Speedy Reading!

Rationale:  Fluency is essential for increasing the child’s interest in reading.  Gaining a fluent reading style will help beginning readers move to advanced reading techniques as they read words more accurately and smoothly.  This lesson will focus on increasing fluency within the young reader by incorporating timed one-minute reading tests that moniter the student's ability to read as much as they can in a timed one-minute session. 

Materials:
Board to write example sentences for students to view
Writing utensils for board sentence examples
The Rainbow Fish text by Marcus Pfister
A one-minute reading class chart to document the progress of the student's scores during the one-minute reading assessment tests.  Students will be given one minute to read as far as they can in a selected text and the chart will describe how many words they read in the one minute session.
A timer for the one-minute readings

Procedure:
1.  Introduce lesson by explaining to students that it is important for readers to be able to easily put together letters to read words smoothly.  This will make reading easier to understand and more fun to do!  Let me show you…

2.  Write example sentence on board such as ‘I am going to the beach to swim.’  Point to words and sound them out slowly as a beginning reader would.  Read as “I a-a-m g-g-o-o-i-ng t-o the b-b-e-e-a-a-c-h- t-o s-s-s-w-w-i-m-m.”  That was a little hard to understand wasn’t it?  Now let me read it again, “I am going to the beach to swim.”  Did you hear any differences in that sentence compared to the first?  As I practice reading, words will become easier for me to say!

3.  Now I want you to try.  I am going to write another sentence on the board.  “Are you going to make a sand trap?”  Read it to me.  (Student will read out loud once.)  Very good!  Now, look at the words and say them to yourself five times.  Now try reading it out loud again.  Did that sound better?  What was different?  Let’s keep practicing!

4.  Say: "Now we are going to read a book called The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.  The rainbow fish has very special scales that sparkle like no other fish in the sea.  All of the other fish want scales like the rainbow fish, but the rainbow fish does not want to share.  Let’s read and find out what happens to the rainbow fish and his beautiful scales!"  Model timed reading.

5.  Say: "Now it’s your turn to read your own book!  I am going to give you a book to read.  In a few minutes, we are going to do a few one-minute reading tests.  In a one-minute reading test, you will have one minute to see how far you can read in your book.  Go ahead and start reading to warm-up your reading eyes!  When I say stop, we will begin our one-minute reading exercise.  We are going to do several one-minute readings so you will become better readers!"

6.  After allowing students to read on their own, have students begin the one-minute reading exercise.  Tell students when one minute has ended and mark the amount of words they read within the timed session.  Document their reading achievements on the one-minute reading chart!

7.  Assess the student’s progress from their reading chart that shows their one-minute reading scores.  Document the information in a format as shown below and have the students' draw and color their own personal bar charts displaying their own work!

                            Test 1         Test 2            Test 3         Test 4        (wpm = words per minute)
Student  A            40  wpm      42  wpm        43 wpm      45 wpm
Student B              54 wpm      56 wpm         58 wpm      59 wpm
Student C             62 wpm        64 wpm         66 wpm      68 wpm

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References:

Eldredge, J. Lloyd. Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1995. pp. 122-145.

Phister, M.  The Rainbow Fish.  Zurich, Switzerland: Nord-Sud Verlag, 1992.