Miss Stone's Reading Lessons

Rationale: To be a successful reader, one must learn how to read automatically, fluently, and consistently. Fluent reading is necessary for bettering comprehension, expression, and speed of one’s reading. Instead of focusing on decoding every word, student’s who fluently read can reflect on what they are reading. Through practicing reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading, students will build confidence in fluently reading and become excellent readers.

 

Materials:

            - Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin for every student

            - Stopwatches (class set)

            - Personalized graph to chart reading time (one for every student)

            - Cover-up critters

            - Sentences written on board: “They left a new note on the barn door” and “The barn is very cold at night” [keep covered until necessary]

 

Procedures:

 1. Explain, “Who wants to be an excellent reader? Well I have a secret for you! In order to become an expert at reading, we have to be able to read fluently. When we read fluently, we read without hesitation, we read effortlessly, and we recognize words immediately. To recognize words automatically, we have to develop a large sight vocabulary that includes almost all the words we might read in a text! When we have a large sight vocabulary, we can understand what we’re reading better, we can read with better expression, we can read with more speed, and we can read more complex and difficult texts. So how do we acquire this large sight vocabulary? We do that through a method called repeated readings where we practice decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading.

           

2. Model, “I’m going to show you how we always crosscheck when we come across a word we don’t know in a sentence. For example, when I see this sentence,  [Reveal sentence “They left a new note on the barn door” on board], I might read “They left a new //n/o/t// hmm that doesn’t sound right, let me finish reading, on the barn door. Hmm, most people would leave a note so I leave a new //n/O/t//, that’s right!” Then I would reread the sentence with the correct note once more to get back into my story.

 

3. Model, “Now I’m going to show you the difference between a fluent and non-fluent reader. Let’s look at the sentence [displayed on board] ‘The barn is very cold at night.’ A non-fluent reader might read it like this: Thhhhhh-eee bb-arrr-n izz vvv-errrr-ee c-O-lll-ddd aaa-tt nn-I-ttt. I read that slow and stretched out, it’s hard to know what I read! A fluent reader would read like this: The barn is very cold at night. My words flowed together and I understand what I read! Now you try reading fluently: The barn is very cold at night.

 

4.  To practice reading fluently, we’re going to read the book Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type! This story is about farm animals who become sick of their bossy farmer. They find a strange machine called a typewriter and write letters to the farmer asking for warm blankets and respect. But the farmer will have none of that! He stomps the letters on the ground and proudly says that he will keep control. The cows decide they have no choice but to stop providing milk to the farmer, which makes him really mad. Do you think the Farmer will win? Or the cows? We’ll have to read our story to find out.

 

5.  Children will each be given a copy of the book and a cover-up critter. Say, “Now we’re going to read to ourselves and practice reading fluently. If you finish early, start to read Click Clack Moo again.” Teacher will walk around classroom to keep children on task and give 10-15 minutes for children to read book. Once students finish, regain attention to informally assess comprehension via group discussion. 

 

6. Say, “Now we’re going to split up into partners! First, partner 1 will read aloud while partner 2 times them. Then, we will switch partners. After reading aloud, talk about what you read with your partner. Then we’re going to read aloud again, while our partner is looking at our checklist and seeing if we read faster, with more expression, or if we understood more. Then, we’ll switch partners again. We’ll do this 3 times.” Model with student if it is necessary for students to understand better.

 

7. Assessment: Once the students have finished three rounds of repeated reading, have each student turn in his or her checklist. Teacher should now call up students one by one and perform repeated readings with each student, graphing his or her progress on the fluency chart as he or she hopefully improves. In between each round of repeated reading, make sure to praise or encourage students on aspects of fluency that they have improved and make suggestions when needed. After the three rounds have been completed, ask a few comprehension questions: Why did the cows stop making milk? How could the farmer have reacted better? What was duck trying to do all that time?

 

Partner Evaluation:

 

 

  Fluency Chart:   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher Fluency Checklist:

 

Student Name:

Words x 60/seconds

Reading #1

WPM:

Miscues:

Did the student read with more expression? Yes or No

Did the student read smoother? Yes or No

Did the student read faster? Yes or No

Reading #2

WPM:

Miscues:

Did the student read with more expression? Yes or No

Did the student read smoother? Yes or No

Did the student read faster? Yes or No

Reading #3

WPM:

Miscues:

Did the student read with more expression? Yes or No

Did the student read smoother? Yes or No

Did the student read faster? Yes or No

 

References:

Crorin, Doreen. Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: New York, 2000. Print. 

 

Dunn, Morgan. “Marching Through Fleuency”.

http://lmd0015.wix.com/literacy-designs#!projects/cm8a