Reading Faster with Wild Thing

Reading Faster with Wild Thing
Growing Independence and Fluency
wildthing
Meagan Spradlin

Rationale: In order for fluent readers to focus on the meaning of text they must begin reading with automaticity. One-minute reads are ideal for this because they allow the student to reread the same text several times. Hopefully, each time they will increase in the number of words they can read in one minute. “When a student reads material at a frustrational reading level twice, the difficulty of the material on the second reading moves to instructional level.” (Eldredge 125)

Materials:
            Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1 for each pair)
            Stopwatches (1 for each pair)
            One-minute monster graphs (1 for each student)
            Chalkboard and chalk
            Markers/crayons

Procedures:

Introduce lesson by explaining that in order to become really good at something we have to practice. “ WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN WE SAY PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT? THAT’S RIGHT; IT MEANS THAT IN ORDER TO BECOME REALLY GOOD AT SOMETHING WE MUST PRACTICE. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU HAVE HAD TO PRACTICE AT TO BECOME GOOD? READING IS SOMETHING ELSE WE MUST PRACTICE SO THAT WE CAN LEARN TO READ FASTER.”

“TODAY WE ARE GOING TO PRACTICE READING FASTER BY SEEING HOW MANY WORDS WE CAN READ IN ONE MINUTE. FIRST, WE ARE GOING TO REVIEW SOME THINGS WE NEED TO KNOW IN ORDER TO PRACTICE READING. WHO REMEMBERS WHAT A COVER-UP IS? THAT’S EXACTLY RIGHT- A COVER-UP IS A WAY THAT WE READ A WORD WE ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH. FOR EXAMPLE, IF I CAME TO THIS WORD (write fetch on the board) I WOULD COVER UP EVERYTHING BUT THE E (cover the f and tch). WE KNOW THAT e=/e/. NOW LOOK AT WHAT COMES BEFORE THE E, /f/. BLEND ALL THIS TOGETHER TO GET /f/ /e/. NOW ADD WHAT COMES BEHIND THE VOWEL: /ch/. BLEND IT ALL TOGETHER TO GET /f/ /e/ /ch/. USE THIS COVER-UP METHOD WHENEVER YOU COME ACROSS A WORD YOU DO NOT KNOW.”

Have the students pair up and give each pair a copy of the book, a stopwatch, 2 rubrics, and markers/crayons. “TO DO A ONE-MINUTE READ ONE PERSON WILL BE THE READER AND THE OTHER PERSON WILL BE THE TIME KEEPER, THEN WE SWAP JOBS. EACH PERSON GETS TO DO THE JOB TWO TIMES. THE TIME KEEPER SETS THE STOPWATCH FOR ONE MINUTE AND STARTS THE TIMER WHEN THE READER BEGINS READING. AFTER ONE MINUTE, THE READER MUST STOP READING AND THEY COUNT HOW MANY WORDS HE OR SHE READ IN THAT ONE MINUTE. COLOR IN THE MONSTER GRAPH TO SHOW HOW MANY WORDS YOU READ IN ONE MINUTE. (Model this for the students). THEN YOU SWAP JOBS AND THE READER BECOMES THE TIME KEEPER AND THE TIME KEEPER BECOMES THE READER. DO THE SAME THING YOU DID THE FIRST TIME AND MARK YOUR GRAPH. AFTER EACH OF YOU HAVE DONE THIS ONE TIME YOU WILL EACH HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN TO SEE IF YOU CAN READ MORE WORDS THE SECOND TIME. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?”

For assessment, use their one-minute monster graphs to assess their progress from their first reading to the second.

References:

Eldredge, J. Lloyd. Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. pp. 125.

Roehm, Sara. Go Speed Racer!!! http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/insp/roehmgf.html

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. 1963. New York: Scholastic, Inc.

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One-Minute Monster Graph

Directions: Above the first monster color up to the number of words you read in one minute on the first reading. Above the second monster color up to the number of words you read in one minute on the second reading.

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