Miss Meri's Reading Lessons

Growing Independence & Fluency

Fishing for Fluency

Rationale:  Fluency is being able to read quickly, at an even pace using expression. It is an important skill for students to learn.  If students are fluent readers, reading becomes more efficient and they can start to read for understanding at a better pace. In order for students to become fluent readers, they must read and re-read decodable books, practice decoding and decoding at a quick speed. This lesson calls for students to practice reading decodable books many times in order to be able to read them quickly and smoothly.  Students will read the books independently and then read to a peer.

Materials: 

Sentence strip with sentence: The snake was slithering on the ground

Copies of Lee and the Team for each student

Stop watch for every group of students

Paper and pencils for each group to record reading times

Speed reading record sheets

Speed reading chart (fisherman)

Procedure:

1. Say:  Today, Boys and Girls, we are going to be working on how to read fast but smoothly all at the same time.  Being able to read quickly and smoothly is called fluency.  It is important that we learn to read quickly and easily so that we can focus on understanding what we read rather than how to decode the words! 

2.  Say:  Now, I am going to show you how to read a sentence fluently.  Place sentence strip on the board with The snake was slithering on the ground, on it.  Say:  I am going to say the sentence aloud, listen to how the sounds blend together so smoothly.  Thhheeee sssssssssnaaaaaaakkee wwwaaasss sssslllllliiiiiitttthherrriinnnggg oooonn ttthheee gggrrrooouuunnd.  I will then read the sentence faster than the time before and then repeat.  The last time, I will blend the words together and read the words at the same pace and smooth the words together in the sentence.  Say:  This is how we read fluently.  Do you see why it is important for us to read this way?  When we read like this, it is much easier to understand.  We are improving our reading by reading and rereading to make it more fluent.

3. It is your turn to practice reading fluently now!  Everyone spread out around the room and I will give you a book to practice reading quickly and smoothly.  Please read it a few times because practicing reading the books multiple times are a great way to improve reading fluency.  The book we are reading is Lee and the Team.  In the story, Lee is the leader of his baseball team. His team just wants to sit around and not warm up for their baseball game. A bee starts to fly around them . . .What do you think happens?  We’ll have to read to find out!  Remember to put the words together smoothly in the sentence as you reread the book!

4. Once you practiced reading your book, come back to the group and you will be paired with a partner to read together.  Each of you are going to read the book to your partner 3 times.  With the stopwatch I give you, you will time your partner for one minute while listening to them read.  After one minute, count how many words they read during that minute.  You will have check lists that has a space to write how many words they read in one minute the first, second and third time.  After one partner has read 3 times, switch and do the same thing!

5. During the peer assessment, I will monitor the students working and make sure that all students are following directions and assessing each other correctly.

6. After reading to one another, I will call them up to my desk individually and explain to them what how many words they read per minute means and how it relates to fluency.  I will then have a chart with a fisherman reeling in a fish.  There will be increments of 5 starting at the bottom of the lake as 5 going up to the top of fishing pole to 85.  I will put the fish on the corresponding number of words they read per minute.  I will encourage the student to keep practicing by moving their fish up each time they increase their words read per minute.

Assessment:  I will assess their speed reading by keeping their times documented and watching their improvement on the charts.

Reference:  

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/

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