Katheryn Frey
Growing
Rationale:
In order for a child to reach his or her full reading comprehension
potential,
he or she must be able to read fluently. This involves the speed at
which a
student can read and the smoothness of their words. When a child
focuses
all of their energy on decoding the words, reading becomes a slow
chore. In
this situation, there is little comprehension of the text because too
much "brain
power" is being dedicated to simply figuring out the words and there is
not enough dedicated to think about the text itself. When a child is
able to
recognize words automatically, reading becomes a more positive
experience. This lesson works on fluency by having the child read
and
reread decodable words in a connected text. This repetition helps
the
child to begin to recognize the words automatically.
Materials:
-Chart with
this poem on it:
My Dog Does My Homework, by Kenn Nesbitt
My dog does my homework
at home every night.
He answers each question
and gets them all right.
with homework by Rover.
I can't turn in work
that's been slobbered all over.
-Sentence
strips with various different sentences on them
(all should be different – one per student)
Example
sentences:
John
and Allison took the truck to the grocery store to buy apples.
Three dogs ran and wagged their tails
in the big green park.
My pet hermit crab pinched my brother
on his nose.
The teacher screamed when Billy put a
gross frog in the her drawer.
Robert lost his shoe when he ran through the pool of mud.
My mother gave me a banana and peanut butter sandwich for lunch.
-Laminated
cutouts of a monkey and banana tree
-A stopwatch
for every two students
-Sammy the
Seal by Syd Hoff
Procedure:
1.
Today we are going to a strategy to help us read more
quickly and smoothly. When you can read at a quick pace, you may find
that you
enjoy reading more because you can focus on the interesting stories
instead of
spending all of your time trying to figure out the words. So, lets talk
about
our strategy. First, listen to me read the poem on the chart. I am
going to be
a student who doesn’t know all of the words. [Read the poem as a
beginning
reader would- slowly, sounding out each word, etc.] It would be pretty
hard for
me to thinking about the meaning of that poem when reading it that way
wouldn’t
it? It’s actually a pretty funny poem, but I wouldn’t have even noticed
that
way, so let me try again. [Read the poem at a good pace, without
stopping to
decode words.] This time I remembered some of the words and I was able
to read
it much faster and smoother! Did you hear how much better that sounded?
Rereading the sentence really helped, and it can help you too!
2.
Now that you know the strategy we’ll be practicing
today, you may get with a partner. Once you’re with your partner, I am
going to
give each one of you a sentence strip with a different sentence on it.
First,
one of you should read the sentence aloud to your partner. Then read it
aloud 4
more times. Notice the improvements that you and your partner make!
After one
partner is finished, have the other do the same thing.
3.
Next we are going to read a book! Stay in your pairs and
I will give each pair a book. [Hand out Sammy the Seal to each
pair.]
This is the book we’re going to read. It’s about a seal, Sammy, who
decides he
wants to leave the zoo and go out into the city. Read to find out what
happens
when he leaves! While one of you reads, the other is will take a
stopwatch and
time you for one minute. [Demonstrate how to use the stopwatch.] You
will read
as many words as you can in that one minute. When the minute is up the
partner
with the stopwatch should have the reader stop. Then you will read as
many
words as you can, starting at the same place, for another minute. If
you come
to a word that you don’t know, try covering up parts of the word and
going
chunk by chunk or try to figure it out by reading the rest of the
sentence and
thinking about what would make sense. If you still need help, raise
your hand
after the minute is over and I will come and help you. Take turns doing
this
and write down on your charts how many words your partner gets in each
minute
you time. Look to see if you’ve had any improvement.
4.
After each minute count how many words you had and move
your monkey a space up the tree if you’ve improved. When you get to the
top,
you will be finished and it will be your partner’s turn! Be sure to
also write
down your number of words on your chart to turn in!
Assessment:
Students will be assessed based on the charts they filled out during
their
repeated reading, which they will turn in at the end of the lesson. The
instructor should also walk around and do an informal assessment by
simply
observing the student’s progress.
References:
Hoff, Syd. Sammy the Seal. Harper Collins Publishers, 2000.
Murray, Bruce. Reading Genie Website. Developing
Jayme Ebaugh - Flying to Fluency -
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/constr/ebaughgf.html
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