Growing Independence and Fluency Design
Mareena Kohtala
Rationale
Students need to
not only be
able to decode words, but be able to do so effortlessly to maintain
comprehension of the story. Students should learn to read quicker while
using
expression to bring the story to life. This lesson is aimed at raising
awareness of the importance of reading fluently.
Materials
-a stopwatch for
each pair
of students
-a list of words
for each
pair of students to practice decoding
-a football
scoreboard for
each student
-the book Pat’s Jam (Educational Insights) one for
every two students
Procedures
1. Explain to
students that
today you will be reading fast and smooth. Explain to them that it is
not only
important to be able to decode the words, but also to be able to read
the
smoothly. “The more you practice your reading the more the characters
will come
to life, and the story will be that much more exciting.”
2. “First we
have to read
the words. Who can tell me how we would sound out this word ‘gas.’ Lets
cover
everything up except for the part we are working on. Lets start with
the vowel,
who can find the vowel. ‘a.’ That makes the /a/ sound, remember like we
are at
the dentist, /a/. Now lets uncover everything before the vowel. What do
we
have, a g! That’s the /g/ sound, like we are drinking water. Now lets
put those
together, g-g-g-g-a-a-a-a. Drink, drink, dentist, dentist! Now lets
take off
the rest of the cover and we all know that the slithery ‘s’ makes the
/s/ sound
like a snake. So together we get ‘gas.’ Now practice with your
partner.” Have
children partner up and give them a few words to practice. One will
decode the
word and the other will check.
3. Now explain
to the
children that if you read every word its going to take a really long
time to
get through the story. Read a sentence from Pat’s Jam. Show
slow
reading: “P-p-a-a-a-t-t i-i-s-s-s a-a r-r-r-a-a-t-t. and hen show
fluent, quick
reading: “pat is a rat.” To get from the first way to the second way we
need to
practice reading fluently. To read quickly you must be able to
recognize the
words quickly. So practice reading this story with your partner. As you
read
you will notice you will get faster and more accurate. I’m going to
give you a
stop watch and I want you to take turns reading the story. Your partner
is
going to time you for one minute, how many seconds is that – 60! Then
you will
mark you score on the scoreboard for both “teams.” You will each read
the story
again two more times and you want to try and read more words so your
score will
be higher than the other teams.” Let students pick the two teams, one
for them
and the other they want to compete against, for example football teams.
4. Introduce the
book the
students will be reading. “Pat’s
Assessment
Have students
read the story
to you twice and look for improvement. Also note fluency and
expression. Time
students to note reading speed.
Reference
Pat’s Jam.
Educational Insights.
Jeremy Knowles, “Ready, Set,
READ!” at http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/knowlesgf.html.
Catherine Moore, “The Fast
and the Fluent” at http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/insp/mooregf.html.