Fluency
is Fun
Fluency Literary Design
Rationale: The goal of this
lesson is for students to learn how to speed up the pace of their
reading.
Students read slow and monotonously to avoid making mistakes. In order
for
students to comprehend the text, they need to learn to vary the rates
of their
reading. Fluent readers read faster, smoother, and more expressively.
By
reading and rereading the text, the students will learn to read faster.
This
lesson will help to assess and improve this skill.
Materials:
Chalk
sentence
strips for phrases (I have got a piece of candy,
Multiple
copies of What will the Seal Eat (Phonics
Readers-Long Vowels. Educational Insights. 1990)
partner
sheets with checklist that checks fluency and expression made by
teacher checklist
for assessment
Procedure:
1) Introduce the
lesson by
explaining to the students that all good readers read accurately, while
decoding and comprehending. Explain to the students that it is
important to be
fluent in reading while being able to decode unknown words. “Today we
are going
to work on decoding while reading at a good pace. We want to build our
reading
skills. It can be hard to read at a fast
pace when you are unfamiliar with some of the words in the book. Today
we are
going to learn how to read fluently while decoding”.
2) Start by explaining the meaning of a decoding strategy to the
students. Help
the students by giving them an example of how to decode a word that is
unfamiliar. “Does anyone know what it is called when we don’t know a
word and
we try to figure it out? Good that method is called decoding. First we
take the
vowel sound and then we move to the first letter. Then we blend the
first and
second sound into the remaining sounds. For example, if we had the word
bed, we
would start with the e and the put b-e together and then put it all
together to
say b-e-d. Let’s try a couple of made up words and see if we can decode
them”.
Example words ball, sick, rub.
3) Explain to the students that adding all the letters together in bed
is
called blending and that this step leads to fluency. “It is hard to
read and
understand a word just by decoding. After you decode and figure out the
letters
and sounds to read the word you have to blend the sounds together. If
you did
not blend the words together the word would be segmented and hard to
understand. For example, is it easier to understand the word
s-ch -oo-l or
school. Your
right it is easier to understand the word school that is already
blended
together. After you blend a word it makes it easier to read and
understand.
This is what makes us become fluent readers. Let’s practice putting
phrases of
words together, “I-went-to- the-park-and-played-outside. When we are
able to
say the sentence all together like that, reading becomes enjoyable
because we
are not chopping up the phrases and it’s easier to comprehend.
4) Explain to the class that we are going to practice blending words
together
by singing a song. “It is important that everyone listens to me sing
the first
time and then join in the second time. We are going to sing “Over the
Mountain
and through the woods”. Now we will say the phrase out loud,
The phrase out loud
The phrase out loud
Now we will say the phrase out loud,
So put the words together
Say: I-have-got –piece-of-candy.. (Place sentence strip on board while
saying
it. Then have the children repeat smoothly. Other phrases:
5) Explain to the class that we are now going to practice reading
fluently
while decoding. Put each child with a partner to read the new book.
Have the
students read What will the seal eat.
“Everyone needs to take turns with your partner while reading. I want
everyone
to work on reading accurately and smoothly. Remember to used decoding
strategies when you come to a word that is unfamiliar. I want everyone
to read
the book two times through. Each partner needs to read it two times
before they
pass the book to the next person. I want everyone to listen to their
partner as
they read. Listen for them reading fluently with expression. Write a
few sentences
on your partner’s book and their technique in reading. Write down at
least one
thing that your partner did while reading that was positive. Each
person needs
to remember that while writing your report it is important to only
write nice
things”.
6) For assessment, walk around as the children are reading and show
them a
sentence strip from the book and see if they are able to read it
fluently and
record the time they read it in also.
References:
* Nungesser, Ashley.
Fluency is Fantastic. Spring, 2002