Miss Rachel's Reading Resources

Rationale:

Reading fluency is the ability to recognize words quickly, accurately, and automatically without the need to consciously decode every word. Fluent, automatic, consistent reading is necessary in order to become a successful reader. This independent reading will aid comprehension, expression, and speed of one’s reading. In this lesson, students will learn to read fluently through the tools of reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading. Students will gain confidence in their reading ability and become more fluent, independent readers.

Materials:

Stopwatches for each pair of students; a copy of Corduroy by Don Freeman for each student; a fluency chart for each student; a peer evaluation sheet for each student; cover-up critters for each student; sentences written on Smart Board: “Corduroy watched them sadly while they walked away” and “He yanked and pulled with both paws until POP!” [keep covered until necessary].

Procedures:

1. Say: If we want to be incredible readers, we must become fluent. Being fluent in reading means being able to read effortlessly, you don’t have to work hard at decoding.

2. Say: Can anyone raise your hand and tell me what crosschecking means? [call on someone] Yes! Crosschecking is rereading a sentence to see if what you said makes sense. It is necessary to crosscheck when we read a word in a sentence that we may not know. For example in this sentence, [Show the sentence ‘Corduroy watched them sadly while they walked away’], I might read ‘Corduroy watched them sadly /w//h//i//l/…hmm that doesn’t sound right, let me finish reading, they walked away.’ Oh while../wh//I//l/. Now I need to reread the sentence now that I know the word so I can remember what the story is about: Corduroy watched them sadly while they walked away..”

3. Say: Here’s the difference between a fluent and non-fluent reader. Let’s look at the sentence [Show the sentence from the board ‘He yanked and pulled with both paws until POP!’] A non-fluent reader might read it like this: H-ee y-y-an-k-ed a-n-d p-p-p-u-l-l-e-d w-i-t-hh b-o-o-t-h p-a-w-s-s u-n-t-i-i-l p-p-o-p. Because I read it so slowly and stretched out, it is hard to know what I read. But if I read it again, I might be able to read it a little faster and smoother: He y-a-nk-ed and p-ull-ed w-i-th b-o-th p-aw-s un-til POP! That time was a little better, but it still wasn’t quite as fast and smooth as a fluent reader. I’m going to try to read it one more time [read smoothly and with expression]: He yanked and pulled with both paws until POP!. That time the words flowed together and it was easier to understand what I said! That is how a fluent reader would read it. Now you try reading the sentence fluently: He yanked and pulled with both paws until POP!

4. Say: It takes a lot of practice to become a fluent and independent reader! When I read the sentence ‘He yanked and pulled with both paws until POP!,’ for the first time, it was pretty tough because it was new to me, and I had to spend time decoding. But when I read it for the second time, it was smoother because I had already decoded it. And when I read the sentence for a third time, It was even more smooth and more expression came into my reading. I became fluent in reading by rereading, and that’s how you can become fluent too!

5. Say:  For practice, we’ll read one of my favorite books, Corduroy. This story is about a teddy bear in a department store that really, really wants to be adopted and taken home. The little girl’s mother would not take Corduroy home because he lost his button. Corduroy was very sad and decided to search the whole mall all night for his button. What do you think is going to happen to our friend Corduroy? Will he find his button? Will he get adopted by the girl? You’ll have to read the book to find out!”

6. Give children a copy of Corduroy and ask them to take out their cover-up critters. Say: Get with a partner to practice reading fluency. Read and reread to each other until I call time. I will read the first two pages of Corduroy to demonstrate. Each time you read a passage you become more familiar with it [hand out stopwatches]. First, partner 1 will read aloud while partner 2 times you. Then, you will switch roles. After reading aloud, talk about what you read with your partner. Then we’re going to read aloud again, while our partner is looking at our checklist and seeing if we read faster, with more expression, remembered more words, and read smoother. Then, we’ll switch partners again. We will do this 3 times. Remember to write down your partner’s times on the checklist too!”

7. Assessment: Once the students have finished three rounds of repeated reading, have each student turn in his or her checklist. Call up students one by one and perform repeated readings with each student. The teacher will configure reading fluency through words x 60/time in seconds to get number of words per minute. The teacher will then graph the student’s progress on the fluency chart as he or she improves. In between each round of repeated reading, give praise or encouragement to students on aspects of fluency that they have improved and make suggestions when needed. After three rounds have been completed, ask a few comprehension questions: Why does the girls mom not want to take Corduroy home?  What kind of adventures happened to Corduroy? How did being taken home make Corduroy feel?

Reference:

Freeman, Don. Corduroy. Print.  

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