Where are the
Wild Things?... Reading Fluently!
Growing
Rationale: It is important
for readers to learn to read automatically.
This lesson will help readers to become more fluent with their reading,
teaching how to read a text faster and smoother. As a result of
fluency
being honed, and increased, students are able to begin reading silently
and
twice as fast. In this lesson, we will work on gaining fluency through
repeated
reading, timed reading, and one-minute reads. All of these activities
provide
practice to help increase fluency.
Materials:
- sentence strip
with "The
cat runs up and down the long path"
- class set of Where
the
Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
- stopwatch
- class set of
Speedy Reading
sheets
- laminated
copy of a monster
with numbers and Velcro at each of the numbers for each pair of students
- laminated copy of
the boy
with Velcro on the back for each pair of students
Procedure:
1.) I
will first explain
what fluency is and what we are going to do today: "Today we are going
to
discuss something called fluency. Does anyone know what being a
fluent
reader means?
"Very
good!
It means learning to read easily, with expression and with a good
speed! To
become fluent readers though you have to practice."
"First,
I am
going to show you the difference between a fluent and non-fluent
reader.
I am going to read this sentence that is on the board first without
fluency:
"Th-e c-a-t
r-u-n-s u-p a-n-d
d-ow-n th-e l-o-n-g
p-a-th." Was that kind of hard to understand? That is
because
I was not reading it fast and smooth! Now I am going to read it
fluently (point
to each word as I read), "The cat runs up and down the long path."
Now how was it when I read that sentence? It was a lot easer to
understand,
right?
2.)
Next I will
work on one- minute readings. I will split the class up into pairs, and
pass
out, Where the Wild Things Are,
the "Speedy Reading Sheet", and a laminated copy of the
monster and the boy.
3.)
Once the
class is in pairs I will explain to them that one of them will be the
"reader",
while the other is the "recorder." Once the first person has
read, they will switch jobs. I will explain that I am going to be the
timer and
I will watch the clock and stop the reader after one minute goes
by.
Then, the reader will put their finger on the last word they read and
the
recorder will count how many words the reader read and record it on the
"Speedy
Reading Sheet." The recorder will also move the boy up the monster's
back
as the reader increases the number of words read in a minute. Now they
will
switch roles and the recorder will now become the new reader.
4.)
Allow the
students to repeat this 3 more times so you can average the results.
5.)
After the
class has finished their one-minute reads, I will read the entire book
to the
children so they will know how it ends and what fluent reading of a
book sounds
like. We will discuss it and then talk about how listening to it read
fluently
makes it more enjoyable to listen to and easier to understand.
6.)
For the
assessment I will take up all of the children's sheets to see how they
did. The
goal is for students to improve their reading fluency over time. We
will do
this activity more than once so I will be able to compare their results
over
more of an extended period of time.
References:
Where the Wild
Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Prater, Cambre
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/pratergf.html