Miranda Snider
Elementary Education
On Our Way to Fluency
Growing Independence and Fluency
Rationale: This lesson helps students develop fluency in longer and more developed texts. Fluent readers are able to read effortlessly and automatically. We want readers to be able to read and reread decodable words in a connected text. In this lesson students will practice their fluency by gaining experience with reading a connected text silently as well as reading to a partner. They will read for fluency with the teacher, graphing their progress and going over difficult or unfamiliar words between readings. At the end of the lesson, the teacher will have a better understanding of the student’s ability to fluently read texts.
Materials:
1. Pencils
2. Stopwatch or timer for each pair of students
3. Copy of Fun in the Hills by Matt Sims for each student
4. Sample sentence [Sam and Ted quickly ran up the hill.] for the white board
5. Assessment sheet for each student (attached)
7. Fluency Hiking Chart
Procedures:
-
Say: “Today we are going to talk about fluency! We want to become fluent readers! A fluent reader is someone who can read quickly and easily! With being able to read quickly and easily this helps us understand more of the story. strategies In order to become fluent we have to use our decoding and crosschecking. After we finish reading a passage, we will reread it. This way for the words we had to decode or crosscheck before, will now be easier, and we will be able to recognize the words quickly and easily. This makes us fluent readers!”
-
Say: “Now let’s look at the sentence I have on the board [Sam and Ted quickly ran up the hill]. I am going to read it the first time, and since this is my first time there may be some words I do not know. Model: “Sam and T-t-t-e-e-d, Ted,qu-qu-i-i-ck-ly, quickly, ran up the h-h-h-i-i-i-l-l, hill . Did you all see how there were some words I did not know? I had to use my decoding strategy to figure them out! Now I am going to go back and reread, and this time I should be able to get the words a little easier because I have already read them. Model: “Sam and Ted quickly ran up the hill!” See how I now know the words I did not know before and now the sentence is easy to understand and I even added expression!”
-
Say: “Today we are going to read Fun in the Hills by Matt Sims. This story is about two boys, Sam and Ted, who decide to go on an adventure in the woods! During their adventure in the woods they see a cub. The cub is cute and cuddly, but they both know that mama bear must be close by. So they run and run as fast as they can to find a place to hide from the mama bear! Do you think they will find a safe place? We are going to have to read to find out!”
-
Say: “I am going to pair each of you up! When you get with your partner, you are first going to read the story silently by yourself and then work with your partner. I am giving each of you a sheet a paper and give you both a stopwatch (pass out the fluency sheet and stopwatches). We are going to be reading “The Hut” chapter for Fun in the Hills. It starts on page 10. We know Ted and Sam see a cub, now let’s see if they find a safe place!.”
-
Say: “We are going to measure our fluency skills. After each partner reads the passage silently, I then want one partner to read the passage out loud three times to the other partner. The partner who is being read to will listen through the first read, but with the second and the third read, the partner will be tracking the time it takes for the other to read the whole chapter. Also, notice if your partner is able to read it easily and quickly and adds expression. After one person reads three times, then switch. So the other person becomes the listener and the other becomes the reader. Remember to fill out the assessment sheet I have given you. Write how many words they read in the readings, and in how many seconds it took them to read it. This sheet will be turned into me at the end. Remember to be encouraging and be good listeners. I will be walking around to see if anyone needs help. Everyone please begin now.”
Assessment Sheet
Peer Fluency Sheet
Reader’s Name: Teacher Calculations for
Individual assessment:
Listener’s Name:
Second Reading: ______words in _____ seconds
Third Reading: _________ words in ______ seconds
What changes did you notice?
6. Tell the students to write a short paragraph about what happened in the story. Tell them they must answer the following questions in their paragraphs: 1). Did Sam and Ted find a safe place? 2). If so, where? 3). Where did Sam and Ted hide? 4). Who came in the house?
7. During this silent writing, have each student come up to the teacher’s desk and explain to the student how she or he did on the assessment sheet. Do this by showing a chart with a hiker hiking towards the top of a mountain. The chart will be increments of 5 starting at the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain at 85. Ask the student to read the passage again to you [the teacher], and take notes of the words per minute and how the students’ fluency has improved.
8.Next, to find the words per minute the student is reading use the following formula:
words x 60
seconds
Write the calculations on the assessment sheet [under the teacher calculations for individual assessment portion of the sheet].
References:
Bruce Murray: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/
Melissa Murphree. Buzzing for Fluency: http://mjm0065.wixsite.com/melissamurphree/growing-independency-and-fluency
