Growing Independence and Fluency
 

On Your Mark, Get Set, Read!

Pam Riddle 

Rationale:  For children to be able to read and comprehend the appropriate amount of daily reading materials, they need to be able to read with fluency.  Fluency involves three aspects:  accuracy, speed, and automaticity.  This lesson will focus on the aspect of speed.  Good readers are able to read at the speed that they do because of practice.  One of the best methods of practice for reading speed and fluency is one-minute reads.  One-minute reads allow the students to see his or her progress with fluency through speed and re-reading.

Materials:  Chalk board

                  Chalk

                  Multiple copies of Splish, Splash by Sarah Weeks, Harper Collins Publishers

                  Rubric :  Page read to:_____

                     Read fast

         Stopped many times

         Did not stop at all

         Read slow

                  Pencils

                  Stopwatches

Procedure:

1.)  I will explain to the children that TO BECOME BETTER READERS WE NEED TO BE FLUENT.  FLUENT MEANS THAT WE CAN LOOK AT WORDS AND KNOW WHAT THEY ARE AUTOMATICALLY/INSTANTLY AND THAT WE CAN ALSO READ THESE WORDS QUICKLY.  TODAY WE ARE GOING TO PRACTICE READING QUICKLY.  BEFORE WE READ WE ARE GOING TO PRACTICE WITH SOME COVER-UPS.  I will then write the word “fish” on the chalkboard.  I will cover up /f/ and /sh/.  WHAT SOUND DOES THE REMAINING LETTER MAKE?  THAT IS CORRECT, I =/I/.  NOW LET’S ADD /F/ AND /SH/.  WHAT DO WE HAVE NOW, FISH = /F/ /I/ /SH/.  GREAT AND REMEMBER IF YOU COVER UP THE WORD AND YOU STILL AREN’T SURE IF IT MAKES SENSE IN THE SENTENCE OR NOT, JUST RE-READ THE SENTENCE.

 
2.)  NOW I AM GOING TO READ SOMETHING TO YOU.  I will then read the sentence, “My mom says, “You can’t wear your red boots in the snow.  They’re just for rainy weather.” I will try to drag the sentence for about fifteen seconds.  I will then read the sentence at a regular pace.  WHICH WAY OF ME READING THE SENTENCE DID YOU UNDERSTAND BETTER?  THAT’S RIGHT.  YOU UNDERSTAND THE QUICKER SENTENCE BETTER.  IT IS THE SAME WAY WHEN YOU READ A BOOK.  WHEN YOU READ IT VERY SLOWLY IT IS HARDER TO UNDERSTAND AND REMEMBER WHAT YOU READ.   TODAY WE ARE GOING TO WORK ON READING QUICKER, SO WE CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT WE READ BETTER.

 
3.)  WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO DO IS CALLED A ONE MINUTE READ.  I WILL PUT ALL OF YOU INTO PAIRS.  EACH ONE OF YOU WILL READ TO EACH OTHER FIVE TIMES.  YOU WILL READ FOR ONE MINUTE AND YOUR PARTNER WILL BE TIMING YOU AND WRITING DOWN HOW WELL YOU DO.  DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?  I will answer what questions the students have at this time.

 4.)  I will then put the students into pairs and hand out a text to each student.

 5.)  The children will then read the text to themselves one time through.  IF YOU FINISH READING BEFORE YOUR PARTNER, DO NOT BOTHER THEM, JUST START READING YOUR BOOK AGAIN UNTIL EVERYONE IS FINISHED.

 
6.)  I will then hand out the checklists to the students and go over the categories.  The categories are:

Page read to:_____

Read fast

Stopped many times

Did not stop at all

Read slow

WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO IS PUT A CHECK BY ALL OF THE CATEGORIES THAT THEIR PARTNER FITS INTO.  YOU WILL ALSO PUT WHAT PAGE THEY READ TO IN THE FIRST CATEGORY INSTEAD OF A CHECK MARK.

For assessment:  The children will come up to the teacher individually and do a one-minute read for the teacher.  The teacher will check her own checklist and compare it to the checklist filled out by the student’s partner.

Resources:

 www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/insp/roehmgf.html

 http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/fluency.html

 Splish, Splash by Sarah Weeks, Harper Collins Publishers

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