THE CASE FOR READING FLUENCY
A Growing Independence and Fluency Lesson
Rationale: In order for students to comprehend reading, fluency is essential. The students must practice expression, pace, and comprehension if they want to acquire the skills to read automatically and effortlessly. Effortless word recognition allows the children to be able to reflect and remember what they are reading. Through the process of reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading, the students will become confident, and continue to improve their reading rate. This will eventually allow them to become fluent readers. Students will gain this fluency and independent confidence in their reading by crosschecking after reading decodable texts, and also repeat readings as well.
Materials:
Timer / stopwatch- 1 for each pair
Peer fluency sheet for each student
Sample sentences on white board to model
Teacher fluency checklist – 1 per student – w/ attached comprehension questions
Reading rate forms (for teacher)
Class set of Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes by James Dean and Eric Litwin
Pencil for each student
Procedures:
Say “Okay class today we are going to complete one of our goals in becoming a fluent reader. Can anyone tell me what a fluent reader is? (Call on students who have their hands raised to answer). A fluent reader is someone who can read smoothly and quickly because they recognize the words they are reading. If we, as readers, can recognize our words, then we will understand what we are reading much better because we will instantly know the meaning of the words we are reading, and reading becomes fun!"
Say: “Now let’s look at a sentence written on the white board: I went to school. Everyone put your listening ears on. I want you to tell me if I sound like a fluent reader when I read the sentence aloud. I want to s-c-c-h-h-o-o-o-o-l-l-l, sch-ool, oh school. I want to school. Oh, that doesn’t make sense. It must be went. I went to school. Did you notice that I got stuck on the second word when I read the sentence? To figure out what the word was, I reread the sentence from the beginning and tried what I thought the word went said want. That did not make sense, did it? To fix myself, I went back and reread the sentence to figure out which word made the most sense. This strategy is called crosschecking, and it is super important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers! Here’s how a fluent reader would have read this sentence: I went to school. I read that sentence effortlessly, which made it a lot easier to understand. I want you to turn to your partner and practice reading the second sentence on the board. My favorite thing to eat is icecream. Read it aloud to one another until you read the sentence fluently.”
Say”: “Now class let’s remember when I first read the sentence and I got stuck on the word went. In order for me to figure out what the word was, I had to reread the sentence from the beginning and try to figure out what the word went said; I originally pronounced it as want. The sentence was very confusing and did not make much sense when I used that word. This method of correction is called crosschecking, and it is very important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers!”
The next step is to pass out the book to each pair that you have assigned. Say: “Okay students, now we are going to practice being fluent readers by reading Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes. Pete the cat and his friends just baked some cupcakes for a cupcake party, but now some of are gone! Who took the cupcakes? Let’s read and help solve the mystery!”
The students will read the book silently at their desks, to themselves. Then they will read the book to their partner with no help or frustration.
Pass out the recording sheets to each group and their stopwatches. Say: “now we are going to play a game that will measure everyone’s fluency. I want you to put your listening ears back on so that you all can understand how to play this fun game. So, Reader 1 is going to start the game off and Reader 2 will be in control of the timer. Reader 2 will time how fast Reader 1 reads the first two pages of the book. Reader 2 will then record the time on the recording sheet I have handed out. You and your partner will switch places after Reader 1 is done. You will each do this, going back and forth between you two. As you are listening to your partner read the pages out loud, I want you to be listening for how their own reading changes each time, and ask yourself these questions as you observe – do they remember more words? Do they read with more expression, meaning, or facial movement? Is there a change in their voice? I want you to mark these changes you observe on your recording sheet.”
When the students finish with their partner work, get one student at a time to come to your desk to read the first two passages of the book to you. They will bring their record sheet with them so that it can be attached to their assessment sheet. As they read to you, time them on the paragraph read aloud and use the formula given to record how many words per minute they read.
Words x 60 / seconds read = WPM
Use a list of comprehension questions to measure how their fluency is affecting their reading comprehension.
Comprehension Questions:
1. How many cupcakes did Pete and his friend make?
2. What is Pete’s friend’s name that helped make the cupcakes?
3. Why did Pete and his friends give Grumpy Toad another chance?
4. What did you think about that? Would you give your friends another chance?
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Fluency Checklist:
Partner Fluency Sheet
Reader Name:
Checkers Name:
Total words in the chapter:
1. Tally Marks:
total words - tally marks = words
words in seconds
2. Tally Marks:
total words - tally marks = words
words in seconds
3. Tally Marks:
total words - tally marks = words
words in seconds
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Growing Independency and Fluency Rubric:
Student Name.
Date
Student read three times
_____/1
Student responded to reading comprehension questions.
_____/1
Student filled out Peer Fluency Sheet for partner
_____/1
Student improves fluency
_____/1
Student improved accuracy
_____/1
Total
_____/5
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References:
Murray, Bruce The Reading Genie http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/advancements/
Book: Dean, James and Litwin, Eric Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes; HarperCollins 2010.
Picture: Clipart Library http://clipart-library.com/magnifying-glass-cliparts.html
Hardin, Hannah Dancing with Fluency https://hanhardin1020.wixsite.com/readinglessondesigns/growing-independence-and-fluency-de