Rationale:

To comprehend reading, you must be a fluent reader. Students must practice expression, pace, and comprehension if they want to read effortlessly and automatically. Effortless word recognition allows students to reflect on what they are reading. Through reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading, students will be able to improve their reading rate and grow into fluent readers. This lesson is designed to guide readers towards greater fluency through repeated timed readings to assess a student’s fluency.

 

Materials:

1. Timer/stopwatch for each pair of students

2. Sample sentences on the whiteboard for the teacher to model

3. Peer fluency sheet (one for each student)

4. Reading rate forms for teacher

5. Teacher Fluency Checklist (one for each student) with attached comprehension questions

6. Pencil for each student

7. Class set of “To the Sea” by Cale Atkinson

 

Procedures:

1. Say: “We are going to achieve one of our goals of becoming fluent readers in class today! Does anyone know what a fluent reader is? (Calls on students to answer.) A fluent reader is someone who can read with automatic word recognition which allows them to read quickly. Everybody wants to become a fluent reader because fluent readers understand stories much better and it makes reading easy. Reading becomes even more fun when you are a fluent reader!”

 

2. Say: “Now let’s look at a sentence written on the board: I swim with whales. Everyone, please put your listening ears on! I want you to tell me if I sound like a fluent reader when I read this sentence aloud to you. I s-s-w-w-i-i-i-m-m with walls. Oh, that doesn’t make sense. It must be whales. I swim with whales. Did you notice that I got stuck on the last word when I read the sentence? To figure out what that word was, I reread the sentence from the beginning and tried what I thought the word whales said, walls. That did not make sense, did it? To correct my mistake, I went back and reread the sentence to figure out which word made better sense. This strategy of rereading is called crosschecking, and it is super important to us when we are learning to become fluent readers! Since I figured out these hard words while reading it helped me become fluent. Here's how a fluent reader would have read that sentence: I swim with whales. I read the sentence effortlessly which means that it was easy for me to understand. I want you to turn to your partner and practice reading the second sentence on the board. “The boy and the whale are friends.” Read it aloud to one another until you read the sentence fluently.”

 

3. Say: “Now class let’s think back to when I read the first sentence when I got stuck on the word whales. To figure out what the word was, I had to reread the sentence from the beginning and try to figure out what the word whales said; I pronounced it like the word walls. The sentence was very confusing, so I reread the sentence to figure out what the word would make the sentence sound correct. This is another example of crosschecking!”

 

4. Now pass out “To the Sea” by Cale Atkinson to each student. Say: “We are going to practice being fluent readers by reading the “To the Sea” by Cale Atkinson! BOOK TALK: “In this story, there is a boy named Tim. Tim makes a new friend named Sam. Sam is not a human, he is a whale! What will these two friends do together? What adventures will they go on? You will have to read the rest of the book to find out!”

 

5. Students will read the whole book silently to themselves. Then they will read the book to their partner without helping them or without getting frustrated.

 

6. Pass out the recording sheets and stopwatches to each group. Say: “We are going to play a game to test everyone’s fluency! Put your listening ears back on to understand how to play. Reader 1 is going to start the game off and Reader 2 will be in control of the timer. Reader 2 is going to time how fast Reader 1 reads the first two pages. Reader 2 will then record the time on the sheet that I have handed out. You and your partner will switch jobs after Reader 1 is done. You will each do these three times. As you listen to your partner read the pages aloud, I want you to be listening for how their reading changes each time. Do they remember more words, do they read with more expression, meaning more facial movement and change in their voice? Please mark these changes you notice on your paper.”

 

7. When they are finished with their partner work, have one student at a time come to your desk to read the first two passages to you. They will bring their record sheet, so you can attach it to the back of their assessment sheet. As they read you will time them on the paragraph read aloud and use the formula given to record how many words per minute they read.

 

8. Finally, the students will answer reading comprehension questions about the book to measure their comprehension of the reading.

 

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Reading Comprehension Questions:

1. When did Tim meet Sam? (one day after school)

2. Who is Sam? Who is Tim? (Sam is the whale and Tim is the human)

3. What do Tim and Sam have in common? (they both felt like no one noticed them)

4. What do Tim and Sam crash into? (the ocean/the water)

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Fluency Check List:

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:

Bruce Murray, The Reading Genie, http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/

 

Harris, Caroline. Swimming into Fluent Reading. Growing Independence and Fluency Design.

https://ceh0108.wixsite.com/carolineharris/growing-independence-and-fluency

 

Atkinson, Cale. “To the Sea.” 2015. https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Cale-Atkinson/dp/148470813X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543012211&sr=8-1&keywords=to+the+sea+cale+atkinson

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