Fishing for Fluency
By: Caroline Douglas
Rationale: Being a fluent reader means that one can automatically recognize sight words and read quickly with a solid understanding. The purpose of this lesson is to teach elementary students how to become better fluent readers. By decoding, crosschecking, and rereading words, students can become more familiar with fluency.
Materials: Word Count Sheet, Book: A Fish Out of Water, cover up critter, a stopwatch, and pencil and paper
Procedures: 1. Say: It is very important for us to be able to read words in stories, so that we can understand what the stories are talking about! Once we have a better understanding of words, we will be able to read effortlessly, and a much quicker pace. Before we can smoothly read a book, we need to remember how to read words that we have struggled with.
2. Before we begin to read our book, let’s review. If we do not know a word, What should we do? (Write the word fish on the board) Let’s say I saw this word (point to fish) and was unsure about it. Well, I would just use my cover up critter to help me figure out this word. I would make the /f/ sound (point to the f), then I would make the /i/, /s/, /h/ sounds. By blending this all together, I would get /f//i//s//h/. So what would be the word? That’s right, fish!
3. Write the following sentence on the board: I love to draw. Point to the sentence and say: I am going to read this sentence and I want everyone to pay close attention as I read it. (read the sentence slowly, and without fluency) - “IIIII lllloooovvveeee tooo drrrraawwww.” Did anyone notice that when I read the sentence slowly, it was harder to understand what the sentence was talking about? How about now? (read the sentence with fluency) “I love to draw.” Much better! Learning words by sight helps us to understand and read them better. That is why today, we are going to practice re reading sentences, so that we can make them sound better than they did the first time!
4. Say: Now, everyone is going to be split into pairs and given a copy of the book, A Fish Out of Water. Have you ever had or taken care of someones pet fish before? Let’s see what happens to Otto the fish!
5. Each pair is going to be given a stopwatch, a fluency recorder, and a word count sheet. Each student will read the first six pages once on their own. When they have throughly read the first six pages, I am going to explain to everyone how to use the word count sheets, and what their partner is looking for when they are reading to them. (One student will be the reader and one student will be the recorder). The recorder will tell the reader to begin reading and they will also tell them when time is up. I will demonstrate how to use the timer, and show how the recorder will keep track of how many times and how long it takes the reader to read their first six pages. Once the reader has had three read alouds from the first six pages of A Fish Out Of Water, the the recorder will fill out the partner check sheet, and then they will switch roles!
6. At the end of this activity, I will call each student up to my desk and have them read out loud to me. The point of this is to show me if their speed in reading has changed.
Word Count Sheet:
The first time I read A Fish Out of Water, I read ______ words.
The second time I read A Fish Out of Water, I read _____ words.
The third time I read A Fish Out of Water, I read ______ words.
References:
Book: A Fish Out of Water By: Helen Marion Palmer
Fluency Recorder:
https://sites.google.com/site/sophiessuperlessons/growing-fluency-design/fluency.jpg
