Growing Independency & Fluency Design
Making Friends with Fluency!
Growing Independence & Fluency Design
Rationale: This lesson’s goal is to help students develop fluency in longer and more advanced texts. Fluent reading is the ability to recognize sight words immediately and read quickly with understanding and expression. Readers should be encouraged and motivated to read and reread decodable words and texts. Throughout this lesson, students will be taught how to become fluent readers themselves, how to decode, crosscheck, reread, and understand. At the end of the lesson, you will have a better idea of the student’s ability to read texts fluently and independently.
Materials:
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Stopwatch (one for each pair of children)
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Pencils
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Fluency chart to record student's words per minute (one for each child)
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Fluency Checklist
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Sample Sentences
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Reading Tracker
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Reader Response Form for Comprehension
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Class set of Printable Story "Timmy's Kite"
Procedures:
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Explain & Say: “We are going to talk about fluent reading today. Whenever we read fluently, we fully understand what we read, and what happened in the story. When we learn to read fluently all the time, we will become better readers and know all the details of the story! Not only will we become better at understanding, but we will also be able to read with expression. This means that we can change our tone of voice to express different moods and emotions in the book. We can use a loud voice when a character is yelling (speak louder here), but we can also use a quiet voice when a character is whispering (whisper here). Today, we are going to practice being a fluent reader!
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Say: “Before we start, I am going to show you all how to crosscheck when we see a word that we may not remember. (Model) and say: “Here we see a sentence (show Timmy's Kite sentence - ‘Timmy ran to the front yard to fly his new kite.’) I may read this as ‘Timmy /r/a/n/’ and think hmm… that is not right! Let me read the last part of the sentence and see if I can figure it out. ‘to the front yard to fly his new kite.’ Oh! ‘Timmy ran to the front yard to fly his new kite!” I said a long A, but it is a short a so we must say /a/. Let’s read the full sentence now- ‘Timmy ran to the front yard to fly his new kite!'
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Model & Say: “Now let’s talk about how a fluent reader reads, but also how a non-fluent reader reads. Our second sentence is ‘Timmy went with his mother to the store’. A non-fluent reader would read this as ‘Timmy w-en-t weth, oh, w-i-th his mmm-ooo-th-eer to the store.’ See how I stretched the words out slowly? I made a mistake and had to correct the word myself. It is difficult to understand what we are reading when we do not read each word correctly. Let’s try to read it again and see if I can read a little smoother and quicker. ‘Timmy w-e-n-t w-i-t-h his m-o-th-er to the store’. That was better, but I am still not reading like a fluent reader. Let’s try to read this one more time, (read smoothly and add expression): ‘Timmy went with his mother to the store.’ Perfect! That is how a fluent reader would read this sentence. Now let’s all read it together (have each child read with you): ‘Timmy went with his mother to the store.’”
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Say: “To become a fluent reader, we have to practice a lot. When I read our sentence the first time it was very difficult for me to read it quickly and smoothly. I had to take some time to decode the words that I was not familiar with. When I read the sentence the second time, it was a little bit smoother because I had read it one time before. The last time I read it, it was quick and smooth like a fluent reader because I knew each word and added expression when I read. Now that you saw me become a fluent reader, you can too!”
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Passage Talk - Say: "This story is about a little boy named Timmy. Timmy goes to the store one day with his mom and finds something he REALLY wants! He finds a beautiful kite that he just has to have. Will his mom get him the kite? Will he buy it himself? If he gets the kite, what do you think will happen? Let's read to find out!"
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Partner Practice - Say: “Now we are going to practice our fluency by working in pairs. Find a partner to read with and then come and get a Partner Progress Checklist, Reader Response Form, a stopwatch, and 2 copies of "Timmy's Kite". The number of words in the passage is in the top right corner of your copy of the story. There are 157 words! After you and your partner settle in a reading spot, each partner is going to read the passage aloud three times. When your partner is reading, you are going to time them with your stopwatch. Also mark how many mistakes your partner makes. If they make a mistake, mark it down on your sheet of paper. Always remember that mistakes are not bad! All of us are going to make mistakes when we are building fluency and that is the only way we will get better! When your partner is done reading, subtract the number of words missed from the total word count. Record that number and the amount of time that it took them to read from the stopwatch. After you and your partner have both read the book three times, I want you to talk about the passage. Answer the questions on the Reader Response Form and write your answers down on separate sheets.”
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Assess the students’ progress from evaluating answers on the Reader Response Form and determining each students’ words per minute using the (words x 60 / seconds) formula. Make each individual student’s progress with a sticker on the fluency chart. Update these charts so that the students can watch their progress and see a visual goal.
Partner Reading Progress Checklist:
Total # of words in chapter: ______ Reader: __________________
Partner: __________
1: ___ Words in ___ seconds
2: ___ Words in ___ seconds
3: ___ Words in ___ seconds
Which turn (1, 2, or 3) sounded the smoothest? _______
Which turn (1, 2, or 3) had the least number of errors? _____