Fluency with Pirates!

Growing Independence and Literacy

Ariel Lavish

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rationale: Reading fluency means having automatic word recognition. In order to be a successful reader one must be able read automatically in order to have better comprehension, expression and speed while reading. Students are able to reflect and understand what they are reading instead of having to decode every word. Through repeated reading activities students will increase their sight word vocabulary. We will use repeated reading with a partner, silent reading and individual oral reading. Improvements will be measured using the formula: words read x 60/seconds.

 

Materials:

1.     Copy of “How I Became a Pirate by” by Melinda Long

2.     Stopwatches for every student and teacher

3.     Personalized graph to chart reading time for every student

4.     Cover up critter

5.     Board with “By the end of dinner, I could speak pirate perfectly.”

6.     Board with the sentence “After dinner, I tried to teach the pirates how to play soccer.”

7.     Fluency check sheet

8.     Clipboards for all students

 

Procedures:

1. Say: Who wants to be an amazing reader? Today we are going to become expert readers. In order to become expert readers, we need to be able to read fluently. Fluent is a fancy word for fast, and smooth. We want our reading to be faster and smoother when we read it.  When we read fluently, we are able to read without hesitation, and we recognize words immediately. To recognize words automatically, we need to have developed a large sight vocabulary that includes almost all the words we might read in a book! In order to get such a big sight vocabulary, we have to first start out practicing with one single story. We are going to do repeated reading today so we can get really, really good at reading a story fluently. We will decode, crosscheck, mental mark, and re-read.

 

2.  Say: Let’s review how to crosscheck when we come to a word we don’t know. Here is an example sentence up on the board. (reveal sentence on board: By the end of dinner, I could speak pirate perfectly). I can start reading- By the end of BINNER … hmm that doesn’t make sense, let me finish reading the sentence …. I could speak pirate perfectly. Oh that word must be dinner. Then I would re-read the whole sentence to practice the word and get back into the story.

 

3. Say: Now let’s look at the difference between a fluent and a non-fluent reader. Let’s look at the board again (After dinner, I tried to teach the pirates how to play soccer). A non-fluent expert reader would sound like this- Aaaaaafter dinnnnner, I ttttttried tooo teach tttthhheeee ppiiiiraaattesss hhhhow to pppplay soccccccer. I read it slow and stretched out so it’s hard to put the whole sentence together when I read it so choppily. Let me try again (read in monotone voice): After dinner, I tried to teach the pirates how to play soccer. How did that one sound? Pretty good, but I think I can make it sound even better if I talk and read with emotion. Read one more time fluently and with expression. Now you try reading it with me: After dinner, I tried to teach the pirates how to play soccer. I’m getting better because I’m learning these tough words.

 

4. To practice our great fluent reading, we’re going to read the story “How I Became a Pirate by” by Melinda Long. This is a story about a little boy named Jeremy, who is at the beach one day and sees a pirate ship! The pirates get off their ship and come talk to Jeremy. They see his amazing sand castle and complement his digging skills. They tell Jeremy they need a good digger to help digga hole for their treasure, they ask Jeremy if he wants to join them. We will have to read the rest of the story to see what happens next!

           

5. Children will each be given a copy of the story and a cover-up critter. Say: Now we are going to practice reading to ourselves. If you finish early, read the story again to practice even more. We will be taking turns coming up to the teacher’s desk to see how fast we are reading. Our goal is to get to 85 wpm. Let’s take 10 minutes right now to practice reading at our desk. Ask the person sitting next to you if you don’t know the word and then if they don’t know raise your hand and the teacher will come to help. Teacher will walk around assisting students.

 

6. After the 10 minutes, now let’s talk about the words in the story that we’re pretty hard. Generate a list of words from the class. Teacher will model and scaffold the words on the board. Example: WHISPERED. This word doesn’t make much sense. Let’s look at the I, in the middle of the word and cover up the rest. This makes the /i/ sound, uncover the W, and then the h we know it is /whi/, and then the letter s,p /whisp/, and then e, r, e,d. /Whisp/ /ered/ Oh the word is whispered. Let’s read the sentence that goes with this word. “Come boy, she whispered.”

 

6. Say: Now we are going to get into partners. The first partner will read the story while their partner times them with a stop watch. Then we will switch partners. After both of you have read let’s figure out what WPM speed we were reading at. Partner two needs to be sure to pay attention to the timer and record the time it took for their partner to read. Teacher will take this data and calculate the words per minute. (Will need to count all the words in the story)

 

7. Pass out fluency checklists to each partner. Explain to the class that this checklist is to be used to see if their partner is reading faster and with more expression. Also be sure to ask your partner if they understand the story. One partner will read while the other uses the checklist to help their partner out. Make sure both partners get a chance to read. Teacher collects the checklist. Between readings make sure the teacher is motivating and asking open-ended questions about the book.

 

8.Assesment: Teacher needs to collect the data from the first partner reading and be calculating the WPM scores for each student. Teacher will also collect the fluency checklists to assess how her students are doing. The final assessment will be calling up students one at a time to read “The Giving Tree” orally to the teacher. The teacher will use the data collected by the pairs earlier in the lesson to calculate their WPM and compare it with the second reading that they do orally to the teacher. Use the reading to chart to show the student where they were at when they read to their partner and where they are now. Tell all students that they want to be at 85 WPM. For students who do not reach this score, have them continue to practice until they are able to master it.

 

9. Teacher will end the lesson by asking a few comprehension questions: What where some things pirates did differently than what Jeremy is use to?

 

 

 

Teacher Fluency Checklist:

 

Student Name:

Words x 60/seconds:

Reading #1 Score

Reading #2 Score:

Was there improvement?

 

 

Partner Fluency Checklists:

Is my partner reading faster?   Yes or No

Is my partner reading with expression and emotion ?    Yes or No

Is the reading smoother?    Yes or No

Does my partner understand the story? 

Yes or No

 

 

Partner WPM calculation

(To be turned in to the teacher)

Name:

Time it took to read:

Name:

Time it took to read:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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References:

Long, M., & Shannon, D. (2007). How I became a pirate. San Diego: Harcourt.

 

Tracker for fluency chart

 

Lesson Adaptation: Piper, Anna. (2015). Fun with fluency. http://annamariepiper.wixsite.com/readingdesigns