Speeder Reader
Growing Independence and Fluency
By: Davis Snider
Rationale:
For students to become fluent readers they have to read, reread, decode
words, and be able to tell you about what they read. As readers get more
practice reading, fluency eventually becomes natural. Fluency is the ability to
read words at a fast pace, automatically and with no effort. After children
become fluent readers then they are able to connect with the text and understand
the meaning. This lesson is to help
students learn what fluency is and help them practice becoming fluent readers.
In this lesson they will read and reread text so they will become familiar with
it and develop fluency with the book.
Materials:
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Whiteboard and dry erase marker
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Pencil
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Class set of Tiny Goes to the Library
by Mavis Smith
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Fluency Checklist for each students (second read my partner, third read my
partner: remembered more words, read faster, read smoother, read slowly, stopped
many times, and did not stop at all during reading)
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Progress Chart for each student
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Stopwatch
Procedure:
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First you should introduce the lesson by talking about how it is
important for students to become fluent readers. Being a fluent
reader means that you are able to read fast and without stopping
to sound out words. You are able to recognize words and read
them with no effort. Once you becoming a fluent reader text will
become easier to read and make more sense because you are not
trying to read it, you will be reading it using no effort. One
way you can become a fluent reader is by reading the same text
several times. Each time you read the text, you become faster
because you already know the text. Today we are going to
practice become fluent readers by reading a text several times
and see how you improve.
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Before we begin lets work on what we should do if we get to a
word that we can't read or don't know. "What should you do
first?" "Ok good, we should first look at the vowel in the
word." "After you know what the vowel is you should uncover the
beginning of the word and see what sound it makes." "Last you
should look at the end of the word and see what sounds are
represented there." "Then you should put all the sounds together
and see what the word is." "Let me show you how I would do
this." "The word is camp. First I am going to cover-up all the
letters except the vowel a. A makes the /a/ sound. Then I am
going to uncover the beginning which is c. C makes the /k/
sound. So now I have /k/ /a/. Now I am going to uncover the
ending sound and I have the /m/ sound and the /p/ sound. Now
let's put it all together /k/ /a/ /m/ /p/ camp. Now you should
go back to the beginning of the sentence with the word camp in
it and reread it to see if the sentence makes more sense to you.
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Now you should demonstrate reading a sentence with and without
fluency. This way children can see what fluency really means.
Now write a sentence on the board (I went to camp on a bus) and
show them how to read it fluently and how to read it without
fluency. Teacher reads it " I w-e-n-t t-o c-a-m-p o-n a b-u-s."
"Could anyone understand what I just read? Not that well could
you? Now I am going to read it again. I went to camp on a bus.
Now do you understand what I read? The second time I read the
sentence was easier to understand because I did not spend so
much time on every word. This is what we will be working on
today."
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This book is about a dog named Tiny, But Tiny is not so little.
Tiny goes to the library with his best friend. He is not allowed
inside. When it's time to go home with all the books his friend
got he doesn't really help. You will have to read and see what
Tiny does instead of helping his friend carry the books.
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"Now, we are now going to practice reading with fluency.
Remember you have to read the book several times to become a
fluent reader, so it won't be perfect the first time." Pass out
class set of Tiny Goes to
the Library. "This book is Tiny Goes to the Library and I
want you to read through the book a few times by your self and
then we are going to discuss it. I am going to walk around and
raise your hand if you need help."
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When everyone is done, I am going to ask them questions to see
if the comprehended what they read. I will ask questions like: "
What type of animal is tiny?" "What happened when tiny arrives
to the library?" "What did Tiny do that was such a big help?"
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Now I will divide the students into partners. I will explain to
them how to fill out the fluency checklist for a partner. The
checklist includes (second read my partner, third read my
partner: remembered more words, read faster, read smoother, read
slowly, stopped many times, and did not stop at all during
reading.) The students will now begin to read with their
partners. Each person will read through the story once. On the
second and third time their partner will check all that apply to
the reading. The partners should then switch tasks.
Assessment:
To assess the students, each student will come to my desk and read the
book aloud. They will bring with them their checklist that their partner filled
out for them. I will do a one-minute reading with the student assessing his/her
fluency. I will have a progress chart for each student and I will mark on it
where they are. Each time we do a fluency test, I will mark their progress on
the chart for my records.
Checklist
Second Read:
__________ Remembered more words
__________ Read faster
__________ Read smoother
__________ Read slowly
__________ Stopped many times during reading
__________ Did not stop during reading
Third Read:
__________ Remembered more words
__________ Read faster
__________ Read smoother
__________ Read slowly
__________ Stopped many times during reading
__________ Did not stop during reading
References:
Gainor, Brandi Go, Speed Racer:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/begin/gainorgf.html
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