He reads…He shoots…He reads fluently…And the crowd goes wild!!

Reading Fluency

By: Megan Mitchell

Rational: Reading fluency is very important in the life of a reader. Fluency is the ability for a student to read text smoothly and accurately at a sufficient pace. When reading fluency is accomplished the reader is able to concentrate on the comprehension of the text, instead of the text itself. The reading process is not enjoyable for someone who is not a fluent reader. They are not able to comprehend what they are reading and feel the pressured to read faster, therefore they begin to hate reading and avoid it at all costs. This is why it is so important to practice reading fluency to become a fluent reader. Some procedures that can be taken in order to become a fluent reader are: Repeated readings, timed readings, and graphs that show a students’ progress.

Materials:  1. Basketball goals and balls.

                    2.  Graph charts / Markers or colored pencils to record progress with,

                    3. Copies of Click Clack Moo Cows That Type

Procedure: 1. First the teacher needs to explain to the students what a fluent reader is and why it is important to be a fluent reader. “Today students, we are going to work on reading fluency. Does anyone know what a fluent reader is? Why is it important to read fluently? Now I’m going to read a page from the book Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type like a nonfluent reader would. Did you enjoy that? Was it easy to understand? Now I’m going to read it fluently. Was that easier to understand?”

2. I will write a sample sentence on the board after introducing fluency to the students. My brother and I play basketball together.  “I want you to read this sentence with me sounding out each letter in each word slowly. Did this sentence come together and make sense to you?  Ok, now I am going to read it to you really fast. My bro and I play ball together. Did I leave out any words or mispronounce anything?  Now, I am going to read this sentence to you using fluency. Did that make more sense?  I want you to read it with me the second time.”  The students join in with me and we read the sentence together using fluency and saying each word correctly. 

3. Next, I will explain to the students that they will be paired up with a partner to work on reading fluency. “Your partner is going to listen as you read from the book Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type and they will keep count of the words you read correctly. Your partner will time you for one minute and then record how many words you read correctly down on paper. When both of you have gone each student will take turns shooting their ball into the goal, you will get to try  as many times as the number of the words you got correct, for example if I read ten words fluently then I would get to shoot the ball ten times. Then your partner gets to shoot. You will continue to play the game to improve your reading fluency. As you play the basketball reading fluency game, you will keep a graph of your reading progress each time you make have a total number of points to score. For example, if I am able to shoot ten times, because of my reading fluency progress, I will graph ten. I will not graph how many of the times I got the ball in the hoop, but the number of chances that I got to shoot.”

4. The students are going to break into their pairs.  Each student will be given a copy of Click Clack Moo Cows That Type that they will be reading.  The stopwatch will help them keep track of their 1 minute reads, and will be better for the student to hear the alarm to go off instead of their partner interrupting and yelling at them to stop.  The students will use the copies of the story to mark their partner’s words that have been missed and to record where their partner stopped reading at.  By having the students keep a graph, they will be able to see their progress with reading fluency. The number of times they get to shoot the ball will get higher and higher as they become familiar with the text and their reading fluency improves.

Assessment:  I am going to walk around to each group and listen to them read for 1 minute.  The bar graphs that the children will be recording their progress for 1 minute reads will help me determine if they are reading efficiently.  It will depend on what the benchmark is for certain grades to see if the student’s pace while reading is acceptable or if something needs to be worked on.

References’:  

Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, Author: Doreen Cronin, Illustrator: Betsy Lewin

http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie