Miss. Pond's
Reading Designs
Growing Fluency
Reading is not unBEARable!
Growing Independence and Fluency Design
Reading Fluency: Bears
Rationale: For a reader to be a successful reader, the reader must be able to read fluently. When we have fluency in reading, this means most of the words we are reading are in our sight vocabulary. Other results from reading fluency can also be speed and expression while reading. The way a reader can achieve fluency is from reading and rereading. (or Repeated Reading). In Repeated readings, the student will decode words and be able to recognize words automatically. Throughout this Reading Fluency Lesson on Bears, the students will become fluent readers by testing their speed during their readings. The formula we will use to measure this speed is "words x 60/seconds". While the students begin to read faster, the teacher will chart the student's reading time. Helping our students on their reading fluency will also benefit their reading comprehension skills so our students will better understand what they read and become overall more successful in reading.
Materials: We will all need:
1. Stopwatch for each pair of students
2. Sentence on board (hidden until we begin): "We all went outside together!" and "I have never played guitar"
3. Class set of The Berenstain Bear’s Lemonade Standby Mike Berenstain (1 per student)
4. Cover-up Critter for each student
5. Class set of Pencils
6. Repeated Reading Checklist (1 for each student)
7. Reading Chart (One per student) / Child-Friendly Graph
8. Teacher Fluency Checklist
9. Fluency Graph
10. Comprehension Exit Quiz with Questions
Reading Checklist (1 per student)
Partner Reading Checklist
Total # of Words in Chapter: __________
Reader: ___________________________
Checker: __________________________
1: ___ words in ___ seconds
2: ___ words in ___ seconds
3: ___ words in ___ seconds
Which turn sounded the smoothest? _____
Which turn had the least amount of errors? ____
Teacher Fluency Checklist(1 per student)
Name of Reader: _________________________
Date: ___________________________________
Time: ___________
Words x 60 / time in seconds: ____________ WPM
Comprehension Questions:
1. What were Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear making and selling?
2. Who was the first person to receive what they were making?
3. How much did Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear make people pay when they bought this?
Fluency Graph:
Child-Friendly Graph:
0 - - - - 10 - - - - 20 - - - - 30 - - - - 40 - - - - 50 - - - - 60 - - - - 70 - - - - 80 - - - - 90 - - - - 100
Correct Words Per Minute
Procedures:
1. Say: "Today, we are going to work on our fluent reading. To become a great reader, we must be able to read fluently, meaning you can read words quickly, correctly, and with expression. When we become fluent readers, we can better understand the text we are reading and read it with more excitement! We will be practicing this today by reading the same book more than once. Every time we read the book, we will get more comfortable to the words! Once we have mastered this book, all of you will feel more confident in reading this book and understanding what is happening in the text!".
2. Say: "I am now going to show you how to read a sentence, even if I do not know all the words yet". (The teacher will then model crosschecking and decoding a simple sentence). "Let's look at our sentence on the board!". (Reveal sentence on the board that says: 'We all went outside together!'). Say: "I will show you how I read this sentence. 'Wwweeeee aaallll wweeennttt ooo...side tttoogggeeetttthhheeeerr'. When I get stuck on the fourth word, I finished reading the rest of the sentence. I still cannot figure out what the word is so I will now use my cover-up critter. First, I uncover the first letter in the word, this tells us to say /o/. I will continue to move to each letter in the word: /o/ /U/ /t/ /s/ /I/ /d/ /e/. I need to remember that the i_e says /I/, so this word is pronounced o-u-t-s-I-d-e. Let me read the sentence again, "Wwweeee aaaallll wwweennntt ouuuttsssIIIddee tooggeetthheerr: Oh, it's outside! It is like when we go outside for recess. I continued to reread the sentence and used crosschecking until I understood what the sentence was saying! (Model saying, "Wwee aall wweennntt ouuttssiiddee tooggeetthheer". "We all went outside together".) Say: "The more practice I have reading and rereading a sentence, the better I get at reading it and the more I understand what I read. Now, I can mentally mark the spellings so when I see them again, I will remember how to say each word.
