Fluency Fun: Ready to Read!

Growing Independence and Fluency

Rationale:

Fluent reading is very important in a child's reading development and success. Fluent reading is reading in which words are recognized easily and automatically. This lesson is designed to help students increase their fluency by reading and rereading text to become familiar with it. Children will be able to recognize the importance of automatic fluent reading and it will help them to gain more meaning and understanding from the text.

Materials:

One minute read chart (one for each student)
Elf in the Tent Decodable book (copy for each student)
Fluency Literacy Rubric (one for each student)
Stop watch (for each group of students)
Dry erase board
Marker
Pencils
Cover-up buddy- popsicle sticks with googly eyes on them (one for each student)
Assessment- the following:

One Minute Read Chart:

Name: ______________________ Date: ____________

1st minute: ______

2nd minute: ______

3rd minute: ______

Fluency Literacy Rubric:

Name: ____________________ Evaluator: _________________Date: ___________
I noticed that my partner:

After 2nd         After 3rd

Remembered more words
               _______          _______
Read Faster
                                _______          _______
Read Smoother
                            _______          _______
Read with expression
                 _______          _______

Procedure:

I will begin the lesson by introducing and explaining that in order to become better readers; it is important that we learn to read quickly and automatically or fluently. "Did you know that when we become more fluent readers, we will be able to understand the text that we are reading better? It is important to learn to read fluently so that we can focus on the story and the meaning of the words we are reading. A great way to become a fluent reader is to read a story many times. Today we are going to read a story multiple times and each time we should try to read a little bit faster."

Review with the students using their cover-up buddies. "Sometimes when we are reading we come across words that can be hard to read, a good way to figure out that word is to use our cover-up buddy." Write the word strum on the board.

Model to the children how to use their cover-up buddies. "When we come across a hard word we can use our cover-up buddies so we can sound it out. I am going to look at the vowel first. I know that short u says /u/. Now I am going to look at the letters before the u, I see /s/, /t/ and /r/. So I have /s//t//r//u/. Next I am going to look at the letter after the /u/ I have a m which says /m/ so I have /s//t//r//u//m/. Oh strum. So everyone remember the next time you have some trouble with a word, just pull out your cover-up buddy and let him help you solve that tricky word."

Review with the children about how to crosscheck. "To understand what we have read, we cannot just concentrate on reading fast. We can crosscheck what we read to make sure our sentence makes sense." Write the sentence on the board, The dog ran after the mouse. "The dog ran after the moss, I can use my crosschecking abilities to decide that a dog cannot run after moss. So I would reread my sentence correctly as "The dog ran after the mouse.”

Give the children copies of the book, Elf in the Tent. Let the children read it first before having them partner up. "Jan gets a new tent, and she plans a campout with Dad. But they don't count on a secret guest showing up.” After the students finish reading, discuss the story as a class and ask questions to check their comprehension and understanding of the text.

Next, the students will be paired off and I will explain to the students about the one minute read chart and the fluency literacy rubric. "When you break into pairs, one of you will be the reader and the other will be the recorder. The reader will read the book for one minute three different times. The recorder will start and stop a stop watch, and will announce when it is the time to begin and end after the end of one minute. The recorder will also write down the number of words read in one minute on the record sheet. After the reader has read three times, you will swap jobs and do the same thing again.”

When the students have finished recording the one minute reads, I will then have them fill out a fluency rubric about their partner. They will check the boxes on how their partner performed on the 2nd and 3rd times reading the book for one minute. I tell the students that this is a very important job, and they should not make fun of their friends.

Assessment:

For an assessment they will bring me the one minute read chart and the fluency literacy rubric. I will then have the children do one minute reads with me to check their fluency and accuracy.

Reference:

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/hoodgf.html

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