SCORING WITH FLUENCY

Scoring with Fluency 

Growing Independent and Fluency

By: Sara Purvis

Rationale: This lesson will help student practice reading and rereading texts in order for them to become more fluent readers. Fluency allows readers to focus on comprehending a text and can be recognized as faster, smoother, more expressive reading with automatic word recognition. Fluent readers read quickly, automatically, and with expression. This lesson will help students gain the ability to read fluently through silent reading and rereading the text with a partner and improvements will be measured using the formula: (words read x 60/seconds), then tracked with a fun fluency chart.

Materials:

• The book: The Berenstain Bears’ Soccer Star by Stan and Jan Berenstain (one copy for each student pair)

• Stop watch/timer for each pair of students

• Partner Progress Sheet and Story Response (Below)

• whiteboard/smartboard

• Partner evaluation sheets (one for each pair of students)

• Reading fluency chart (one for each student)

Procedure: 

• Say, “We all want to become great readers don’t we? Well, how do we become these great readers? Anyone have an idea? (Allow students to contribute their ideas)  To become great readers, we must be able to read fluently. When we read fluently, it means that we are reading effortlessly with automatic word recognition, and if we are reading with automatic word recognition, which means that we have a huge sight vocabulary! This sight vocabulary is so large that it encompasses most of the words that we will read in everyday text. Once we are able to read with this type of accuracy, we will become great readers by practicing increasing our speed as we read and by reading with more expression. This will lead to an increase in our comprehension skills and will allow us to read a variety of advanced texts. So, the first step to gaining fluency is adding to our sight vocabulary. How do we do that? By decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading.”

• Say, “Since we know how to become a fluent reader, I am going to model how we should decode and crosscheck when we come to a word that we are not familiar with. (Write sentence on the board ‘Ben and Jade got lost on the island.’) Okay, so let’s take a look at this sentence. If I was reading this sentence, I might read ‘Ben and Jade got lost on the /i//z//l//a//n//d/…on the izland? Hmm…that doesn’t make sense. /I//l//a//n//d/…/I/ land, oh! The s is silent! Island. Okay, now that I have decoded and crosschecked to learn an unfamiliar word, I need to go back and reread the sentence so that I can understand it. ‘Ben and Jade got lost on the island.’”

• Say, “All right, now that we have reviewed decoding and crosschecking, I want to show you how we can read fluently. (erase old sentence, and write two short sentences on the board, ‘I am going to read these sentences that are on the board. ‘Liz…./m/ /e/ /t/ Seth at the /b/ /A/ /l/ /l/ park…ball park. They /h/ /a/ /d/…had…/f/ /U/ /n/…foon…fun.’ That wasn’t very fluent was it? I couldn’t really understand what I was reading because I had to stretch out the words and sound them out. Okay, let me read the sentences again. (read sentences a little faster, but without expression) ‘Liz…met Seth at the ball…park. They…had fun.’ Okay, that was better! I didn’t have to stop and sound out the words this time. I was able to read a little bit faster, but it was still slow and sounded choppy. I’m going to read them again. (read sentences faster this time, with expression) ‘Liz met Seth at the ballpark. They had fun!’  That was much better! The sentences sounded smooth and I understood what I was reading! Liz and Seth went to the ballpark and they had fun together. I recognized the words automatically and I was able to read it fluently!” 

• Say, “Now we are all going to practice fluency by reading The Berenstain Bears’ Soccer Star.  Booktalk: In this book, Brother Bear decides he wants to play a sport. He goes out for the football team, but when he tries to play, he realizes that he is too small to play football! Brother Bear gets frustrated and kicks everything in sight. Do you think he will give up or will he find a sport to play? You and your partner will have to read and find out!”

• Pair the students together (reader 1 and reader 2) and give each pair a copy of The Berenstain Bears’ Soccer Star along with the reading assessments, and stopwatches. Say, “Remember, we are practicing fluency, so you and your partner will each read the book several times to practice. You each will read for one minute at a time, so don’t worry about reading the entire book today. You will use the stopwatches I gave to each of you to time each other. This is how the fluency practice will go: Reader 1 will begin reading the book while Reader 2 starts the stopwatch and listens. When Reader 1 has read for one minute, then he or she will pass the book to Reader 2 and Reader 2 will give the stopwatch to Reader 1. After both readers have read the book for one minute, the readers will again switch roles. When reading the book for the second time, the partner who is using the stopwatch will listen and mark the reader’s improvement from the first round on the checklist that I gave you. (Hold up checklist) On the checklist, you should make a note if you notice the reader remembering more words, reading faster, reading smoother, or reading with more expression. Once both partners complete the second round of reading, a third round should be completed in the same way.” (If additional explanation is needed, model the process with a student)

Assessment:

Once the students have finished three rounds of repeated reading, have each student turn in his or her checklist. The 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 improves. In between each round of repeated reading, make sure to praise students on aspects of fluency and make suggestions when needed. After the three rounds have been completed, ask a few comprehension questions: “Why was Brother upset in the beginning?” “How did the Coach help Brother?” “What happened when Brother tried soccer?”

Fluency Checklist:

Title of Book: __________________________________

Student’s Name: ____________   Date___________

Partner's Name: ______________________________

                                                                                  After 2nd Reading            After 3rd Reading 

Remembered more words                                 __________                  __________

Read faster                                                           __________                  __________

Read Smoother                                                  __________                 __________

Read with Expression                                         __________                  __________

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Resources:

Osborn, Katie. “Hitting a Homerun With Fluency”

http://keo0015.wixsite.com/miss-katies-lessons/staff

Berenstain, Stan and Jan. The Berenstain Bears’ Soccer Star. HarperCollins, I Can Read Book: New York. 2005. 32 p.