LESSONS IN LITERACY

Rationale:

 

Without fluency in reading, children can struggle to comprehend meaning because they are too focused on decoding.  When students read fluently, they can recognize words automatically which frees up cognition for reading comprehension. Fluent reading also allows for faster, smoother, and more expressive reading. In addition, they gain the ability to read silently which is Fluent reading is reading in which words are recognized automatically.  With automatic word recognition, reading becomes faster, smoother, and more expressive. To increase fluency, students should read and reread decodable texts. By rereading the texts, they will add more sight words and increase their words per minute. They also gain a better understanding of texts and with repetition become fluent with specific texts. In this lesson, students will use decoding and repeated readings of a text to increase their fluency.

 

Materials: 

 

• Partner Reading Feedback sheet for each student

• stopwatches for each pair of students

• Reading time sheet

• class set of Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton

• white board and expo markers

• class set of Reading Comprehension questions

  

Procedures:

 

1.) Say: To be the best readers we can be, we have to work on being fluent. Fluency in reading is being able to read words automatically, quickly, and with expression. When we are fluent readers, we can understand what happens in the story better. A good way to become more fluent is to read the same thing over and over. By reading a story more than once, you can become familiar with words that you did not get the first time.  Today, we are going to get some practice with repeated reading so that we can fly up to fluency!

2.) Say: First, I’m going to show you how a reader who doesn’t have fluency can become fluent. If I come across this sentence [write sentence on board]: “Today is rainy.” and I am not fluent, I may have to decode a couple of words. The first time I see this word [point to today] I might try to put together each sound /t/ /o/ /d/ ay. Oh, ay says /A/. To-d-ay. Today. Another word I need to decode is rainy. I see that it has an ai so I know that /A/ must go in this word . /r/ /A/ /n/ /E/. Rainy! That’s it! Now that I have all of the words figured out, I’m going to try and read the sentence again. [Read sentence slowly and without expression, but no difficulty]. That was a little better, but I bet I can read it more smoothly and even add some expression if I read it a third time. [Read sentence another time, adding emphasis]. There we go! I knew the words enough that time to add some expression because I understood what was going on in the sentence.

3.) Say: Now we’re going to read Splat the Cat silently to ourselves. Reading silently is just like reading out loud, but instead of saying the words with your voice you say them in your head. When you read silently, there should be no noise coming out. This book is about a cat named Splat’s first day of school. Splat is really worried that he won’t have any friends. Were you ever scared about a first day somewhere? How did it end up going? To find out how Splat’s first day goes, you’ll have to read the book! 

4.) Say: If you did not know some of the words in this first reading, it is okay. We are going to read it more times so that you can get better! A good strategy to use when you come across hard words is crosschecking. Crosschecking is when you finish reading the sentence that a hard word is in and use the meaning of the sentence to see what the hard word might be. For example, if I saw the sentence [write on board] I didn’t know you were coming here! I might read it as, “I didn’t /k//n//ow/—k-now? Hmm… that doesn’t sound right but I’ll keep reading to see if I can figure it out—you were coming here! Oh! I bet it is /n//O/, not k-now. /n//O/ makes more sense. I didn’t know you coming here.”

5.) Now, I want everyone to partner up. [Once students are partnered, walk to each pair and pass out a stopwatch, two feedback sheets, and two time sheets.] Each of you has a Feedback sheet [hold it up] and a time sheet [hold it up]. If your partner remembers more words, reads faster, reads more smoothly, or reads with expression, I want you to put a checkmark in the box underneath which reading they were doing. Time each other as you read the book, and write down how long it takes to read each time on the time sheet. You will read Splat the Cat two more times out loud as your partner times you and gives you feedback on what you’re getting better at.

6.) Say: Okay, since we have read the book three times now, I have some questions for you to answer about the story. [Hand out Comprehension sheet].

READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

• What did Splat do before his first day of school?

• What happened during lunch?

• What did Splat tell his mother after his first day?

 

Assessment: 

The Partner Reading Feedback sheets will be collected to gain insight on how the reading improves after each read through, and the time records will allow me to calculate words per minute. The comprehension questions will show me how well they are receiving the message of the story in addition to increasing speed.

 

TIME SHEET

Reading #1 __________ seconds

Reading #2 __________ seconds

 

 

References:

 

Edwards, Catherine. “Fluency is Fantastic.” http://www.auburn.edu/~cce0004/edwardsgf.htm

 

Murray, Dr. Bruce. “Developing Reading Fluency.” http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html

 

Partner Reading Feedback Sheet http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/checksheet.jpg

 

Scotton, R. (2008) Splat the cat (First edition). Harper.

 

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