“What’s all
the buzz
about….READING!”
By: Brittany Bailey
Growing
Rationale:
Fluency is an essential part
of reading
comprehension. Fluency includes the ability to decode words
automatically
and effortlessly. With automatic word recognition, reading
becomes
faster, smoother, and more expressive, and students can begin to read
silently.
In today’s lesson we will use timing and fluency checklists to increase
fluency.
Materials:
-Copy of Fuzz
and the Buzz for each student
-Stopwatch for
each pair of students
-Chart with
sentence (I have a dog and his name is Spot.)
-Chart with
sentence (I got him at a pet shop.)
-Fluency
checklist (1 per student)
Procedures:
1. Introduce
the lesson to the students by
explaining how important it is to read fast and fluently. “Our
goal for
today is to read accurately, fast, and smoothly.
2. “I
am going to read a sentence from the chart
in two different ways. I want you to decide which reading sounds
better. I also want you to notice which reading you understand
better.”
Read the first sentence in a word-by-word slow reading. “I
h-h-h-a-a-v-e a d-d-d-o-o-g and his n-n-n-a-a-m-m-e is
S-s-s-p-p-o-o-t-t. Now I
am going to read it differently.” Repeat passage, but model fast,
fluent
reading. “I have a dog and his name is Spot. Which reading was
easier to
understand, the first one or the second one? Good, the second
one.
This is how we are going to practice reading today. We are going
to practice
reading fast and accurately today.
3. Have
the students practice reading in
pairs. “I want everyone to look at the chart on the board.
The
sentence says ‘I got him at a pet shop.’ I want you to read it to
your
partner and then have your partner read it to you. After you both
read
the sentence, I want you to read it silently to yourself five
times.
After you have read it five times, I want you to read it aloud to your
partner. Did you read it faster the first or second time?”
4. Model
fluent and timed reading. “I am
going to show you how to read fluently. Today, I am going to read
Fuzz
and the Buzz. This book is about a cub named Fuzz who gets
bopped on
the head by nuts, buzzed by bugs, and falls in the mud.
To find out what happened to Fuzz we are
going to have to read the book. Model
how to read Fuzz and the Buzz fluently
by reading the book aloud to the students. “Did everyone notice how I
read the
book smoothly and my voice went higher and lower, faster and softer,
and louder
and softer?”
5. Have
students get back into partners.
“You are going to take turns being the reader and the listener.
We are
going to be reading Fuzz and the Buzz. I want you to read
as many
words as you can in one minute. You will hear the stopwatch go
off in one
minute. The reader will read the book three times and the
listener is
going to fill out the checklist after the second and third time the
reader
reads the book. If you miss a word use cover-ups and then go back and
reread
the word(s). Show students the chart with sections: remembered
more
words, read faster, read smoother, and read with expression.
Explain to
the students not to be critical of each other’s reading because
becoming fluent
readers is a process that takes time.
6. I
will walk around the classroom to monitor
them reading and to assist with the fluency checklists if needed.
7. To
assess, I will call each student to my desk
one by one and have them bring their fluency checklist that they
completed with
their partner. I will review it with each student, highlighting their
areas of
improvement. Then, I will have each child read Fuzz and the
Buzz once
more and monitor fluency by jotting down whether they read smoothly,
quickly,
stopped rarely, or less smooth, less quick, or stopped
frequently.
References:
“Buzz,
Buzz, Buzz!” by Katie Lincoln
“ZooM!
ZooM! ZooM!” by Lauren Rockwell