Express
Yourself!
Growing Independence and Fluency
Rational:
For students to get a better understanding of a story they need to learn how to read with expression. When a student can read with expression it helps them with obtaining fluency. In this lesson students will be able to hear parts of a story with and without expression being used.
Materials:
What Can You See on a Farm? By Kathryn Lewis
Sentence Strips for procedures three and assessment
A batter for the blue team stuck out.
The pitcher for the orange stuck out a batter.
An orange batter hit a home run.
The blue team made a double play.
The orange team won the game.
What can you see on a farm
What word makes you think of sheep
Piglets are such fun to see
Quick
Get set for a hayride
A farm is a world of fun
Procedures:
1.Ask the students if they like people to read to them with the reader changing their voices or having the same tone throughout the whole book. "Which style of reading (with expression or without) would be boring to listen too." Using expression can let someone know how you feel.
2.Let the students guess how you feel about this sentence by changing your expression. The sentence will be, " We are playing dodge ball today". (saying it with excitement) "We are playing dodge ball today!". The students would think I was very excited about being able to play dodge ball. (saying the sentence acting like you are upset) "We are playing dodge ball today." The students would think that I really disliked playing dodge ball. Allow the children to discuss which way you said each sentence. Make sure the children also understand that questions should be with expression too. For example, "What are we having for lunch?".
3.Practice reading with expression with sentences. Split the class in half and pretend that they are playing a baseball game. Have one side be the orange team and the other half the blue team. Each team will have to say these sentences by using their voices and face expression.
A batter for the blue team stuck out.
The pitcher for the orange stuck out a batter.
An orange batter hit a home run.
The blue team made a double play.
The orange team won the game.
4.Now we are going to read What Can You See on a Farm?, by Kathryn Lewis. This book is about different animals you can see and different things you can do on a farm. I will read some pages with expression and some without. If I read a page with good expression give me two thumbs up, and if I read a page without expression give me two thumbs down.
Assessment:
After the book
is read have
sentences from the book on a worksheet without the punctuation
mark. Have
the students add the punctuation mark, and read to the teacher with
expression.
Answer in ()
What can you
see on a farm (?)
What word
makes you think
of sheep (?)
Piglets are
such fun to
see (!)
Quick (!)
Get set for a
hayride (!)
A farm is a
world of fun (!)
Reference:
Cauthen, Lauren: Lesson Design-Reader's Theater for Reading Expression
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/cauthengf.html
Lewis, Kathryn: What Can You See on a Farm? Saxon Publishers
Scyphers, Sharon: Excited about Exclamations
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/scyphersgf.html