Fluency

Saving Up for Fluency

Rationale:

Fluency is one of the most important aspects of a student’s education. It allows them to become independent and to be able to comprehend texts without having to use brain power on trying to decode words. The goal of fluency is to make sure that the majority of a students' reading includes sight words. The sight word vocabulary had to be very extensive. The students will be able to gain fluency through cross-checking and repeated readings. They will assess their peers’ fluency through the repeated readings.

Materials:

Timer

Expo marker

White board

Worksheets

Pencils

Saving Up book

Procedure:

1. Say: Today we are going to work to become fluent readers. Does anyone know what that means? Wait for response. Being a fluent reader means that you can see a word and know what it means very quickly. This helps us to become faster readers and it helps us to understand what we are reading better. When we can read words quickly, it takes us less time to figure out what they might be. This can make reading more fun because you can really enjoy your stories.

2. Look at the sentence that I have written on the board. “Tom has a pup.” I am going to read this sentence to you and you are going to tell me if I sound like a fluent reader, okay? T-t-t o-o-o m-m-m h-h-h a-a-a s-s-s a p-p-p o-o-o p-p-p. Tom has a pop. Hmmmm that sounds a little funny. I guess Tom could have a pop but this story isn’t about a dad because we already had our story yesterday. Maybe that word isn’t pop. Oh wait! Maybe it’s pup! Tom has a pup! We talked about a dog in our book yesterday so that must be it. I got stuck on one of those words right. When I finish the sentence and go back to think about what it could have actually said, I am cross checking. We do that every day when we don’t know what a word is or if we have never heard of a word before. Raise your hand if you think I was reading that fluently. No, I was not. I had to crosscheck to find what that word could be so I wasn’t able to read it fluently. If I read the sentence like this “Tom has a pup”, I am reading it fluently. It sounds effortless and I can even add expression to it. Once we have read this sentence enough to become fluent with it, we don’t have to decode the words we may not have known the first time. I want you to find a buddy and try to read this sentence to each other. Sam likes to play sports. You are going to read this out loud until you can read it fluently.

3. Pass out Saving Up. We are all going to practice our fluency. We are going to work with the book Saving Up. This story is about a student who wants to go on a field trip with their class. They have to raise money to pay for the tickets. We have to read to find out what they decided to do to raise money and if it was successful or not.

4. The students will then read the story out loud to each other. They are told to not help each other with the story.

5. Now I am going to hand out timers and reading sheets. Each of you is going to take turns reading the story. One person will time while the other does the reading. Then you will switch, and the other person will read. Each one of you should read the story 3 times. You will mark your times on the sheet that I have handed out and then the person timing will mark down some things they noticed about how the reader changed after each trial. You can only use the sentence starters that are on the worksheet. We are going to be nice about everyone’s’ reading and we are going to be positive.

6. Once they have each read 3 times, ask them to come up individually to read a paragraph from the story. Have them bring up their recording sheet so you can fill it out. You will time them and calculate their WPM. Then you will ask them a few questions to see if they comprehended the text.

References:

Article

Saving Up pg. 124

Peer Fluency Check

Name:

Date:

1st time

2nd time

3rd time

Peer statement starters

After read 1 2 3

I noticed my partner…