CTRD Lesson Designs
Jammin’ with Fluency
Growing Independence and Fluency Design
Rationale: Fluent reading is crucial for comprehending. Students must practice expression, pace, and comprehension, in order to read effortlessly and with automaticity. With these repeated readings, the students will be able to gain fluency by moving nearly all the words into their sight vocabulary while they are comprehending the text. This effortless word recognition will allow students to reflect on and comprehend what they are reading. Throughout this lesson, students will be taught how to become fluent readers themselves and how to decode, crosscheck, reread, and understand. By the end of the lesson, the teacher will have a better idea of the student’s ability to read texts fluently and independently.
Materials:
Stopwatch (one for each pair of students)
Fluency checklist (one for each student)
Fluency comprehension worksheet (one for each student)
Sample Sentences on whiteboard
Reading tracker
Class set of “If you Give a Moose a Muffin” by Laura Joffe Numeroff
Whiteboard and markers
Procedures:
Say: “We are going to talk about fluent reading today. We want to become fluent readers, but what does that mean? [Await responses] Whenever we read fluently, we fully understand what we read and what has happened in the story. When we learn to read fluently at all times, we will become better readers and understand all of the details of the story. Not only will we become better at understanding, but we will also be able to read with expression! This means that we can change our tone of voice to express different moods and emotions that are in the book. We can use a loud voice when the character is yelling [speak louder here] and when the character is whispering, we use a quiet voice [whisper here]. Today, we are going to practice being a fluent reader!”
2. Say: “Now let’s take a look at the sentence on the board: ‘The Moose will want some jam to go with it.’ Everyone please turn on your listening ears. I want you all to let me know if I sound like a fluent reader when I read this sentence out loud to you. The mmm-ooooo-sss-e, oh yes moose! The Moose will want some jem to go with it. Oh, that does not make sense. It must be jam. The Moose will want some jam to go with it. Did you notice I was struggling with that word in the middle of the sentence? To figure out what the word was, I reread the sentence from the beginning and tested what I thought the word jam said, jem. That did not make sense, did it? To fix myself, I reread the sentence to figure out which word made the most sense. This strategy of rereading is called crosschecking, and it is very important to use when we are growing into being fluent readers! Since I figured out these hard words while reading and crosschecking it has helped me become a more fluent reader. Here is how a fluent reader would have that read that same sentence: The Moose will want some jam to go with it. I read the sentence easily which means it was easier to understand. Now turn to your seat mate and practice reading the second sentence on the board. ‘You will bring out some of your mother’s blackberry jam.’ Read the sentence out loud to one another until you both have read the sentence fluently.”
3. Say: “Class now we are going to think back to when I read the first sentence when I got stuck on the word jam. In order to figure out what the word was, I had to reread the sentence form the start and attempt to figure out what the word jam said; I pronounced it just to say jem. The sentence was puzzling, so I reread the sentence to figure out what this word should say to make the sentence correct. This is called crosschecking, and it is very important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers!”
4. [Now pass out each book to each preassigned pair] Then give a book talk for the book: “This is a story about a moose who wonders up to a boys house. The boy gives the moose a muffin, but then the moose will not leave. He stays and keeps asking for more and more things to eat and more activities to do. How will the boy get rid of the moose? You will have to read to find out!”
4. Instruct the students to read the first two pages to themselves silently, and they should each read it twice.
5. Once every group has finished, pass out the stopwatches/timers and the record sheet to each group. Say: “Now we are going to play the fluency game, so listen to all the directions! Partner one is going to start as the reader, and partner two is going to begin as the timer. Partner two is going to time partner one reading the first two pages, and then he or she will write down the time on the record sheet. You will each do this three times. As you listen to your partner read three times, I want you to listen to how their reading changes. Do they remember more words, does it become smoother, faster, and more expressive, and if so when do these changes happen? I want you to mark these changes on your paper. Let’s begin!”
6. Once the students have finished recording, you will call the students up one at a time to read a paragraph from the first two pages. They will bring their record sheet to attach to your assessment. You will then time them on the paragraph read and will use the formula [words x to divided by the amount of time in seconds spent reading to record their words per minute]. You will also use a list of comprehension questions to assess how their fluency is affecting their comprehension.
Reading Comprehension Worksheet:
Name the kind of jam the moose ate?
What did the moose do with the socks he found?
What did the moose use the bed sheet for?
Where did the moose hang the bed sheet?
Fluency checklist:
Title of Book: __________________________________
Student’s Name: ____________ Date___________
Partner's Name: ______________________________
After 2nd Reading After 3rd Reading
_________ _________ Remembered more words
_________ _________ Read faster
_________ _________ Read smoother
_________ _________ Read with expression
(Words x 60)/seconds= WPM
0 - - - - 10 - - - - 20 - - - - 30 - - - - 40 - - - - 50 - - - - 60 - - - - 70 - - - - 80 - - - - 90 - - - - 100
Correct Words Per Minute
References:
Book: Numeroff, Laura J, and Felicia Bond. If You Give a Moose a Muffin. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Print.
Anna Caroline Palmer, “Hungry For Fluency”
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