what they liked on
the board.
- Go around the classroom and have each
child read a page from the book expressively. Encourage and coach each
child through this exercise.
- After the book is read, explain to
children this can be done in any reading you do. Write a couple
sentences on the board and go around the room and have the children
read the sentences out loud using several different emotions; i.e.
Anger, Happiness, Sadness. Examples of sentences to use:
a.
My house is on 1st
Street.
b.
My dog is brown and white.
c.
The mailman comes after 3 o’clock.
Assessments:
1)
Have each student read to the
teacher from the book. From this reading
the teacher can do a checklist of reading fluency testing speed,
smoothness,
expression, and remembrance of words.
2)
Use the observation notes as a
reference to monitor improvement of reading or to know who needs extra
help.
Checklist:
Accuracy
of Words: would include
words missed
Smoothness of Reading:
note smoothness or choppy reading
Speed:
One minute reads
Read with Expression:
what needs improvement, was it correct
expression
Further Uses:
1)
Encourage children to read books to their parents or loved
ones at home using this newfound skill.
2)
Revisit reading with expression briefly over the next few
days in class, and have students break into groups and read aloud to
each other
using the expressive reading techniques you have taught them.
3)
Select a “group book” that you will read a few pages from aloud
to the class each reading session. Read with passion and excitement to
keep the
children’s interest. Discuss with the class what the characters of the
book may
have been feeling or thinking based on your expressive reading.
Reference:
Learn
NC : The North Carolina Teachers’ Network
http://www.learnnc.org
Be
Expressive! by Amanda Starnes
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/inroads/starnesgf.html
click here to return to Beginnings
For further information, contact mathija@auburn.edu