Books Show Emotion Just Like You!
Growing Independence and Fluency Lesson
Rational: Reading is fun for children when they can read not only
smoothly but with expression as well. When children have to fumble through to
sound out most every word they lose their desire to read. Because of
frustrations they will lose the opportunity to learn how to read fluently. This
lesson is designed to help children practice reading with expression so they can
see reading is fun!
Materials:
Amelia Bedelia
by Peggy Parish; 4 pages of drawing paper; markers, crayons, or colored pencils;
and different parts of the book pre-selected for different expressions to
practice.
Procedure:
1. To begin this lesson I will start talking to the class in a monotone
voice. “Do you think I’d be a boring teacher if I always talked like this? You
would never know how I felt if I talked like this all the time. When we talk we
use expression to convey our emotions to each other. Authors write the same way
we talk! They don’t want their characters to be boring. If their characters
didn’t have emotion they wouldn’t act like we do in real life. Authors write
with expression so we can understand the emotions being expressed. Good readers
read with expression! Let’s practice!
2. Write a sentence on the board, “What are you doing?” Ask the students
to see how many different ways we could read this sentence. Call on different
students to read with different expressions. (use name sticks to call on
students)
3. Start talking about the way people’s faces would look for each
expression. “I’m going to hand out 4 pieces of drawing paper to each of you. You
are going to draw 4 different expressions, one on each page.” Walk around to
ensure students stay on task. You can display the students’ work on the walls
under each expression being displayed.
4. Selected readings from
Amelia Bedelia:
excitement- page 22, confusion- page 25, fear- page 32, anger- page 48. Break
students up into groups so the students can practice expressive reading. Each
group will have a reading with a specific expression to practice. They will
practice for about 15 minutes and then each group will present their expressive
readings to the class.
5. Using the book,
Amelia Bedelia
by Peggy Parish, the teacher will model expressive reading aloud to the class. A
short book talk will be used due to the fact the expressive reading practice
earlier used passages from the book. “Amelia Bedelia is hired as a house keeper
and just cannot seem to follow instructions correctly. What do you think will
happen?” then introduce your passage to the class, “I would like to share with
y’all one of my favorite passages from this book it’s on page 58. What feelings
do you think the author wanted the book to have in this part? Use your pictures
you drew earlier to tell me what you think by holding it up. Yes that is right!
Good job!”
6. To assess whether the students are understanding fluency, each
student will read a passage from Amelia Bedelia out loud for the class. The
class will hold up the emotion drawing that they think is being portrayed
through the expressive reading. The teacher can take notes on the passage and
the class’s responses to the readings.
Reference:
Amelia Bedelia. Peggy Parish. First Scholastic Printing. New York. 1993.
Troha, Debbie “Books Have Feelings Too!” Reading
Genie:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/insights/trohagf.html