Growing
Rationale: In
order to
improve reading comprehension, students must become independent and
fluent
readers. Fluency can be improved by practicing reading quickly and
accurately.
By reading and rereading texts, students will be able to put this into
practice.
Materials:
A stop watch for
each
student, pencils, white erase board, fluency time sheet (see
below),
decodable book Red Gets Fed by S. Cushman
(Educational
Insights, 1990) for each student
Procedure:
1)
I will
begin the lesson by explaining to the students what it means to be a
fluent
reader and why this should be our goal. “We are going to be working on
our
fluency with reading. Being a fluent reader means reading quickly and
accurately. The better we become at reading quickly and accurately the
easier
it will become to understand what we are reading and the meaning behind
it.”
2)
I will then explain to the students that we will be timing our readings
today
to practice fluency. “Students, today we will be reading the book Red
Gets Fed
to practice our fluency. Each time we read, a partner will take the
stop watch
and time you for a minute. When a minute is up they will count how many
words
you were able to read. Then we will write it down on our time sheet.”
3)
I will then give them a book talk for Red Gets Fed before modeling how
to read
fluently. “This book is about a dog named Red. Red is a sweet dog who
loves to
get fed. One morning he was so ready to be fed that he tried to wake up
everyone in his house! To find out if Red get Fed you’ll have to read.”
4)
I will then model how to read fluently and how to fill out the sheet
given to
them. I will ask the students to tell me which version sounds the best.
The
first time I will read the sentence “Red gets fed before bed”
slowly and
in a choppy way. The second time will be better but with no inflection
in my
voice, completely flat. The final time I will read smoothly and with
expression. I will then ask the students which one was best. I
will then
further explain how reading fluently is less choppy and smoother. It is
easier
after reading a couple of times.
5)
At this time I will place students in pairs and pass out the decodable
books,
stop watches and time sheet. I will explain to the class that you
will
time your partner three times. When you are finished they will time
you. You
will fill out the sheets as you go.
6)
After the children have finished this assessment, I will call them to
my desk
individually to read Red Gets Fed to me. I will look over their
time
sheets and note their final reading time.
Assessment: I
will collect
each student’s time sheet when they come up for an individual reading
time with
me. This way, I can look at their progress as well as asses them
myself.
Resources:
Cushman, S.
(1990) Red
Gets Fed.
Murray, Bruce. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html
Nims, Courtney. “Up, Up and Away with Fluency” http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/nimsgf.html
Name:
________________ Date: ____________
Partner’s Name:
_____________________ Book Title: _________________
1st timed
reading:
______________________
2nd timed
reading:
_________________
3rd timed
reading:
___________________
Final
reading:______________