Growing Independence and Fluency Design

Growing Independence and Fluency

Ms. Frizzle and Fluency

Emma Webb

Rationale:

In order to have a meaningful reading experience through understanding literature, students must be fluent readers. Fluent reading is reading to the point of recognizing words automatically and effortlessly. When students reach this point, they will be able to understand the meaning behind a text, which will help lead them to reading comprehension. This lesson is designed to teach fluency by having students repeat reading and reading within a time limit. After this lesson, students should be able to read texts quickly, effortlessly, and with expression that brings the texts to life, which will ultimately improve fluency.

Materials:

Sentence strip that states, “Ms. Frizz loves her school bus”, Magic School Bus the Human Body book by Joanna Cole, stopwatch for each pair of students, timesheet, pencils and paper, coverup critter, fluency checklist.

Procedures:

Begin the lesson by saying, “Alright class, today we are going to work on becoming fluent readers. We know that our goal is to become fluent readers, but what does that mean? What do you think of when I say a fluent reader? Wait for student’s responses. Fluent readers can read quickly, smoothly, and with expression because they recognize words automatically. This also helps us to understand what we are reading because we don’t have to stop and make sense of each word. This makes reading so much more fun!”

Display the sentence strip reading, “Ms. Frizz loves her school bus” on the board for the students to see. Say: “Alright, everyone! Listen to how I read this sentence you see on the board. (Read by separating each sound). “Mmmsssss. Fffrriizzz lllooovvveeesss hheerr ssschooooollll bbbbuuuuussss. Was that easy or difficult to understand? Wait for the student’s responses. That’s right, it was not easy to understand what I was saying. Let me try reading this sentence again. Read the sentence slightly faster and slightly more fluent. This was a little better, right? I still did not get the full message from the sentence. Let me try once more! Now read the sentence quickly, smoothly, fluently, and expressively. Ms. Frizz loves her school bus! It makes a lot more sense now, right? Does everyone see how I reread the sentence a few times before I could understand what it meant? Which reading did all of you follow and understand the easiest? Wait for the student’s responses. That is exactly why it is so important that we learn to become fluent readers. Today our goal is to learn how to do just that!

Say: “When you get a word you don’t know; you can use your cover up critter to figure out what the word is. Let me show you an example.” Write the word “sell” on the board. “I’ll use the cover up critter to help me figure out this difficult word. First, I start with the vowel and cover up every other letter. The vowel here is “e,” and I know that e=/e/. Once I figure that out, I’ll uncover the letters before the vowel. In this case, it is the letter s, which says /s/. Then I’ll put up the s and the e together to get /s/ /e/. Now I’ll uncover the letters that are left, l and l. I know they say /ll/ when they are together. Now I’ll put it all together… /s/-/e/-/ll/… ‘sell.’ That isn’t too hard, right? It can even be fun if you look at it like a riddle.”

Give an engaging book talk about “The Magic School Bus.” Say: “In this book we will follow a crazy teacher named Ms. Frizzle and her students on an out-of-this-world field trip! Ms. Frizzle always has such great trips planned for her students. I wonder where she will take us today, and what we will learn! Let’s read to find out where we’re going today!”

Tell the class they will now be doing repeated reading with an assigned partner. “We do repeated readings because they will help us become more fluent readers. The more we read a story, the better we will be able to read that story. I will read the beginning out loud to you all, and I want you to follow along with me. I will read as fluently and expressively as I can, so pay close attention to the way I read the story.” Read the first 3 pages aloud.

Divide the class into reading pairs. Give each pair a copy of the book, a timer, a fluency checklist, a pencil, and a reading time sheet.

Once students are ready to go, give instructions. Say: “With your partner, one of you will read first, and the other will record. You all may decide who goes first. When it is your turn to read, you will begin when your partner tells you to. Read the entire book and your partner will time you. This is not a race, so do not try to go faster than your classmates so you “win.” This exercise is meant to help each of you improve your fluency so that you can read faster and more smoothly, not so that you can read faster than your partner. After you have read, and your partner has recorded your time, you will become the recorder and your partner will read. When you are the recorder, tell your partner when to begin reading. When you say “begin,” you will start the timer. When your partner has finished the book, stop the stopwatch. Record their time on the time sheet. Fill out the fluency checklist based on how your partner did. Once you have filled out both forms, switch forms again. Do this process three time each, so you each read the book three times through and you each record the other three times. This will test to see if your fluency has improved through each of the readings.”

While students are doing their reading, walk around to monitor progress. You can offer some help if needed but avoid giving too much help-they should learn to do it on their own.

Assessment: Students assess each other by filling out the fluency checklist and the time sheet. The teacher assesses each student by using the fluency formula to determine words per minute: (wordsx60)/ seconds. Also, ask comprehension questions while walking around the classroom. “why do you think Mr. Frizzle chose this field trip? What did she want us to learn today? Where do you think Ms. Frizzle will want to go next?” Assign each student to write one complete paragraph describing the story in their own words. This helps to assess the level at which each student is comprehending the lesson.

Fluency Checklist:

I noticed that my partner….

After 2nd reading…

After 3rd reading…

Remembered more words- yes or no

Read faster- yes or no

Read smoother- yes or no

Read with expression- yes or no

Reading Record Time Sheet:

Name: __________________

Date: ___________________

1st reading: _______________