Growing Independence and Fluency Design

Climbing the Ladder of Fluency

Rationale: To become a successful reader, students must read fluently, accurately, show expression, and have consistency. Fluent reading is characterized by effortless word recognition. Students can then reflect on what they are reading, rather than decoding word by word. Students will be able to improve fluency and grow as approved readers through reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading. Students’ improvement in reading fluency during this lesson will be tracked through repeated readings and charting reading times with a formula (words read x 60/ seconds).

Materials:

Froggy Goes to Camp by Jonathan London
Pencils and paper
Stopwatch
Cover-up critter
Sample sentences on white board for teacher to model
Peer fluency sheet (one for each student)
Reading rate forms for teacher
Teacher fluency check (one for each student)
Comprehension questions.
Student face cut outs with ladders.

Procedures:

Introduction

1. Begin the lesson by saying, “Today we are going to work on becoming fluent readers. Our main goal is to become fluent readers! What does it mean to be a fluent reader? What do you think of when I say fluent readers? Wait for student to respond. Fluent readers are able to read quickly, smoothly, and with expression because they recognize each word they see automatically. This also helps us understand what we are reading, and we won’t have to stop and analyze each individual word. This makes reading much for fun when we can read effortlessly!

2. Say: “Now let’s look at a sentence written on the boards: Macy likes to bake cake for her family. Listen as I read aloud the sentence and tell me if I sound like a fluent reader. Macy liks, oh wait I see and e on the end, likes, to back, of wait there’s another e, bake, for her familiar, oh wait that doesn’t make sense, family. Macy likes to bake cake for her family. Macy liks to bake cake for her family. Did you notice that when I read the sentence, I got stuck on the second word? To figure out what that word was, I reread the sentence from the beginning and tried what I thought the word likes said, liks. That did not make sense, did it? Then I went back to reread to figure out what the word should read that would make sense. This strategy is called crosschecking! Crosschecking is so important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers! I was able to figure out these hard words while reading and it helped me to become more fluent. Let’s try again,Macy likes to bake cake for her family.Clap three times if you think I read that like a fluent reader. Exactly, I was able to read like a fluent reader because I had to decode the words in the sentence. I read that sentence effortlessly, and it made it much easier to understand. My reading was more fluent because those words are becoming sight words! I don’t need to continue decoding them because I know them automatically. Now turn to a partner and practice reading the second sentence on the board.” Blake can drive fast in his truck. “Read it aloud to one another until you read fluently.”

3. Say: “Now let’s think back to when I read the first sentence and I got stuck on the word likes. To figure out what the word was, I had to reread the sentence from the beginning to end and tried what I thought the word likes said, liks. That did not make sense, did it? So I went back to the text to reread to figure out what the word should say that would make sense. This strategy is called crosschecking, and it is very important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers!”

4. Say: Today we are going to read Froggy Goes to Campto practice our fluency. In the story, there is a boy frog named Froggy who gets to go to a very fun place during summer. His dad wakes him up and he is so excited to leave. Let’s read to find out where Froggy gets to go and what all he will do.

5. Write the directions on the white board for students to look at. As you are writing it down, explain what you will have the children do. Say:

- Now, I want you to sit side by side with your reading partner. Then you need to go to you designated spots out around the room. While one of you picks out a place to sit in the room, the other partner will come up here and get two, Partner Reading Progress checklist. Once one of you have claimed a spot to read, I want them to count all the total words in Rose’s Birthday, from pages one through eight.

- Each partner is going to take turns reading parts of the book aloud to one another, three times each. While one partner reads, the other will use a stopwatch to time them.

- Pay attention and make sure that each partner notes all of the mistakes your partner makes when they are reading aloud. Make sure to place a tally mark for each mistake. (show the tally method on the board)

- After you have finished your reading, you will continue by doing the math problem to solve for fluency. The subtraction problem is the total number of words minus the number of tallies for each reading. The total number of tally marks should be subtracted from the total number of words in the section you have read. Do this three different times.

-The next step is to figure out the progress of each student. This should be done by answering the questions on the progress form. This should tell which reading was the fastest and which reading had the fewest number of errors.

- After you finish each reading, you need to answer the three reader's response questions:

What happened to the bathtub while James was playing his games?

Where did James toy boat go after the tub overflowed?
What did James have to do at the end of the story for making the tub overflow?

- After finishing, the students will return to their desk and write down his or her own individual answers on a sheet of paper. This paper should be turned in, when they have finished. After the papers and checklist are turn in, a fluency graph will be given out. The graph will have a ladder with cut outs of each student face beside the ladder. I will put the picture of the students face on the corresponding number of words they read per minute. The three rates will be figured out and you will record your scores in the time spaces, which will show the individual reading rates. I will encourage the students to keep practicing by moving their face up the ladder each time they increase their words per minute.

Assessment Rubric

Student Name:

Date:

Answers accurate ___/2

Responded to comprehension questions ___/3

Improved fluency ___/2

Improved accuracy ___/2

Completed partner progress form ___/1

Total ___/10

References:

Caroline Colley

https://mcc0052.wixsite.com/mysite/growing-independence-and-fluency