3. Say: "Now, we will see the difference between a fluent reader and a non-fluent reader. I am going to read this new sentence on the board". (Display sentence on the board that says, "I have never played guitar"). Say: "This is how I may read the sentence the first time I see it: 'I hhaaaavvvee nnneeevvveerrr ppplllaaayyeedd gggguuuiiitttaaarrr'. "When I read it as slow and as stretched out as I just did, it is difficult for me to understand what I just read. If I read it again, I can try to read it faster and smoother, which will help me understand it better. (Model saying it again faster and smoother). Say: "I h-a-v-e n-e-v-e-r p-l-a-y-e-d g-u-i-t-a-r.' See! That was much better! Let me try reading it again and see if I can read it with more expression. (Read faster and with more expression) 'I have never played guitar!' Say: "That time I read this sentence, it was much easier to comprehend what I said and you could even see how I felt because of how I read the sentence expressively! This is how a fluent reader should read a sentence. Now, you try reading the same sentence on the board! (Have students read the sentence and practice using expression while saying the sentence).
4. Say: "It is going to take some practice for you to become fluent readers! For example, in the sentence we just read, 'I have never played guitar', I did not get it right the first time. It was more difficult because I had never seen it before. However, the second time I read it, the easier it was because I had already decoded the words in the sentence. By the time I read it the third time, I was able to read it faster and with more expression because I had read the sentence before. I became fluent reading this sentence by reading the sentence multiple times until I understood what it was saying! Now, you can practice to become fluent readers!".
5. Say: "Now, we are going to practice our reading fluency by reading the book, The Bernstein Bear’s Lemonade Stand. Everyone, please take out your book and open it to the book, The Bernstein Bear's Lemonade Stand. One morning Brother, Sister and Honey Bear were playing outside. That day it was getting very hot, so Mama decided to bring them some lemonade to cool them off. It was delicious! As they were drinking their lemonade, Mail bear Bob stopped by while dropping off their mail. He was very hot; he was sweating! He saw that Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear were all enjoying some cool lemonade, so he asked for some. Can he just have some then? Or does he have to pay? He told them he’d pay them a quarter if he had some too. What happens next? Will they have to pay for the lemonade? Will they use their quarter? Let's keep reading to find out! (Book Talk)".
6. Say: "We are now going to practice our reading by reading silently to ourselves at our desks until our timer goes off. See if you can read to page 12. If you make it all the way to page 12 in the time we have, reread the first 12 pages until the timer goes off. I will set the timer for 10 minutes. (Set timer depending on my student's abilities).
7. Say: "Now, work with your partner right next to you. We will each be reading the book to our partner. Each pair of you will get a timer/stopwatch to time each other while reading. While one of you reads to page 12, the other one of you will time the reader using the stopwatch. Read the 12 pages 3 times to your partner; you can alternate back and forth. Make sure to write down your partners score after each time they read on their reading chart! You should also use the reading checklist to see how your partner is doing while they read to you and seeing if they get better! I am hoping you are improving each and every time! Continue to practice so that you are reading smoother. faster, and with more expression!
8. Assessment. Say: "During your reading with your partner, I will bring each of you up to my desk one at a time. Here, you will read 10 of the 12 pages to me. Make sure you put on your thinking cap and try your hardest while reading to me! I am going to time you while you read to see how fast you are reading! (This is when I will use the fluency formula). After you have read to me, I will give you a comprehension exit quiz to take with 3 questions on it. Here is the exit quiz:
Comprehension Exit Quiz:
1. Who was the first person Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear gave lemonade to?
2. How much money did they receive every time a person bought lemonade?
3. What did Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear make to let people know they had lemonade?
Assessment (continued): You answering these questions will help for me to see how you are improving on your reading fluency as we are testing your reading comprehension and how many words you can read per minute (I will chart the results to see the improvement).
References:
https://taylordhoff.wixsite.com/lesson-designs/growing-independence-and-fluency-gf
Taylor Hoff – Reading is not unBEARable
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