The Way I Feel about Fluency
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Rationale: Reading Fluency is of incredible importance to developing the ability to comprehend texts. Fluency is where students recognize nearly all words as sight vocabulary. As a result of this, students will hopefully be able to develop fluency in more challenging texts. The goal of this lesson is to aim in teaching students to become fluent readers by using strategies such as fast reading, decoding, cross checking, and rereading. Students will work to improve their fluency rate by reading books assigned by the teacher. These texts have been proven to improve the development of fluency.
Materials:
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Stopwatch
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Paper
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Coverup critters
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A class set of “The Way I Feel” by Janan Cain
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Fluency chart to track words per minute
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Peer checklist for each student
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Dry erase markers and board
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Sample sentences
Procedures:
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Say: “Today we are going to work on our reading fluency! Does anyone know what being a fluent reader means? It means improving our reading skills in order to become smoother, more efficient readers! Being a fluent reader also allows us to understand fully everything we read and what happened in the story. Being a fluent reader allows us to understand all of the words in the story!
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Say: To start our lesson, I want us to look at a sentence written on the board: [Today I feel happy that the sun is out]. I am going to read this sentence and I want you to tell me if I sound like a fluent reader, ‘Tttttooodddayy (today) I ffffeeeelll (feel) hhhAAppyyy (happy) thhhhhattttt (that) theee (the) sssuuunn (sun) isss (is) ouuuttttt (out)’. When I get stuck on a word I will try my best to finish the rest of the sentence. If I am still stuck on that word, I will use my cover up critter. I uncover the first letter of the word and continue to do this with each of the following letters in the word. Oh! The word is happy. It makes sense because happy is something that you feel, and the sentence is talking about how they feel. I figured this out by using crosschecking by rereading the sentence to help me figure it out. I now know the correct way to say that word, and I tuck it away in my brain for the future. Here is another sentence I want you to try with a partner: ‘I want to eat pizza for lunch’ Try this sentence until you can read it fluently.
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Say: Let’s think back to the first sentence we read together. What word did I get stuck on? Happy! Does anyone remember how I said it? That’s right! I pronounced it like hAppy. It would not make sense to say it this way because that is not a real word. I reread the sentence because it did not make sense to me. This is called crosschecking which is very crucial to becoming fluent readers.
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Say: I want us to now read a book called “The Way I Feel”. I want you all to try to read the book by yourselves. In this book, the author talks about many different feelings that we may feel in different situations. Let’s individually have quiet reading time and read the story.
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Once the students finish reading, they will need to be partnered up. Say: “Now that you all have a partner, I want you to both use the stop watches that I passes out, a copy of “The Way I Feel”, a reading rate chart, and a fluency rate checklist to read and build your fluency. You will each take a turn being the reader and being the timer. Each partner is going to read 3 times and be the timer 3 times.
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Say: “While your partner is reading, the timer’s job is to use the stopwatch to time them. You also need to mark how many mistakes your partner makes. If they make a mistake, that’s okay! We need to see what mistakes we make in order to become more fluent readers. Our mistakes will make us better! When your partner finishes reading, subtract the number of words that they missed from the total number of words in the book. Write that number down and the amount of time it took your partner to read the book. When you and your partner have both read the book 3 times, I want you to discuss the book.”
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Say: “What did you notice about the different times you read, and when your partner read? Did your reading change? Did you remember more words? Did you read smoother or faster? I want you to also mark these changes on the paper your fluency is recorded on.
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When the students are finished reading and discussing their fluency with their partner, students will come to the instructor’s desk and read the first 3 pages to the instructor. They will also bring you their record sheet, so you can keep it on file. As the students read, the instructor will time them using the formula to calculate words per minute. Say: “Okay everyone, now that you had your practice with your partner, I want you to come show me your fluency skills! I am going to call you each up one at a time, and I want you to read the first 3 pages of “The Way I Feel” to me”
Reading Comprehension Worksheet
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How did the girl feel when her friend was not able to come over and see her?
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What was your favorite emotion that it showed the child feeling?
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What are some reasons that we should share how we are feeling?
Fluency Checklist:
Title of Book: __________________
Student’s name: ___________________
Partner’s name: ____________________
Date: _____________________________
After 2nd reading
________________________ Remembered more
________________________ Read faster
_________________________ Read smoother
_________________________ Read with more expression
After 3rd reading
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
(Words x 60) /s
Seconds = WPM
0 ---- 10 ---- 20 ---- 30 ---- 40 ---- 50 ---- 60 ---- 70 ---- 80 ---- 90 ---- 100
References:
Cain, Janan. The Way I Feel. https://www.amazon.com/Way-I-Feel-Janan-Cain/dp/1884734723/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+way+I+feel&qid=1626751673&s=books&sr=1-1
Haley, Martha Wright. Fluency With Frogs. https://mwh0025.wixsite.com/mwh0025/growing-independency-and-fluency
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