Around
the Bases
with
Growing Independence & Fluency
By: Beth Gamble
Rationale: Children need to become fluent
readers, so that they will have
a greater ability in reading comprehension, automatacity, and the
ability to read
faster. Decoding skills make fluency easier, students must practice and
master
letter-sound correspondences. When children practice strategies and
correspondences in repeated readings, they will become more fluent
readers.
Repeated readings improve the student's word recognition, fluency, and
comprehension skills.
Materials:
stopwatch
pencil
Sheet with Baseball Diamond-copy for each student
class set of Lee and the Team (Educational Insights)
sentence strips with a few decodable sentences: James ate some toast
for a
snack. The cat jumped in the air. The girl ran home in the
rain.
Procedures:
1. Introduce the lesson by reviewing the self-help strategy of
cross-checking. "Sometimes
when we read a sentence, we might read a word wrong. When we do
this,
sometimes the sentence no longer makes sense. Listen to this
sentence:
'I wanted to take a nap in my bead.' Does that make sense?
No.
It should say 'I wanted to take a nap in my bed.' Sometimes after
we read
we have to look at the whole sentence to make sure that it makes sense.
2. "Today we are going to work on learning to read faster.
Sometimes
when I read a sentence once, I don't understand what I read or I read
it really
slowly. Today we are going to practice reading one book a few
times to
see if we can get faster." Take the first sentence strip and model
reading
it slowly, then a little faster and smoother, then faster with
expression.
"The first time that I read this sentence, it might sound like
this 'J-a-me-s
a-te s-o-me t-oa-st for a sn-a-ck.'
If I read it again it might sound
smoother, like this 'James ate some toa-st for a sn-ack.' And if
I read
it again it might sound faster and I would have expression, like this
'James
ate some toast for a snack.' Do you hear the difference? That is what
we will
be doing today."
3. Pair each student up with a partner. Put the other two
sentence strips
up on the board. "I want you and your partner to take turns
reading
these sentences to each other. Make sure that you read all of the words
correctly.
Each of you should say the sentence three times each. Try to say
the
sentences faster and smoother each time."
4. Give each student a copy of Lee and the Team. Give them a book
talk
for it. "Lee is on a baseball team. He cannot get his teammates
to
go run anywhere. They would rather sit in the weeds. How will he get
them to the game? Read the story to
find out what happens."
5. Ask them to spread out and read the book to themselves. "I
want
you to read the book one time. When you are finished, close your book
and put
it in front of you so that I will know when everyone is ready to move
on. Sit
quietly until everyone is finished."
6. "Now go sit back with your partner. I will give each of you a
sheet like this (hold up one of the sheets with the baseball diamond on
it) and
a pencil. I want you to take turns reading the book out loud to
each
other for one minute. I will time you. The person who is
not
reading will be filling out your baseball diamond sheet for you, so the
first
thing that I want you to do is to write your name on the pitcher's
mound.
When you are filling out your partners sheet, you will start them
out on
first base because they already read the book once. The next time
that
they read you will write down how many words they read that minute on
the base,
and then will use the checklist to check if you read faster, smoother,
or with
more expression. You should each read three times. When you
get
done, your diamond should look like this (show an example)."
7. Assess the students by observing each pair as they read to each
other.
Make sure that they are doing everything correctly and listen
carefully
to them as they read. Have the students turn in their baseball
sheets so
that you can see if they are improving through this activity. Have each
student
read one of the sentence strips that they practiced with earlier to you
so that
you can see if they got faster, smoother, or more expressive through
this
lesson. Allow students more time to practice reading silently.
Reference:
Kassie Keith. "Running
the Bases for More Fluent
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/begin/keithgf.html
After 2nd reading: After third reading:
faster faster
smoother
smoother
more expression more expression
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