Ms. Peacock's Reading Lessons
“Diving into Fluency”
Growing Independence and Fluency Lesson
By: Kristin Peacock
Rationale: Fluency is the ability to read effortlessly with automatic word recognition. In order for students to become expert readers, they must learn to read with fluency. As students gain fluency, they are able to read faster, read more words, read with improved comprehension, and read with expression. Fluency also involved recognizing new words as sight words. This lesson will encourage students to apply strategies such as crosschecking and decoding to improve their fluency. They will also monitor and promote progress through repeated readings.
Materials:
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Sentence strip with sentence written prior to the lesson to use for modeling
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Coverup Critter
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Peer fluency checklist for students
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Peer fluency checklist for teacher
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Stopwatches for each pair of students
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Class set of If you give a Pig a Party By: Laura Numeroff
Procedures:
1. Say: “Today we are going to practice improving our fluency as readers. Does anyone know what it means to be a fluent reader? (Allow time for discussion based on student responses) Fluency means that you are able to read a book smoothly and with ease. It involves making new and never before seen words into sight words. It also means that you are able to read at a natural pace with expression. When we read with expression, we say the words in a way that we think the characters would actually say them.”
2. Say: “Becoming a fluent reader requires practice. Sometimes, it takes me several tries to read a sentence fluently. Watch me as I try to read this sentence.” (Teacher will now post written sentence strip on the whiteboard) Rachel felt exhausted after running the track. The teacher will first attempt to read the sentence as a non-fluent reader. “R….ack..ul felt ex…. ousted often r….uining the track.” The teacher will say, “Hmm.. that sentence doesn’t really make sense to me. Watch as I use my coverup critter to read the sentence again to figure out which words I may have mixed up.” The teacher will now read the sentence again with her coverup critter and correct her mistakes but still read somewhat slowly as she decodes each word. Next, the teacher will say, “Now that I have read all the words correctly am I reading with fluency? No, not yet! I will read the sentence again at a natural pace since I know all of the words now. I’m almost there! Now that I am reading smoothly, I can read it again with expression. (Teacher reads the sentence as an expert reader would) Perfect! Now I am reading with fluency! I even read a new word for the first time… exhausted… I think I will remember that one next time!”
3. Say: “Now it is your turn to practice fluent reading! Remember, the first try isn’t always the most fluent try.” The teacher will now pass out a class set of If you give a Pig a Party book and a coverup critter for each student. The teacher will give a Booktalk of this book to engage the students. It should be something along the lines of: “Have you ever been to a party for one of your friends? What did you do and was it fun? In this book, a girl is throwing a party for her pet pig! As you can imagine, pig parties are a little different from the parties that you and I have been to! What will they do? Let’s read and find out!” The teacher will next instruct students that they are to read this book at their desks silently.
4. Say: “Now that you have read this book silently, I want to pair you up with a friend and play a game to see how fluent we are all becoming! Remember, we treat each other with respect and it is never okay to make fun of someone if there is a word that they are having trouble with. I have provided each group with a coverup critter to use if they get stuck on a word. (Teacher will now pair up students and pass out Peer review checklists and stopwatches) The first partner is going to start as the reader and the second partner is going to be the timer. The reading partner will read the story out loud 3 times. The second and third time, the timing partner will record how long it takes for the reader to read the story. This is when you will use your stopwatches that I just handed out. (Teacher may need to give a brief tutorial on how to use stopwatch). On your peer review paper that I have handed out, you will think about the things you noticed while your friend was reading. Did they get faster? Did they sound smoother? Did they read with expression? Also, look at your stopwatch when your partner finishes reading and see how many seconds it took them. You can write this down on your paper as well. (The teacher will use this data and use words x 60/seconds to determine student’s WPM, doing is this way should be easier than asking your students to figure this out.) After three readings, you will switch and the timing partner will now become the reading partner. “ The teacher should walk around and observe to make sure students are on-track, playing nicely, and reading.
5. Once the students have finished paired reading, the teacher will collect the peer review sheets to assess how each student did and determine if any students need additional remediation. The students will now go back to their normal seats and the teacher should ask some open ended questions to the class and call on students randomly to see if they comprehended what was happening in the story. Some example questions could be, Why did the pig need balloons in the house? How did the friends have fun with the extra pillows and blankets? How would you describe what is was like to have a party for a pig? This will help the teacher to analyze how well students comprehended while they were reading and if they are close to becoming fluent readers.
Assessments:
Checklist used for paired reading:
Fluency Checklist
I noticed that my partner....
After 2nd Reading After 3rd Reading
Remembered more words
Read faster
Read smoother
Read with expression
- Reading record time sheet
Time Record Sheet:
Name: ______________________
Date:________________________
1st Reading: ____________________
2ndReading: ____________________
3rd Reading: ____________________
References:
Murray, B.A. (2012). Making Sight Words: Teaching Word Recognition from Phoneme Awareness to Fluency. Ronkonkoma NY: Linus.
Numeroff, L. (2005). If you give a Pig a Party. HarperCollins.
Wilcox, Emily: Fishing for Fluency
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