Miss Richards' Lesson Designs
Following The Path To Fluency
Rationale: This lesson is designed to help students develop fluency in longer, more developed texts. The students must practice expression, pace, and comprehension if they want to acquire the skills to read automatically and effortlessly. Effortless word recognition allows the children to be able to reflect and remember what they are reading. Throughout this lesson, students will practice their fluency and gain experience with reading text silently as well as reading to a partner. They will read for fluency with the teacher, graphing progress and going over unfamiliar words between readings.
Materials:
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Timer / stopwatch- 1 for each pair
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Peer fluency sheet for each student
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Sample sentences on white board to model
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Teacher growing independence and fluency checklist – 1 per student – w/ attached comprehension questions
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Reading rate forms (for teacher)
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Class set of Pete the Cat Goes Camping by: James Dean
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Pencil for each student
Procedure: 1. Say: Today we are going to work on becoming fluent readers. What do you think it means to be a fluent reader? [wait for responses] What do you think of when you hear the saying fluent readers? [Wait for responses] Fluent readers are able to read quickly, smoothly, and with expression because they recognize each word they see automatically. This also helps us comprehend what we are reading because we will automatically know the meaning of each word. This makes reading much for fun when we can read effortlessly!
2. Say: “Now let’s look at a sentence written on the white board: “We walked in the woods.” Everyone put your listening ears on. I want you to tell me if I sound like a fluent reader when I read the sentence aloud. “We /w/ /a/ /l/ /k/ /e/ /d/ in the woods.” walk-ed? That doesn't sound right. It must be walked. “We walked in the woods.” Did you notice that I got stuck on the second word when I read the sentence? To fix myself, I went back and reread the sentence to figure out which word made the most sense. This strategy is called crosschecking, and it is super important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers! Since I figured out the word while reading, it helped me become more fluent. Here’s how a fluent reader would have read this sentence: “We walked in the woods.” I read that sentence effortlessly, which made it a lot easier to understand. I want you to turn to your partner and practice reading the second sentence on the board. “We followed dad down the path.” Read it aloud to one another until you read the sentence fluently.
3. Say: “Now let’s think back to when I read the first sentence and I got stuck on the word “walked”. 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 walked said, walk-ed. That did not make sense, did it? So I went back and reread the sentence 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: Now we are going to practice being fluent readers by reading Pete the Cat Goes Camping by James Dean Pete the Cat is excited to be going camping with his family for the first time. They go on hikes, fish, and tell spooky stories by the campfire. Pete the Cat did not think the stories were real until he hears sounds during the night outside of his tent. What are those sounds? Were the stories true? We are all about to find out! [they will read silently by themselves then with a partner]
5. Say: Now we are going to play a game that will test everyone’s progress with fluency. Reader 1 is going to start the game off and Reader 2 will be in control of the timer. Reader 2 will time how fast Reader 1 reads the first two pages of the book. Reader 2 will then record the time on the recording sheet I have handed out. You and your partner will switch places after Reader 1 is finished. You will each do this, taking turns between the two of you. As you are listening to your partner read the pages out loud, I want you to be listening for how their own reading changes each time, and ask yourself these questions as you observe – Do they remember more words? Do they read with more expression, meaning, or facial movement? Is there a change in their voice? I want you to mark these changes you observe on your recording sheet.”
6. When the students finish with their partner work, call on one student at a time to your desk to read the first two passages of the book to you. They will bring their peer fluency sheet with them so that it can be attached to their assessment sheet. As they read to you, time them on the paragraph read aloud and use the formula given to record how many words per minute they read. [ words x 60 / seconds read = WPM]
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Comprehension Questions:
Use this list of comprehension questions to measure how their fluency is affecting their reading comprehension.
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What is Pete’s friend’s name?
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What is Bob’s creature story about?
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What happened to the s’mores?
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Is Pete scared?
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Fluency Checklist:
Peer Fluency Sheet
Reader Name ________
Partner Name ________
Total words ___
___ words in ___ seconds
___ words in ___ seconds
___ words in ___ seconds
Which try has the most errors? ____
Which try had the least errors? ____
Growing independence and Fluency Checklist
Student Name __________
Date ______
___/1 Student read three times
___/1 Student responded to reading comprehension questions
___/1 Student filled out Peer Fluency Sheet
___/1 Student improves fluency
___/1 Student improves accuracy
___/5 Total Points
0 - -10 - - 20 - - 30 - - 40 - - 50 - - 60 - - 70 - - 80 - - 90 - - 100
Correct Words Per Minute
References:
“Kicking it with Fluency” - Cassie Jones
https://casspjones2016.wixsite.com/mysite/growing-independence-and-fluency
“Floating to Fluency” - Rebekah Kennedy
https://rjk0022.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/growing-independence-fluency
Book:
Dean, James. Pete the Cat Goes Camping. Harper, an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2018.
