You
Can’t Catch Me,
I’m the
Speedy Reading Champ!
Rationale:
When students first begin to read, their reading is slow and
choppy. This causes great difficulty
with text comprehension (they have to put so much effort into sounding
out
words that they lose the meaning of the text!). In
order to read faster and smoother, students must learn to read
fluently. Reading will be much more
enjoyable when most words come effortlessly and automatically to
students. The key to improving fluency is
having
students read and reread decodable words in connected text. The more time the student spends on a piece,
the more fluent he will become with it.
This lesson will help students learn how to read faster and more
fluently. The students will work
towards increasing reading fluency through one minute repeated readings. By rereading the text, the students will be
able to read more words per minute.
They will gain confidence and be able to read more fluently with
this
kind of practice.
·
Dry
erase board and maker
·
Page
12 from Dr. Seuss “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” (written on board) Dr. Seuss, (1990). Oh, the places you'll
go!. New York: Random House.
·
Fluency
literary rubric
·
Speed record sheet
·
Large
paper (for modeling cover ups)
·
Cover
up book mark for each student (the students can make their own)
·
The
Stinky Cheese Man- Scieszka, Jon
(1992). The Stinky cheese man and other fairly stupid tales.
New York:
Penguin Putnam.
·
Copy
of “Is Jo Home” for each student- Educational Insights: Carson, CA.
1990.
·
Copy
of “Slim’s Outing” for each student- Gerri
Murray. Reading Genie Website.
http://www.auburn.edu/%7Emurrag1/bookindex.html
·
Transcription
of Slim’s Outing for each student (for assessment 1 min. reads)
·
Stinky
cheese man numbered chart for each student
·
Stopwatch
for teacher
Procedures:
(Previous to this lesson, I will have read The Stinky
Cheese Man to my class)
1.I will explain what a beginning reader
sounds like
compared to a fluent reader. “Ok class,
today we are going to practice reading fluently. Does
anyone know what the word fluently means? Good,
it means fast and smooth. Good readers
learn to read fast. They also learn to
read automatically, or
without thinking about it. I am going
to show you the difference between beginning reading and reading
fluently.” I will display a page from Oh,
the Places You’ll Go , by Dr. Seuss
on the board for the students to see.
(I can use this book to model fluent reading because I am a
consolidated
alphabetic reader…but I would not ask the students to read these books
because
some of them may not be at the consolidated stage yet and this book is
not
decodable!) “I am going to show you how
we go from choppy reading to fluent reading.
(I will use a pointer to point to each word while I read it for
the
class). Y-o-u-‘ll be o-n y-o-u-r w-ay
up! Y-o-u’ll be s-ee-ing g-r-ea-t s-ight-s! Y-ou-‘ll j-oi-n the h-igh-
f-l-ie-r-s who s-oa-r to h-i-g…h-i-g-h h-ei-g-h-ts (read very slowly
and choppy). Well, that was ok, but I
think I can do
better. I’ll try it again (read the
same page again, but this time a little quicker…still leaving space
between
words). That was a little better, but
it still did not sound like talking.
What do you think I should do?
You think I should read it again?
Ok…here goes…(read the same page again, but this time faster and
leaving
no space in between the words). Well,
that was the best time yet, but I still think I can do better. I am going to try to read with
expression. What does that mean? Good, it means that I make my voice get
higher or lower, louder or softer…that’s what we do when we talk to
each other. I
want this last time to sound like I am
talking to you , instead of reading a book (read quickly and with
expression…exaggerate so that the kids will really notice what it sound
like to
read with expression).
2.I will now review the cover-up method
with my
students. “Class, do you remember when
we talked about what we do when we get to a word that we do not know? Yes, we use cover-ups to help us figure out
the word. Let’s do a quick review to
make sure everybody remembers how to do that.
(write “script” on the board).
If I do not know what this word
is, this is what I would do… I would cover up everything but the “i”,
like this
(cover up all other letters). Then I
would be able to remember that i = /i/.
