by Renee McInnish
Rationale: Students need to be able to read fluently and proficiently in order to be able to read the amount of material that is given to them in a given amount of time. If a student is a slow reader, chances are they are going to have a difficult time being able to keep up with their other classmates. In addition, there is a good chance that the student will be embarrassed to read in front of others. A child needs practice in reading in order to become a more proficient reader.
Materials: Class set of Lester, Julius. (1999). John Henry. (Picture Puffins). , graph for students to track their rate of reading, class set of bookmarks, class set of pencils, and writing paper for all of the students.
Procedures:
1. Today we are going to work on your reading fluency. Before
we do that, I want to review what you need to do if you come to a word
that you do not know. Pass out bookmarks to the students. I
want you to use your bookmarks to cover up words that you do not know,
exposing one letter at a time, sounding out each letter as you read
it.
Model for students. For example, we will sound out the word I
have
written on the overhead. Notice how I already have the word
covered
with my bookmark. I will expose one letter at a time. The
first
letter is d = /d/. The second letter is e =/E/.
We will blend the two together. We now have de = /dE/.
Continue modeling for the students how to sound out the word
determination.
2. Class, as I told you, today we are going to learn how to increase the speed we read. We are going to do this by reading the same book several times.
Book talk: I am going to read you a story about a boy that busted through the roof of his porch on the first day that he was born. He was so big and powerful on his second day that he was able to build his parents all kinds of great things. Has anyone known a baby that strong before? What do you think he did next? Today we are going to read this book four times hoping to improve the amount of pages and our comprehension of those pages each time.
3. Class, I want you to watch the clock and time me reading silently
for one minute.
During this time I will read as many words as I can. When my
time is up, please tell me to stop. I will then count the number
of pages that I was able to read during my given time. Allow
students
to time you while reading. Wow! I was able to read two
pages
during the minute. Demonstrate how to graph the number of pages
read
during the given time. Now, I want you to do the same thing,
except
that you will have five minutes to read your books silently.
4. Pass out graphs to students and teach them how to label them and
use them.
Class I’m going to pass out graphs to each of you. This graphs
are where you are going to keep up with your success in your
reading.
First I need to you label the left side of the graph.
Deomonstrate
on the board for the students how to number the left side of the
graph.
On the left side of the graph starting with the first line I want you
to
label the line with a two. Then I want you to skip a line and
number
the next line as four. Keeping numbering in twos skipping every
other
line. This side will be where we keep up with the number of pages
that you read. The bottom numbers will be the amount of times you
read the book. Although the graph provides you with enough room
to
track the book twenty times, we are only going to read the book four
times
today. I’m going to give you five minutes each time you
read.
When I say time is up, I want you to graph how many pages you read
corresponding
with what trial you are on.
3. Pass out the books to the students.
Now I’m going to pass your books out to you. I don’t want you
to open the book or start until I tell you to begin. When I
tell you to start, I want you to start reading your book. At the
end of five minutes I will tell you to stop. At that time I want
you to stop and close your book and put it down on your desk.
4. Start timing the students and tell them when to begin.
Begin.
Time them for five minutes.
O.k. Time is up. Please close your
books.
5. Have students graph the amount of pages that they were able to
read.
Now I want you to take your graph and put a dot by the number of pages
you read on line one because this is your first trial.
Demonstrate this on the board for the students because this will be
confusing to them if they have never used a graph. This will also
be a great math lesson for the students teaching them how to use a
graph.
6. To make sure that the students are comprehending what they have
read
and not just
flipping pages, have them write down
everything
that they remembered after each
trial. Hopefully they will remember more and
more each time as well as get further in
their reading during each trial.
Now class I want you to use your writing paper and
write down everything that you
remember about the story.
7. Repeat these steps three more times. After students have finished their forth trial show them how to connect their dots so they can get a true graph. Hopefully all of their graphs are going up hill. Show them how their graph should look if they were improving each time. Go around the room and look at the students graphs so you can see how they are doing. You may want to take the graphs up and put in their files for a record that you can refer back to. Through out the year you may want to do this activity again. You can use the same graph paper for up to twenty trials. Also, take up their writings so you can compare them later as well.
Class I now want you to draw a line from dot to dot. If you improved your reading speed your line should be going up hill. I’m going to come around the room now and look at your graphs and then I will take them up. We will work on these graphs through out the year. Don’t feel bad if your graph didn’t go up hill this time. This was our first time doing the activity and I’m sure you will do better the next time. I also want you to have your writings ready for me to take up with your name and date on them. Reassure the students so they want feel so odd. When you go around the room praise your students’ accomplishments. For some reason if their graphs do not go up hill, praise them for their writings their comprehension of the text. Hopefully, this lesson will help the child feel better about themself not worse.
Reference:
Crowley, Sharon J. & Merritt, King. (2000). Remediating Reading
Difficulties (Boston: McGraw Hill) 3, p. 98.
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For further information, send e-mail to mcinnish@earthlink.net