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Growing Indpendence and Fluency Design 

BEING MAD ABOUT FLUENCY 

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Rationale: 

Being a fluent reader includes automatically recognizing sigh words and reading quickly, all while understanding. One of the purposes of this lesson is to teach elementary students how they can become fluent readers. To become a fluent reader, they will need to be able to read, decode, crosscheck, and reread. If we do this as a class, students will learn the tools they need to work on their reading comprehension. 

Materials: 

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Procedures: 

  1. Say: “ it is time to practice being a fast reader. It is extremely important to practice reading quickly but making sure you are still understanding what you are reading. Today we are going to practice being speedy readers but also being great at reading comprehension!” This is valuable to our everyday life because this will help us to add more site words to our vocabulary and help us to become better silent readers too. 

  2. Say: “before we begin, let’s talk about what to do if you do not a specific word. Let’s say that I did not know this word (write the word yard). I chose this word because it is going to be in the book we read today. If I did not know what this word was, I would start by covering up every part of the word except the a. Then I was move my finger to reveal the y and the a. I know that the a makes an /a/ sound. I also know the y makes a /y/ sound. Now we have /ya/. Then we are going to move my finger to see the next letter in the word r. R sounds like a pirate ARRRRRGG. When I add that sound with the rest of the word we have /yar/. Lastly, we add the last letter, d. /y/a/r/d/. Oh! That word is yard!” 

  3. Say: “Next we are going to read a sentence together (write the sentence on the board: A new friendship has begun).I am going to read the sentence to you out loud. (read the sentence very slowly with no fluency so it sounds choppy and cannot really understand).Aaaa neewww ffrreieennndsshiipp haass begunnn. Did you see how if I read it slowly and choppy it is harder to understand? Now let me read it like a fluent reader would. “A new friendship has begun.” When I read it faster isn’t it easier to understand? This is because I know the words by sign and am able to read and understand the sentences better. That is why we are about to practice fluency reading so you can add emotion and fluency to the sentences too!”

  4. Teacher will say: Now we are going to break up into our groups and read a book together. We are going to read a book called, “Today I am Mad.” This book is about a little boy named Josh that gets frustrated when other kids at preschool are having fun at school but he is not. We must read to figure out what he is going to do to feel happy again. 

  5. I will now assign different partners that you are going to read with. (have pairs ready with one really good reader and one less great reader, if possible). You are going to get a stopwatch, word count sheet, and an evaluation form. I will have each student 8 pages to themselves. When they read it once through, I will explain how you will use the form to check your neighbor. Then we will decide who is the reader and who is the evaluator. Then provide an example of being a model evaluator. The recorder will keep track of how many times and how long it takes for the reader to read the first eight pages. The recorder will tell the reader when they can start and when they end. Every time the recorder will record how many pages were read and the time. Once the reader has read the first eight pages three times aloud, the partner will fill out the check sheet. The student will switch roles, then after both are finished, you will continue to the next eight pages, and repeat the process. 

  6. As students start to finish up reading with their partner, I will have each student come up to my desk one at a time to help me to assess them vocally. I will ask them to read the last eight pages to me and then ask the follow questions:

    1. How did Josh feel once he changed his emotions?

    2. Why is Josh’s dad proud of him?

    3. What did Josh do when he heard the other students getting upset at school?

 

 

Word count sheet: 

Name:_______________ Date:________

Parner who is reading: ____________

  • The first time my partner read_________words.

  •  The second time my partner read___________. 

  • The third time my partner read_______words. 

  • It took my partner________many minutes to finish the first 8 pages. 

  • It took my partner________many minutes to finish the second 8 pages

  • It took my partner_________many minutes to finish the third 8 pages. 

 

 

 

References: 

Allison Pitman, Eating our Way through Fluency. ://alliepittman.wixsite.com/allisonpittman/growing-fluency-design

Word Count sheet: 

Name: __________ Date: ___________ 

The first time I read ___________ words. The second time I read__________ words. The third time I read__________ words. 

 

 

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Fluency recorder: https://sites.google.com/site/sophiessuperlessons/growing-fluency-design/fluency.jpg?

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