Rationale: In order for students to become fluent readers, they must learn to recognize words effortlessly.  In order for a student to do this, he or she must first learn to decode words.  The purpose of this lesson is to teach students to read faster and more fluently by providing practice with pseudo words, reading, and rereading books.
Materials: pencil, paper, stop watches, multiple copies of Pat’s Jam published by Educational Insights. / Phonics Readers/Short Vowels, flash cards with pseudo words: blub, tade, sloor, nutch, bain, yat, bootcat, gad, flash cards with pseudo words to pass out to students
Procedures:
1. Practice with the students by holding up a card with a pseudo word on it.  Ask the class to read the word.  Explain to the students that sometimes in order to decode words you must chunk them.  “I am going to show you how to decode a word by chunking.  The word is base-ball.  I chunked base and ball.”
2. “Now, let’s try some  more words and see if we can figure them out.  Remember, if you have trouble with the word, you should break it up by chunking it.”  Hold up each card containing a pseudo word.  Be sure that the students are doing well at this activity before moving on to the next.
3. Provide a sample sentence on the board.  “I am going to say this sentence slow and choppy as if I have never read it.  Now, I am going to practice saying it a few times.  Now, I am going to repeat it.  “Now, which time did the sentence sound better when it was read?”  (Students should say the second time was better).  “Why was it better the second time that it was read?”  After giving time for the students to answer, explain that it was better because the second time was read more fluently.  “Fluent means to read smoothly and effortlessly.”
4. Provide another sample sentence to be sure that the students understand what is going on.  “Which sentence sounds better?  The deer ran across the field of grass.”  Read the sentence two times.  Read it choppy the first time and smoothly the next.
5. Hand out the book, Pat’s Jam.  “We are going to practice reading this book until we can read it fluently.  Who can tell me what the word fluently means again?”  Give the students time to raise their hands to answer the question.
6. Give the students time to read the book to themselves a few times.  During this time, walk around the room observing each student and helping those who have any questions.
7. “I’m going to call one student at a time to my desk to read the book while I time you.  We are going to see how fast we can read.  At this time, I want each of you to pair up with one partner.”  By this time, I will have handed out index cards with pseudo words to each student.  “While a student is reading at my desk I want you to show each word to the other and allow them to read the word.  Don’t forget to chunk.”
8. Assessment: Use the stopwatch to time each student while reading the book.  Record the time on a chart.
References:
Practice Makes Perfect/ Heather Mauldin/ Growing Independence and Fleuency/ www.auburn.edu/~murraba/elucid/mauldingf.html

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