Ready, Set, Read!
Ready, Set,
Read!
Growing
Rationale: For a child to read smoothly they ought
to
be able to read faster and more efficiently than when they first
started. When decoding words becomes
automatic and
effortless, reading becomes a much more enjoyable experience. The way to accomplish an enjoyable reading
experience is for the child to read and reread decodable words in a
connected
text. The more work that is done with a
particular piece of text, the more efficient the text becomes to them. This lesson will help children read more
efficiently.
Materials: Whiteboard with
the sentence “The car has four wheels and the school bus has six.” written on it, individual pieces of paper
with the sentence (My little brother likes to eat ice cream) written on
it, a
piece of cardboard with a column drawn on it for each student, a small
cutout
of a jogger, one stopwatch for every two children, several different
books of
different reading levels (i.e Stellaluna by Janell Cannon), and
pencils.
Procedure:
1. Lets begin by talking about
how important it is for
readers to read both quickly and efficiently.
Not only do our words sound better when we read this way, but it also
helps us to make more sense of what we are reading. This means
that the stories are more
interesting and fun to read, and less of a chore or a stressful
endeavor. The first thing we should do is use the
cover-up technique. Remember when we
practiced this? Write sratch on the
board. If I saw this word I would cover
up everything but the a, like so
(cover the scr and tch). I know that a=/a/. Now look at what comes before the vowel,
scr=/scr/. Blend
them together to get /scr/ /a/. Now look at the end of the word- tch=/ch/. Put it all together and you
have /scr/ /a/ /ch/. Whenever you see an
unfamiliar word, use the cover up method to try to decode it. I am going to read a sentence one time through
just like a beginning reader would and then I am going to read it again
like a
really good reader would read it. Listen
closely to the difference. “Th-e c-ar
h-a-s f-ou-r- wh-ee-l-s a-n-d th-e sc-h-oo-l b-us h-a-s s-ix.” That didn’t sound quite right did it? It sounded too slow. Now
let me read it again. Notice my speed this
time. “The car has four
wheels and the school bus has six.” That
sounds much faster and clearer.
3. I am
going to give
each group a book to read. While one of
you reads the book the other one is going to be the timer.
You will be timed for one minute. Read
as many words as you can. I will be
walking around to help you. We are going
to do this several times so that
you can become a faster and more efficient reader!
4. After one minute is up you will
count how many words you
read and place your jogger on that number on the track.
Then you will switch and your partner will do
the same thing. Before you start again,
make a mark with your pencil on your track on the first number of words
that
you read so that we can see how much faster you are getting. After a couple of times reading the book,
your runner will get farther and farther on the track!
References
Practicing Smarter Not Harder is Best
by: Leslie S. O’Neal
The Reading Race by Brandi Shirley
Cannon, Janell.
Stellaluna. Scholastic Book,
1993.