Next, I would uncover all the letters before the vowel (i)…I
would blend
the letters together to get scr = /scr/.
Then I would blend these letters with my vowel…it now says scri
=
/scri/. Lastly, I would look at the end
of my word and blend the last sounds with my chunk (scri)…now I read
scri-pt…script = /script/! Whenever
you
are reading and come across a word you do not know, remember to use
cover-ups
to try to decode it!”
3.I will split the students into partners. “Now it’s your turn to practice reading
fluently. I know that you can do
it! I am going to give each student in
the groups copies of the book Is Jo Home?.
“In this book there is a sweet, gray
dog. He wants to find out if Jo is
home. The dog wants Jo to play with
him. Do you think Jo will be home? Will she want to play? Will
she run away? To find out, you have to
read the book Is Jo Home? Ok, now
each of you is going to read to your
partner. In the beginning, one person
will be the reader and one will be the recorder, then you will switch
jobs. The reader will read the book for
one minute. I will keep track of the
time with a stop watch and tell you when to stop. After
I tell you to stop, the recorder will place a post-it note
at the place where the reader stopped.
The recorder will count all the words that the reader read and
record
them on the hand out. The reader will
move their stinky cheese man up to the number in the road where they
read
to. The recorder will also fill in the
fluency literary rubric by coloring in the circles for how the reader
did. (I will show them how to do this and
go over
the sheet with them before we begin).
After we do this once, you will
switch jobs and we’ll do it again.
4.I will allow the students to have a
practice round to see
what they are supposed to be doing. We
will then do 3 rounds for each partner (at the end, each will have 3
different
number scores). Each round will last one
minute and the students will be reminded to start from the beginning
for each
round and re-read what they have read, trying to read more words. The recorders will fill out the fluency
rubric after the second and third readings.
5.After all of the groups have finished
their one minute
reads, I will ask the students to go to a place in the classroom away
from
everyone else. “You will need your own
personal space for this part of the lesson.
Now that you have had lots of practice with this book, I want
you to
read it alone…but this time I want you to read quickly and with lots of
expression. Practice
being dramatic
with your reading (like you were putting on a play!)”
6.I will then give the students something new to
read. I don’t want to assess them on the
text that
they have already been practicing. I
will call students to my desk to have them read to me.
I will need copies of “Slim’s Outing” for
each student. I will quickly model
expressive reading for the students again (I modeled this at the
beginning of
the lesson, so I just want to refresh their memory).
While the students are practicing expressive reading (“Is Jo
Home”) I will call them individually to my desk. I
will explain to them that I am giving them a new book to work
on speedy reading with. I will have
each student read a transcription of “Slim’s Outing” once as a baseline. I will record how many words the student
read in one minute. The student will
then be asked to read the same transcription twice more (one minute
each). I will record the scores. I will then be able to see if the repeated
reading is helping the student to read faster and more fluently. If not, I will have to do more extensive work
with the student later on.
References:
Dr. Seuss, (1990). Oh,
the places you'll go!. New York:
Random House.
Scieszka, Jon
(1992). The Stinky cheese man and other fairly stupid tales.
New York:
Penguin Putnam.
Is Jo Home? Educational
Insights: Carson, CA. 1990.
Slim’s Outing. Gerri Murray. Reading Genie
Website.
http://www.auburn.edu/%7Emurrag1/bookindex.html
Rickard, Laci. “Read with Speed and Be in the Lead”
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/persp/rickardgf.html
Mosley, Meredith. “On your mark…get
set…read”
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invent/mosleygf.html
Name:________________
Date:__________
1st
time:____
2nd
time:____
3rd
time:____
Name:____________
Evaluator:____________
Date:___________
I noticed
that my
partner… (color in the circle)
After 2nd
After 3rd
O
O
Remembered more words
O
O
Read faster
O
O
Read smoother