On Your Mark, Get Set, GO!
Developing Reading Fleuncy
Liz Hooper

Rationale:
It is important when trying to be a successful reader that you can read fluently.  A good way to become a fluent reader is to read often and repeat what you read over and over.  Repeated reading helps students gain better knowledge of text. Fluent readers recognize words automatically and with this automatic recognition, reading becomes faster, more expressive and eventually students are able to read silently which is twice as fast as oral reading. A child can be a good reader and comprehend information but they do not read at a steady pace; instead they stumble over the words and it takes a long time to read the text which can result in distracting their attention from the meaning of the text. This is why it is important to teach children to read fluently at a quick, “normal speaking” pace.

 Materials:
-4 baseball die cuts for each student
-One stopwatch for every two students
-Class set of decodable books, Lee and the Team by Shelia Cushman and Rona Kornblum illustrated by Bob Brugger. Published by Educational Insights
-Progress board with spaces ranging from 0-85 (make the numbers erasable incase the student needs higher numbers) and a matching marker for each student. (example: baseball diamond, bases 1, 2, 3, home, and homerun).
-Fluency time sheet to mark their scores.
-Pencils

Procedures:
1.  Start the lesson out by explaining to students what it means to be a fluent reader and why it is important that students are fluent.  “Boys and girls today we are going to work on a special skill for reading.  We are going to work on being fluent readers.  Being fluent means that when we read our voices sound the same as if we were talking to our neighbor. When we talk to our friends do we say things like “ Hiiii       toda, todaaaay I    am    go, going    to     the ppp paarrrrk”? No, That sounds silly doesn’t it!” Well we want to remember not to read like that. It will make us sound funny and hard to remember what we were reading. It is important that you are fluent when you read because this helps you become a better reader and you will be able to better understand what you are reading.”

2.  Tell the students that they are going to work on becoming a fluent reader by doing repeated readings today.  “Boys and girls today we are going to do something called repeated reading.  This is when we read a book for a minute.  After the minute is up you can count how many words you read in that minute.  We will do this a few times, but each time we do it we will read for a minute.  It is important though that you remember what you read too, speed is important but I want you to also understand what you are reading. Remember, we want to read like we are having a conversation with our nrighbor so try to make all the words run together smoothly”

3.  Give a book talk “Here’s Lee. He wants to play baseball but his team is being really lazy and don’t seem that they are going to make it to their game on time. I wonder what Lee can do to get his team to the game on time.” Model how to reread a passage from the text.  “I am going to read a sentence to you in different ways.  After I am finished I want you to tell me which way sounded the best to you.  Lee and the Team is not big. During the first reading, read the sentence like a beginning reader, choppy and slow emphasizing each phoneme.  Then read the sentence smoothly and with expression.  Could you tell how my reading improved the second time I read the passage?” You have to make your reading sound like you are talking to your neighbor. You can do this by practicing reading aloud a lot so you are comfortable with the words and know how they are supposed to sound. It is important to pay attention to details so you can see how the characters are feeling and you can make that feeling with your own voice. So, if I were working with Suzy, she would say “on your mark, get set, go” then I will start reading just like I was talking to Suzy. She will tell me when one minute is up. Then I will put a sticker where I stopped reading. We will go back and count the words I read together starting at the beginning of the book. I will write that number on my fluency time sheet.” Then the children will practice becoming more fluent readers. After you count the words write the number on the baseball and place it on the first base. That represents the number you read the first time. On your second read, place the number on the second base ect…

4.  Provide each group with the decodable book, Lee and the Team, a stopwatch, progress board, and fluency time sheet.  “Now let’s try this with a book!  Just to remind you, as you read the book your partner is going to time you for one minute.  Read as many words as you can during that minute.  If you come to a word that you do not know, try sounding it out and then read the rest of the sentence, remember how we did coverups.  If you still cannot figure the word out, ask your partner for help.  After the minute, you will place a sticker  where you stopped.  Then you will count all the words that you read.  Write that number in the first space of your fluency time sheet and move your baseball to the number you reached that they read.  Then switch turns and the reader becomes the recorder.  They will then follow the same steps in their new jobs. 

5.  After the first round, have the students reread for one minute starting at the beginning and using the same steps as they did before.  Do not let them forget to record the number of words they read each time and move their race cars.

6.  Allow the student to repeat these steps three times.  We will stop when they have filled in all of the charts.  When they are finished, each student will talk to their partner to see how they did.

7. Assessment: I will call each student up to do a one minute read with me to individually assess reading fluency.  I will also collect the progress charts for each student to assess the words per minute. If time allows we can award the person who read the most words in a minute and allow them to read to the class. This will let them hear fluency from some one besides the teacher reading.

References:

Myer, Leslie.  Fall into Fluency.