Shining Bright with Fluency

Growing Independence and Fluency Lesson Design

By: Shelby Pickett

Rational: To have a student that read fluently means that they are able to recognize words quickly, accurately, and automatically. They are no longer relying on decoding, but instead they are using their sight words. Fluency is crucial for readers because it enables them to read faster, smoother, with more expression and they are able to comprehend the reading, making it more enjoyable. By practicing in repeated readings, student’s fluency and speed will improve. Fluency enables the students to enjoy reading, since they will become less frustrated. During this lesson the students will crosscheck throughout their repeated reading of What Makes a Shadow? This lesson strives to improve the student’s influence and independence through repeated and timed reading. 

Materials: The book What Makes a Shadow? (a copy for each child), dry erase board, dry erase marker, stopwatch for each partner, Partner Reading Progress checklist (see below), Reader Response questions (see below).

Procedure:

Say: We want to become fantastic readers. In order to do that, we need to read fluently. This takes a lot of practice, but once we become more fluent readers we will love to read more! When we are fluent we won’t have to stop and try to read every word. If someone is a fluent reader they can read at a steady, smooth rate, and it does not sound choppy. We will be able to get the hang of it together! Let’s go!

Say: Now I want you guys to tell me if I am reading this sentence fluently or not. “Wwwwwhhhheeennnn yyyyooouuuu rrrruuuuiiiinnnnn, wait I meant run, yyyyyooouuurrrr ssssshhhaaawwwwdddooowww runs. When you run, your shadow runs.” Now I will reread the sentence so I can make sure that I comprehended all the words. “When you run, your shadow runs.” Did you hear how I did not sound out any of the words? I said the sentence smoothly and it was much easier to understand.

Say: Since, I read the sentence, “When you run, your shadow runs”, can someone tell me what I struggled with? In order to figure out the hard words, I had to reread the sentence, and not the correspondence and pronunciation. I heard that run and shadow were not correct. I soon realized that u= /u/ in run and the a in shadow says /a/. Once I saw my mistakes, I reread the sentence and it made more sense with run and shadow. This is called crosschecking. The words run and shadow became sight words for me, since I had to correct myself when I read it the first time. It is important to make sight words, because they enable us to read more fluently.

S

Say: Today we are going to read a part of What Makes a Shadow? We are going to read it so that we can work on our fluency. Book talk: It’s always interesting to see your own shadow! Understanding where and what a shadow actually is, is so cool!! Let’s read this book to see what makes a shadow and what fun can be had with our shadows. Let’s read and find out! On your white board, write where the shadow comes from and different things we can do with our shadow.

Say: It is time to get with your reading partners, and go to our designated reading area in the classroom. I want one partner to walk to the reading area, and the other partner to walk to the reading area, and the other partner to come to the front and pick up two Partner Reading Progress checklists. Together, I would like for you to count off how many words are on the first two pages of What Makes a Shadow? We are not reading the prologue, so don’t count those words. Each partner will take turns reading the book aloud to one another. Each person should read the two pages three times. When one partner is reading, the other will use a stopwatch to record the time. Make sure to make a tally for each mistake that your partner makes when they are reading aloud, (method will be explained on the white board). Once you finish reading we are going to do an easy math problem! We are going to use subtraction. We will take the total number of words minus the number of tally mistakes. Remember we will have to do this three times. Now we will see the progress of each student. We will do so by answering questions on the progress form. This will show which reading was the fastest and had the least amount of errors.

​Say: “After reading you are allowed to answer the reader’s response questions: What makes our shadows? When the children are walking down the sidewalk how can they see their shadow? What are three objects in the story that a shadow too?” The students will go back to their desks and write the answers to these questions on a piece of paper. Once they are done with the questions, they will turn them in. When the answers and checklists have been turned in, I will hand out a fluency graph. This graph will have the sun low in the sky. I will encourage the students to continue practicing their reading by moving the sun higher into the sky so that we can find different shadows around us, because the higher in the sky the sun is, the more shadows we can spot! Each time they read, the students should increase their words per minute.

Assessment: I will review each student’s responses to the reading response questions. Once they are done, each student will turn these questions in. I will fill out the rubric that is attached, while evaluating their work.