top of page

Growing Independence and Fluency (GF)  Design:

Catching Fluency

Rationale:

 

The objective of this lesson design is to help readers develop better fluency in longer and more advanced texts. Fluency is the ability to recognize sight words automatically while also reading understanding and expression. Fluency is effortless in reading and automatic. Educators need to make sure to constantly encourage reading and re-reading of decodable texts to help young readers become more fluent and so they can make sight words. With this lesson, fluency, decoding, cross checking, re-reading and comprehension will be taught. You should have a better understanding of your students’ abilities to read fluently and independently after this.

 

​

 

Materials:

 

stopwatches, pencils, fluency chart/checklist, 1 sample sentence (on the white board), student reading rate tracker, teacher reading rate record, reading comprehension questions, and a class set of the book The Berenstain Bears Catch the Bus.

 

 

 

Procedures:

 

1.“Today we are going to take one step closer in becoming more fluent readers and we are going to learn what it means to be a fluent reader. Does anyone know what being a fluent reader means (call on student who has hand raised)? A fluent reader is able to read quickly and effortlessly while being able to recognize all words and understand the plot of what they are reading. When we read fluently we are able to understand the meaning of what we are reading so much better. Reading is a lot of fun when we can understand exactly what we are reading!”

 

2.“I have written a sentence on the board because I want you to have a better understanding of what fluency looks and sounds like. I am going to read this sentence two different ways, andI want you to tell me which way sounds like a fluent reader. I want you to listen very closely as I read this.”Read: “Patty loves to cook meals with her mom”Then read: “Pppp-aaa-ttttt-yyyy (Patty) llll-oo-vvvv-eee-ssss ttt-ooo ccc-oooo-kkk mm-ee-aaa-lll-sss www-ii-tt-hhh hhh-ee-rr mm-ooo-mm.”Then say: “Can anyone tell me which way they think sounded more fluent to them?” (letThe students answer) “Which one do you think sounded more fluent? Did you notice how I got stuck on some words the second time I read the sentence? To figure out what words I struggled with I had to cross check which is rereading that part of the sentence more than once to figure out what made the most sense. It is important to use when we are striving to read fluently and eventually you will not have to use this strategy because when you become fluent readers, your reading will sound like the first time I read the sentence.”

 

3.Next introduce the book and provide the book talk: “This story is about a brother and sister bear getting up a little late one morning. Will they miss the bus to go to school? Will they make it? We have all had mornings like that right? Let’s read to find out if brother and sister bear make it to school on time!”

 

4. Then say “now we are going to read the book silently to ourselves!I am going to give everyone their own copy of the book!” (pass out books).

 

5.*When all of the students have completed reading the book on their own, pair them with a random partner and pass out the stopwatches and fluency checklist sheet and reading rate tracker sheet. Be sure to show them how to work the stopwatch. Then instruct them to reread the book by themselves one more time but this time they will time their reading from start to finish with the stopwatch you gave them. Make sure to say: “With your stopwatches I want you to start your timer when you begin reading, then stop it when you finish! Do not let the time at the end bother you. We are simply doing this for fun to see how we progress as fluent readers throughout this lesson! This is not a competition to see who can read the fastest. Do not rush or worry if you miss a word. After you check the stopwatch to see how long it took you to read write it down on your reading rate tracker page.”

 

6.“Nowt I want you to take turns reading the book to your partner aloud. While one person reads the other person should time them with the stopwatch. When using the stopwatch,press the START button when your partner begins to read and when they are finished press STOP. The partner with the stopwatch will write down the time on your tracker for you after the reading. As your partner reads out loud, listen for changes in their reading like you did with me earlier! Some questions to think about: Does your partner remember more words in the book this time? Does your partner read with more expression? Does your partner's voice change when they read this time? I want you to mark what you notice each time they read. You will do this a total of 2 more times together (each student should have read out loud 3 times in all). Remember to use our cross checking strategy to figure out the words you get stuck on the best you can.”

 

7.“Once you are finished reading with your partner, I will call you up one at a time to re-read the first two pages to me make sure you bring your reader rate tracker with you.”*As they read, time them on the two pages they read aloud and calculate the formulas for how many words per-minute they read. After each student finishes reading, ask them the 3 comprehension questions, record what they say/ if they got it correct based on the reading.

 

8. Lastly, allow students to discuss with each other how they noticed how their reading changed after re-reading the book multiple times and if they noticed how they comprehended the book better after reading it a few times. Explain: “To become a fluent reader and better understand the stories that we read, it takes practice and that is what we all did today. When you read the text for the first time, you probably had trouble with a few words and were a little slower, but after reading it multiple times you began remembering more words and able to read them faster as well as understand what you're reading better than you did the first time.” and ask: “do you think you feel more confident in reading on your own after this?”

 

​

 

References:

 

Book: The Berenstain Bears Catch the Bus by Stan and Jan Berenstain

 

​

 

Checklist: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/FreeDownload/Reading-Fluency Checklist-4309247 Students Reading Rate

 

 

 

Tracker:

 

Silent Reading Time: ___________seconds

 

 

1st Partner-Reading Time: ____________

 

 

seconds 2nd Partner-Reading Time: ___________seconds

 

 

3rd Partner-Reading Time: __________seconds

 

 

 

Teacher’s Individual Reading Rate Record:

 

Correct words x 60= Words per minute

 

​

 

Reading Comprehension Questions:

 

How did brother and sister’s mom act when she saw the cubs were still sleeping?

 

Can you name one thing brother and sister had to do to make it to the bus on time?

 

What was the moral of the story?

 

 

Mackenzie Day, Fluency Frenzy

https://mackenzieala.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/gf-design

giphy.gif
bottom of page