Virginia
Linne
Growing
READING RACERS
Rationale: Students need to be able to read
fluently in order to be able to read a sufficient amount of material
over a
certain period of time. Reading fluency is the ability to recognize
words
accurately, rapidly, and automatically. Fluent readers learn to
read
smoothly, with expression, and fast. Students will read faster each
time to
focus on fluency.
Materials: board to write sentence, individual
copies of what will the Seal Eat?, checklist paper with: 1. stopped
several
times or did not stop at all 2. Blended words together and
could
understand or did not blend words together and could not understand and
3. Read
fast or read slowly, and class chart to note progress in fluency
Procedures:
1. Begin lesson by telling
students that to become better readers, they must
learn to read faster, effortlessly, and automatically. “When you
can do
all of this, reading will be much easier and more fun than ever!” “To do this, you can read a story several
times. Every time you read it, I want
you to read it faster and faster! Eventually, you will remember the
story!”
2. Say: First let’s figure out how you can read a word that you
are
having trouble with. We will use what is
called cover ups. Let’s say you are stuck on the word clog. What you should do to read this word is
covering up everything but the vowel o. Think to yourself, o says /o/
like
octopus. Then uncover the first letter, which would be c. Remember that
c makes
the /ccccc/ sound. Then move to the next letter which is l and remember
that l
makes the /lllll/ sound. Now blend the first two sounds together.
/CCCCC/ with
/lllll/ to form /cl/ and add the sound that the vowel makes to that.
Now you
have /clo/. Finally uncover the last letter p and think that it makes
the /ppp/
sound. Form all sounds together to make the word c-l-o-g=clog. Remind
the
children to crosscheck and make sure that what they are reading is
making
sense!
3. Show students the difference in reading with fluency and
reading
without fluency. “Students, I want you to see the difference in how
reading
WITH fluency makes reading much more fun. I am going to read the same
sentence
twice (write on board so they can read along). The first time I will
read it
slow and without fluency. I l-o-v-e t-o r-e-a-d. Did you see that I
read slowly
and it was hard to understand what I said? That’s because the words
were choppy
and did not flow together to make sense. Now I will read faster and
fluently. I
love to read. Could you understand what I read? See how reading faster
makes
reading easier and more fun? Great. I want you all to read this way in
your
stories today. I want you to practice reading faster so that you can
understand
the meaning of the story better.
4. I want everyone to take out a copy of Red Gets Fed. (Each student
should
have a copy). This book is about a hungry dog that cannot get anyone to
feed
him. Well, Red goes to around the house and tries to wake everyone up. I want each of you to silently read this book
to find out if Red gets fed. If you
finish reading the story once, read it again. Remember we are focusing
on
reading many times to get faster.
5. after everyone has read the book, discuss the story. Question
why Red
had so much trouble getting fed. Allow
the children to ask questions and discuss the story.
6. Now I want you to read together.
Divide up into partners at your table. I want each
person/partner to
read the story to the other partner completely through one time. Then,
take
turn reading to each other a second time while the partner listening
completes
a fluency checklist on the reading student. Switch. (Go over how to
fill out
the checklist with the class. They will have to circle which category
their
partner displays, like 1. Stopped several times or did not stop at
all 2. Blended words together and could understand or did
not blend
words together and could not understand and 3. Read fast or read
slowly).
7. I will assess the students by taking
time aside to do one minute read-alouds with each student.
By working with them one on one, I will get a
better idea of where they stand.
Resources:
Oglesby, Kara. Ribbit, Ribbit:
Leap into Speedy
Explorations