Oink Oink! It’s Time for Fluency!
By: Savannah Roberts
Rationale:
In order to become fluent readers, children must build their sight word
vocabulary. The best way to do this is to help them transition from decoding to
automatic word recognition. In this lesson children will build fluency through
repeated readings. By rereading text, students will learn to read more words per
minute. By working with partners, students may learn new decoding skills and
will get more practice reading. The more students read, the more their reading
skills will improve. This lesson is designed to help students increase their
fluency by reading text and becoming more familiar with it. By the end of this
lesson, students will learn strategies to increase fluency in their independent
reading.
Materials:
-Class set of the book Iggy Pig’s Big Bad
Wolf Trouble!
-Class set of Words Read Correctly Record Sheet(see below)
-Pencils for each student
-Stopwatch
Words Read Correctly Record Sheet:
Name: ____________________
Date: ______________
1st time I read ______________words correctly and ____________total
time read.
2nd time I read _____________ words correctly and ____________total
time read.
3rd time I read _____________ words correctly and _____________total
time read.
Procedures:
To introduce this lesson I would say: In order to become great readers, we must
learn how to read fluently. This means to read words accurately, quickly, and
with expression. Once we learn how to read fluently, we will be able to
understand the text more easily. Sometimes even great readers mess up on a word.
When they do, they go back and read the sentence over again. Re-reading is a
strategy will help us to become fluent readers, and each time reading is faster
and more automatic. When you read something a few times, you know the word when
you see it again and it’s easier to understand ideas. It also helps you get
ready to read out loud so others can understand what you’re reading. Today we
are going to learn to become fluent in our reading.
I will write this sentence on the board, “I’m going to have a party,” I will
show you how a reader becomes fluent reading new words. First, I will
demonstrate nonfluent readers. . I’m g-o-ing to h-a-v-e
a p-a-r-t-y.
I had to decode three different words in that sentence that I didn’t know at
first glance. I’m still not sure of the meaning of these words yet. I’m going to
try that again. (The teacher repeats the text by blending the phonemes together
and crosschecking.) I’m /g//o//ing/ oh, going- I’m going to /h//a/. Hmmm.. have?
I’m going to have a /p/ /a/ /r/ /t/ /y/ oh party! I’m going to read it a third
time because I know the words now, and I want it to sound smooth: I’m going to
have a party. It made sense when I read it smoothly the third time. I wonder
where they are going to have a party? In order to become more fluent you need to
use decoding to remember words that once slowed you down.
We are going to read the text Iggy Pig’s Big Bad Wolf Trouble three times
through silently. Reading silently is just like reading out loud except you say
the words in your mind. Booktalk: This book is about a little pig named Iggy.
Iggy is having a birthday party. While figuring out who to invite to the party a
big gray animal with a bushy tail tricks Iggy into inviting him to his party.
The big gray animal is not nice. Will the big gray animal try to ruin Iggy’s
birthday? We will have to read and find out! When we read this book we want to
practice our fluency. This means to read this book automatically and smoothly
with lots of expression.
It is okay if you do not know all the words in the book. There is a strategy
that will help you in these types of situations. When you come to a word that
you are unsure of, you will learn to use the cover up method. I am going to
model how to use the cover up method. Write the word
pig on the board. If I saw this word,
I would cover up everything but the i.
(cover up p and
g) I know that
i=/i/. Now look at what comes before
the vowel p=/p/. Blend them together
to get /pi/. Now look at the letter on the end of the word
g=/g/. Put it all together and you
have /pig/. When you see an unfamiliar word, use this method to decode it. After
you have decoded that unfamiliar word, you need to read to the end of the
sentence. Also, you need to crosscheck to make sure that you decoded that word
correctly and it makes since in the sentence. Then go back and reread that
sentence again to get you back into the story. Using this method, you will
recognize that word instantly the next time.
After the students read the book silently to themselves I will have the students
read pages 1-4 of Iggy Pig’s Big Bad Wolf
Trouble. Say: One partner will read while the other partner listens for
errors. On the record sheet, the listening partner should record the number of
words read correctly each time. The partner who is listening needs to mark which
time the reader remembered more words, read faster, read smoothly, and read with
expression on the worksheet. Then the partners should switch jobs. I will walk
around the room observing the students and taking notes on my student’s
progress.
Assessment:
To assess the students’ progress with fluency, I will collect the record sheets
that the students completed with their partner. I will look to see how each
student increased their fluency and word accuracy while reading the first 4
pages of Iggy Pig’s Big Bad Wolf Trouble
by examining their time sheets with how many words they read correctly and
how long it took them to read the passage.
I will look to see which students may need extra help and then pair them with a
student who increased their fluency and word accuracy. I will also ask
comprehension questions about Iggy Pig’s
Big Bad Wolf Trouble to make sure the students understood what they read.
The questions might include, “Why did the big gray animal try and trick Iggy
into inviting him to the party?” this was not explained in the book, but the
students were given enough information to make inferences about. “Who realized
what the big gray animal really was?” and “Did Iggy end up having the birthday
party that he really wanted?”
References:
French, Vivian. Iggy Pig’s Big Bad Wolf
Trouble. First Scholastic printing, 2002.
Wilson, Meg. Squeal into Fluent Reading.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/wilsonmgf.html