Growing Independent Fluency Design

Dancing for Fluency

Rationale: In order to comprehend reading, you have to 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 confidently improve their reading rate and grow into fluent readers. Students will gain fluency and independence in reading by crosschecking after reading decodable texts and repeat readings.

Materials:

Timer/stopwatch for each pair
Sample sentences on white board for teacher to model
Peer fluency sheet (one for each student)
Reading rate forms for teacher
Teacher Fluency Checklist (one for each student) with attached comprehension questions
Pencil for each student
Set of Dancing Dinos Go to School by Sally Lucas and Margeaux Lucas

Procedures:

Say “We are going to achieve one of our goals in becoming a fluent reader in class today. Does anyone know what a fluent reader is? (Calls on students to answer.) A fluent reader is someone who is able to read very quickly and smoothly because they are able to recognize the words. If we can recognize the word, then we can better understand what we are reading because we instantly know each word’s meaning. It makes reading much more enjoyable!”

Say: “Now let’s look at a sentence written on the board: James had a rough day at school.Everyone 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. J-a-m-m-sss had a rrr-/u/-/u/-/u/-gg (rough) dd-ay at sssk-ool, oh school. Jams had a rug day, it must be rough. Jams, no James! James had a rough day at school. Did you notice how much I stumbled, and got stuck on a few words? To fix myself I went back and reread the sentence to figure out which word made the most sense. Like Jams, that did not make sense did it? This strategy of rereading is called crosschecking, and it is important to use 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: James had a rough day at school. See, I read the sentence effortlessly which meant it was much easier to understand.

Now pass out the book to each pair that you have assigned. Say: “Now that we know the difference between being a fluent reader and not, we are going to practice being fluent readers by reading Dancing Dinos go to School. The Dinos start off by dancing on the pages of the book. The book is in the school library and somehow the dinos dance of the pages of the book and sneak off somewhere. Where do you think they will sneak off to? Do you think they are going to cause a distraction? How many are there?

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

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 places after Reader 1 is done. You will each do these three times. As you listen to your partner read aloud the pages, 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.”

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.

Reading Comprehension Worksheet:

What did the dinos do in the library?
Where did the dinos sneak off to?
Who noticed the dinos?

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: Dancing Dinos Go to School. Sally and Margeaux Lucas

https://aka0029.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/growing-independence-and-fluency

https://tnh0015.wixsite.com/mysite-3/growing-independence-fluency

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