Road Runner Reading

 By: Shannon Alexander
Fluent Reading

Rationale: Fluent readers recognize words automatically. When words are recognized automatically reading becomes smoother, faster, and reading has more expression. Fluency is very important for reading because if their fluency is faster then they do not spend all of their on decoding words. Students will be able to comprehend the text better if they have good fluency in reading. In this lesson I will be working on the students䴜 fluency through their speed in reading.

Materials:

1. Dry erase board
2. Dry erase marker
3. Red Gets Fed by Shelia Cushman for each student
4. A laminated Road Runner for each student
5. A road with numbers by fives for each student to graph their own progress
6. A timer for each pair of students

Procedure:

1. First write on the board, the dog is going to run in the street. Class, today we will be working on a skill called fluency. Fluency helps people to read faster, smoother, and with better expression. But in order to become fluent reader we all need to practice a lot. So now I will read a sentence on the board to all of you without being fluent and you can tell me if it sounds good or not. Th-e d-o-g is go-ing t-o r-un in th-e st-ree-t. Did that sound okay to you? It didn䴜t, well was it kind of hard to understand? It was. Okay well now I will read the sentence fluently for you. (point to each word as you read) The dog is going to run in the street. How many of you were able to understand that better? A lot of you were. Well, do we all see how important reading fluently is? Okay, good. Sometimes when we read, we come to a hard word. When that happens remember to use your cover up critter, or to cross check by reading the rest of the sentence, or remember to pick out the vowel sound first and then put the word together from beginning to end.
2. Today we are going to read a book called Red Gets Fed. In this book Med has a pet dog named Red. Red is hungry and wants Meg to give him some food. Will Red get his food? We will have to read to find out.
3. Allow all of the kids to read the book to themselves first. Now we are going to something called quick reads. We will read for one minute and then count the words that we read in that minute. Then we will move our Road Runner to that number on our road. We are trying to get to the end of the road. Model all of this for the students by setting a timer for a minute and then moving your Road Runner to the right number of words you read.
4. Now put the students in pairs. One person will read while their partner times them for a minute. This will be done three times for each person.

Assessment: Assess the students by recording their first times and comparing them with their last times. The students should have more words read by the last reading that they do.

Sources:

Kimberly Barton. Speedy Gonzalez Reading.

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/bartongf.html

Holly Kilgore. Boogity, Boogity, Boogity-Let䴜s Go Racing!

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/kilgoregf.html

Bruce Murray. Developing Reading Fluency.