Let’s Read with Expression!
Kincey
Hicks
Growing
Rationale: It’s wonderful when a
child learns
to read words and you see improvements in decoding skills.
This is not, however the end of the journey
in becoming a skilled reader. If we want
to see children read at an expert level we must teach them to read
fluently as
well as independently. Fluency requires
the ability to read smoothly, silently, and expressively.
This lesson will help in directing you to
give children the tools they will need to read with as much expression
as
possible.
Materials:
Primary writing paper
Poster board showing different expressive
sentences: ex. Let's go to the park! Do
you want pizza or soup?
Teacher's copy of Spiders in the Fruit Cellar
by Barbara M. Joosse
Assortment of level appropriate, decodable books for
the students to choose from to read with expression
Teacher checklist for assesment
Procedure:
1. We all love to read books.
They have wonderful stories that help us use our imagination!
Today we
are going to learn how to read with expression. Does anyone know what
that
means? Reading with expression means that we read stories so that we
show
feelings, such as sad, happy, excited, mad, and scared. When we read
with
expression, we make what we are reading more exciting and interesting
to hear,
if we are reading to ourselves or to someone else.
2. Listen to me as I say
this
sentence, with no expression. (Read sentence with no
expression) It
wasn‘t very interesting because I didn‘t use any feeling when I read
it. Now
listen as I say this sentence with expression. (Read with much
expression) Did
you hear the difference? It was more interesting and made the sentence
easier
to listen to because I used different soudns in my voice to make it
interesting. I would like for you to practice talking with no
expression and
then talking with much expression. (Assign partners and give the
students a
few minutes to talk expressively and unexpressively to one another) That
was
great! I heard lots of expression while
you were talking.
3. I want everyone to look
up at this
poster that has some sentences on it. Each sentence is followed by some
type of
symbol. These symbols are called punctuation.
Punctuation is what helps us know what expression the writer
wanted us
to use to make the story sound its best.
A period [show what a period is] at the end of a sentence
usually means
that a statement is being made. These sentences may be read with less
expression than other sentences, but you can still change the volume
and pitch
of your voice to make the sentence sound more interesting. (Show
sentence - The dog ran and jumped at the park.) Now, let's try
reading a
sentence with an exclamation point [show an exclamation mark and
explain its
purpose] at the end. Remember that an exclamation point will make us
sound
excited. (Wow! This place is great!) Did you notice how I read
that
sentence with lots of excitement?
4. That was great practice
and I am so
glad to hear all of you using so much expression. Now
I am going to read you a book using a lot
of expression. (Read Spiders in the
Fruit Cellar to the
students) What are some different kinds of expressions I used when
I read
this book to you? (allow student to respond and go back to examples
they
point out in the book for extra review and feedback - this can be part
of an assessment)
5. Now that you have
practiced
expressive reading and understand what that means, we are going to do a
fun
activity. I would like each of you to write a short story using
sentences with
expression. (Go over all punctuation
with the students so they
will remember all the types of expression they can use) You will
each have
ten minutes to write. You can make them silly, scary, happy, or sad;
whatever
you want them to be. These are YOUR expressive stories. (After ten
minutes
has passed, have the students get a partner and read their story to one
another. After all of the stories have been read, the teacher may
select a few
students to read their story to the class using expression).
6. Now let’s all get a book
from the
selection I brought and read silently with expression for practice. Students will select a
book from the
assortment that was selected by the teacher. (Make sure that each book
that the
children are selecting from has a good amount of expression to be read)
Students may find a spot around the room to practice reading their
expressive
book.
Assessment: As the students are
practicing
reading their books, the teacher will go to each student and ask them
to read a
few pages or paragraphs aloud, depending on the student.
The teacher will have a checklist to make
sure that students are using as much expression as possible. This will
help the
teacher to know who grasps the concept and who does not. If the student
is
having difficulty the teacher can help him/her and then return to
him/her at
another time to see if there is improvement.
Example check sheet: http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/fluency.html
References:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/illum/earnestgf.html
Spiders in the Fruit
Cellar by
Barbara
M. Joosse