Growing Independence and Fluency
Terri Evers
Rationale: As children practice their reading skills over and over they will learn to enjoy reading. Children will be able to comprehend and enjoy texts through assisted and repeated readings. As children read a text over and over their word recognition increases. Assisted reading will allow students to read material they could not read before with the help of a fluent reader. When reading skills are mastered, they children will begin to enjoy reading.
Materials: An I Can Read book that every student has a copy of and the teacher. A chart with all the students names on it and a column with four different dates at the top, and sheet of paper for every student to be able to do a fluently reading chart.
Procedure:
1. Start the lesson by explaining that reading can be fun if it is
easy to read and you can comprehend the text with good reading skills.
I would also explain that becoming a fluent reader, you must practice and
ask for assistance from a fluent reader.
2. Read the book that was chosen. First, I would read it not
very fluent, by pausing between words and reading to fast or to slow, and
then read it fluently. I would ask the students “Was the first one read
fluently or the second one. I hope that they would answer the second one.
3. Have the students open their books (I Can Read) that are on their
desk. I would pair them with a partner. I would have the students count
how many words the reader could read in one minute; I would time them for
one minute. After one minute, I would have the counter go put how many
words the reader read in one minute on their chart. We would do this lesson
more than once, so they can see their improvement. This would be a good
progress chart for the students. Then the roles would switch. The other
student would read for one minute. The progress should reflect their fluency
and I hope that they can read 85 or more words a minute.
4. I think pairing up the more fluent readers with the non-fluent readers
would be a great way to peer tutor. The same book will be read as before.
I would have the fluent reader help the non-fluent reader fill in the reading
chart. The students will be able to read the whole book fluently.
5. The fluent and non-fluent readers will have a chance to choose a
book to read to themselves.
References: Eldredge, Lloyd. “Teaching Decoding in a holistic classroom,”
New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 1995
Reading Genie website: www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/
Click here to return to Challenges