Let's Sail Far,
Far Away
Cortney
Winton
Growing
Rationale:
Fluency is
defined as
being "capable of moving with ease and grace, effortlessly smooth and
rapid."
When a student can read with fluency, everything else falls into place
and they
are able to read much more quickly and easily. When fluency is
achieved,
the reader has the talent to recognize words routinely and understand
written
text quicker than non-fluent readers. This will help them
throughout
their life in all aspects. There are three very significant skills
needed to
become a fluent reader: the ability to read faster, the ability to read
smoother, and the ability to read more emotionally, or with
expression.
Repeated reading and dyad reading are two great ways for students to
work on
their reading fluency. Rereading texts allows students to learn
to read
more words per minute. Working with partners allows students to learn
new
decoding skills, as well as giving them more practice reading.
The more
students read, the more their reading skills will advance. The more
their
skills advance, the better they can read all the books that they need
to read
and that they desire to read.
Materials:
Procedures:
1. To
begin the lesson, review a few correspondences. For this book,
review
each of the correspondences for /A/ and /U/. Ask the students to
display
their knowledge of these sounds by suggesting some words with these
correspondences.
2. Next,
do a book talk for the book Toad Eats Out.
This book is about a toad, and it is his birthday! He gets
in the
car and picks up his friend Bug. They go to their favorite restaurant,
but when
they get there, something really exciting happens! We'll have to
read the
book to find out what it is that happens to them!
3. Divide
the students into pairs and have them buddy read Toad Eats
Out together. Use bookmarks for cover-ups as needed.
4. When
all of the students are done reading the book, they will reread the
first two
pages aloud modeling how not to read, (without fluency and with no
expression,
big pauses between words, etc.) "It's my bir th d ay! I can
do what
I want. I want to eat in a rest au rant!"
5. Next,
the students will reread the same two pages aloud modeling how to read
fluently
and with expression. "It's my birthday! I can do what I
want. I
want to eat in a restaurant!"
6. Ask
the students to tell you what the difference was in the two ways of
reading.
Give them a chance to communicate all of their comments. Ask them which
was
more fun to hear? Why? Which helped the story seem exciting? Then,
explain to
the students the importance of reading with fluency and expression. "It
is very
important for us to read smoothly and use expression so that we will
understand
what we are reading and we will enjoy it."
7. Give
each pair of students a stopwatch and two "sail into reading fluency"
graphs. Teach the students how to use the stopwatch. Also,
explain
to the students how to do one minute reads. The students should
time each
other reading the book for one minute. At the end of the minute,
the
student should count up the words they read and move the sail boat to
indicate
how fast the reading was in words per minute. Also, each student
needs to
record the time on his/her paper. Have the students switch
and time
each other. Make sure the students do at least three timings.
8. For
assessment, collect each of the student's papers and compare their
first and
last timings to see if their fluency has improved.
References:
Taylor
Osborne, Get on the Fluency
Boat to
SAIL AWAY to Any Book you want.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/innov/osbornegf.html
Laura Estill, Sail into Reading
Fluency.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/guides/estillgf.html
Schade,
Susan and Buller, Jon. Toad Eats Out. Random House, 1995.