Rationale:  The purpose of this lesson is to promote fluent and expressive reading in children.  By rereading whole text, the children will increase their fluency and word recognition.  This lesson will display the importance of expressive and fluent reading.

Materials:  Five interesting picture books to review long vowel sounds, (Jane and Babe, What Will the Seal Eat?, Di and the Mice, I Jo Home?, Stu's Tune-by Sheila Cuchman, educational insights), brown paper bags, coloring utensils, and other materials for puppets (i.e. string, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, scissors, glue, cotton balls, pantyhose,etc.)

Procedure: 1 Begin the lesson by explaining that reading expressively, smoothly, and quickly is the key to fluent reading.  Tell students, "The way to make reading enjoyable is to read stories with a great deal of expression to display particular feelings.  Today we will all practice becoming fluent readers by rereading stories to each other."
2."First, we are going to review some of the long vowel sounds we have learned.  Do you hear  /A/ in plane or jet?  Do you hear /E/ in seal or whale?  Do you hear /I/ in mice or rat?  Do you hear /O/ in rose or grass?  Do you hear /U/ in blue or red?"  (If children have difficulty, use more questions until class can respond accurately in unison.)  Pronounce and review the correspondences that require review.  Explain to students that recognizing vowel sounds immediately helps promote reading fluency.
3.Ask children to raise their hands and come up with an expression that can be displayed through reading.  (i.e. happiness, sadness, surprise, excitement)  Read a passage from a children’s book in this manner.  (i.e. Is Jo Home? excitement- I HOPE Jo is home.  She will play with me!!!)
4. Introduce five interesting storybooks to this class by preparing a book talk for each one.
"Jane and Babe"-Babe, the lion, sleeps in his cage.  Then Jane tries to wake him to give him food…
"What Will the Seal Eat"-The seal is hungry and comes out of the water.  He soon realizes that he does not eat the same things as humans and must continue to search for food…
"Di and the Mice"-Di takes a bike ride and sits down to eat her lunch by a fuzzy white animal…
"Is Jo Home"-This furry brown dog desperately wants to play.  He searches all over for his owner, Jane, because he is sure she will play with him…
"Stu's Tune"-Stu starts to hum his tune until he realizes that everywhere he goes, he hears the same tune
5.  "Now I will separate all of you into groups of five, each group having one book to             practice fluent and expressive reading.  Do not forget that when you have trouble with reading a word, simply blend the phonemes within the word together by initially focusing on the vowel sound.  Each of you will read the book through one time to your group.  Remember to include a great deal of expression in your voice as you read the story to your peers."
6.After each child has had the opportunity to read the book to their group, the group will decide on which character they like the most.  Together the group members will create a puppet within the time permitted.  (they may paste or glue different objects using the brown paper bag as a base for a face)  Each child will then be given another opportunity to read to their peers while using their hand made puppet.  (Each child will read one page from the story while using the puppet.)
7.Continue this process for each day of the week until each group has read each of the five stories.  This process will be similar each day except that students will use the puppet that was made by the original readers of the book.
8.For assessment, students will read aloud to the class and I will use a checklist to mark the miscues of the student’s reading.  In addition, I will rate the students by using a rubric that includes the following:
Expressive Reading:                       Needs Improvement       Good       Exceptional Fluency
            Smooth Reading:                Needs Improvement       Good       Exceptional Fluency
            Faster Reading:                  Needs Improvement       Good       Exceptional Fluency
9.Follow-Up Activity:  Allow students time each day to practice reading silently.  In addition, have more time for children to practice reading aloud to a partner or group.

Reference:  Eldredge. J. Lloyd.  Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1995. pg 122-127
 

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