Itching to Read
Growing Independence and Fluency
Rationale
In order to reach
the goal of reading comprehension, students must first be able to read
fluently. Reading fluently means students can read quickly, accurately,
and smoothly while also reading with expression. When
students can read fluently, they do not have to focus on each
individual letter or word and can focus on the meaning of the story.
To be fluent readers, students must practice reading and
rereading decodable words in connected text.
In this lesson, students will become more fluent readers by reading and
re-reading text with partners to further their skills.
Materials
Sentence Strip with
"I am not feeling well"
Sam's Trip to the
Doc by Heather Lewis (1 for each group of 2)**
Cover Critters (popsicle stick w/ googly eyes
on them) (1 for each child)
Slam Dunk Graph for
fluency (1 for each child) (See Bruce Murray Link)
Fluency checklist
(enough for each child) (See Bruce Murray Link)
Stop watch (1 for
each group of 2)
**see link below
Procedures
1. Say, "Sometimes we have to practice things to become better at them.
Can anyone tell me something they practice to become better?
(Possible responses: sports, music,
dance..)
Those are all things we must practice to become better because
if we did not, our skill level would stay the same.
We also have to practice things at school, like math, to become
better at them. We even need to practice
our reading to become more fluent readers.
A fluent reader is one who can read quickly, accurately, and
smoothly while also reading with expression.
Once you can read fluently, you do not have to focus on each individual
letter or work and can focus on what the story is about.
Today, we are going to read story several times to see how much
better your fluency gets with practice!
2. Write the word chimp on the board.
Sometimes, we come to a tricky word that we can not figure out,
even after cross checking. (Remember cross
checking is checking to make sure the word make sense).
When this happens we can use a cover up.
When we don't know a word, we use our cover up critter and our
finger to cover up everything but that vowel.
So, with this word we will cover everything up but
i. We know that
i says /i/. Then, we look at the
ch.
We know that ch says /ch/.
Now, we have /ch//i/. Next, we'll look at
the m.
M says /m/.
Now we've got /ch/i/m/.
Finally, we'll add the p.
P makes the sound /p/.
And now we have /ch/i/m/p/ chimp.
Our critters can be very helpful!
3. Display sentence strip with the sentence "I am not feeling well."
Sometimes we have trouble reading sentences.
"I ammm not fa . . . no feeling.. wellllll."
There were a few tricky words in there and I had to cross check
to know that feeling was
feeling and not
failing.
Now let's listen again. "I am not
feeling well." That one sounded better,
right? I was reading it fluently and it
was easier to understand because of that.
I also put some expression into my voice!
I can read like this because I've been practicing.
If you practice, you can read fluently, too!
4. Today, we're going to read Sam's Trip to the Doc by
Heather Lewis.
One day, Sam wakes up with spots all over him that itch, a lot.
His mom and dad think he is sick and they decide he needs to go
to the doc. Let's see what the doctor
tells him and if he can help him get better!
5. When we read our book today, we are going to read it in partners
where we can listen to how fluently each other read.
Each student is going to read the book three times.
I am going to give you a checklist where after your partner has
read the book two times, you can mark his improvement down on the sheet.
You will do this again after the third time.
Please remember to give positive feedback to you partner!
After we do this, you are going to time your partner.
One person will start reading the book and the other person is
going to time him or her for one minute. As
soon as your partner says "stop!" make sure to stop.
Your partner will then count all the words you read and record
them on the slam dunk chart. Then you will
switch roles. You may do this several
times, as time permits.
6. As students start to finish, I will call them up to my desk to do
one-minute reads with me. I will chart the
number of words they read as well as errors.
I will also go over their charts with them from partner reading
to note their progress.
References
Phillips, Lindsay.
"The Race is On!"
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/solutions/phillipsgf.htm
Murray, Bruce.
"Developing Reading Fluency"
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html
Lewis, Heather.
Sam's Trip to the Doc.