Super Speedy
Readers!!
Growing
Rationale: Students read
slowly when they first begin reading, but gain speed as words become
automatic. Word recognition becomes
faster and more automatic through decoding.
Fluency allows students to focus on comprehension instead of on
struggling to decode words. Some indicators of fluency are
faster, more
expressive, silent, and involuntary reading.
Fluent readers also enjoy reading, because they are not
struggling with
each and every word but have a larger sight vocabulary.
Materials:
-Class set of decodable books, Red Gets Fed by Sheila Cushman (one per student)
-stopwatch
-pencils
-dry erase board and marker
-one minute read charts for each student
-fluency rubric for each child
-progress chart for each child (a tree with a monkey that climbs up to get bananas; the tree has numbers along it to signify how many words were read per minute; the monkey climbs the height associated with the number of words read in a minute)
One Minute Read
Chart:
Name:______________________ Date:____________
1st minute: ______
2nd minute: ______
3rd minute: ______
Fluency Rubric:
Name:______________________
Evaluator:_______________________
Date: ____________
I noticed that my partner: (put an X in the blank)
After 2nd After 3rd
Read Faster ______ ______
Read Smoother ______ ______
Read with Expression ______ ______
Remembered more words ______ ______
1. Introduce the lesson by
explaining the difference between a fluent and beginning reader. "Today, we are going to practice reading more
fluently. Who knows what fluently
means? That's exactly right!
Fluent readers read fast. They also
read automatically. (Write the following
on the board: 'My mom is
the best!') A beginning reader sounds
like this when reading the sentence on the board: 'Mmmmyy mmmoomm
iiisss tthhee
bbbeeessstt.' Then they might say 'Mmyy-
my- mmoomm- mom- is- the- bbeesstt- best' stumbling over the words and
repeating words that they do not recognize.
A beginning reader who can read the words automatically might
say 'My
mom is the best' but sound like a robot, because he or she does not
read with
expression. But a fluent reader who
recognizes words automatically and reads with expression sounds like
this: 'My
mom is the best!' A fluent reader sounds
like this, because all of the words jump out to the reader. The only way to become fluent is to
practice. The more practice that you
have with a book, the faster you are able to read it.
Reading a book that you have already read
before also helps you become more fluent with books that you have never
even
seen before. Let's get practicing, so
that we can become fluent readers too!"
2. First, I will review the
cover-up strategy with all of them. "Okay
everybody, what do we do when we come to a word that we don't know when
we are
reading? That's right, we use
cover-ups. For example if I saw this
word (write clack on the board) when I was reading and did not know it,
I would
cover-up all the letters (c, l, c, k)
but the vowel a because I know that a
= /a/.
Now look at the letters before the vowel a, the
cl. Blend these phonemes
with the vowel a.
This sounds like /c/l/a/. Then
blend the letters at the end of the word, the ck, with
the rest of the letters to make /c/l/a/ck/. When
you see a word that you don't know how
to read, use the cover-up strategy to help you decode the word."
3. Tell the students that: "To
understand what we have read, we cannot just focus on reading fast. We can crosscheck what we read to make sure
our sentence makes sense. For example,
if I read this sentence (Write on the board: "The duck clacked and
clacked.")
as "The dock clucked and clucked" then I could use my crosschecking
skills to
determine that a dock doesn't cluck so my reading doesn't make sense. I would then reread my sentence correctly as
"The
duck clucked and clucked."
4. I will split the class up into partner pairs. I will then pass out our book, Red Gets Fed, to each child; I will also hand out a Fluency Rubric and One Minute Read Chart to each individual child. I will give the following book talk about Red Gets Fed, but will be careful not to give away the solution to the problem: "Red is a pet dog. He is a sweet, but mischievous dog. He goes and bothers Meg trying to wake her up so that she will get him something to eat. Do you think that Meg will wake up and feed Red? We'll have to read to find out what happens."
5. I will tell each student to take
turns reading to their partner. The
person who is not reading will record how many words the "reader" reads
within
one minute. The "recorder" will tell the
"reader" when to start and stop by using the stopwatch.
The "recorder" will then make a note on the
One Minute Read Chart about how many words were read in that minute,
while the "reader"
can move his monkey up the tree to the correct height (based on number
of words
read). They will then switch turns (the
"reader"
becoming the "recorder" and vice versa) and repeat the process.
6. After both students have
completed the entire book once, I will have them practice by doing a
repeated
reading of the same text. This time I
will also remind each "recorder" to fill out the Fluency Rubric after
the "reader"
has completely read the book.
7.
Allow the students to do one more rereading of the book for a
total of
three readings of the book. Remind the
students to continue to record their partner's one minute reads and to
fill in
the Fluency Rubric. I will allow the
students to discuss how they improved within their readings and
rereadings of
the book with their partner.
8.
I will then collect the students' completed Fluency Rubrics and
One
Minute Read Charts. I will compare the
students' first, second, and last readings to check for
improvement in fluency. For assessment, I
will have each child read a
passage to me in the reading center out of Red Gets Fed. The passage will contain approximately 60
words. I will assess how fast they read by timing them and
recording
their time on a checklist. They will then be able to read the
passage
through two more times and try to improve their score. Our class
will
also have a discussion about Red Gets Fed to
make sure that everyone comprehended
the text and did not just fly through the reading without understanding
the
text.
References:
Cushman, Shelia. Red Gets Fed.
Educational Insights:
Melton, Shealy. Ready
to Race.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/connect/meltongf.html.
Murray, Bruce. Developimg Reading
Fluency.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html.
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