Growing Independence and Fluency Design

Junie B. Jones Ride the Bus to Fluency

Growing Independence and Fluency

Rationale: The goal of this lesson is to get students to read more fluently by quickly being able to recognize nearly all words by sight. This will allow students to focus on the understanding and comprehension of what they are reading with ease and expression. Fluency is a very important skill for students to learn so that they can become fluent and efficient readers. Through repetition, modeling, cover-ups, cross checking, and practice students will use this lesson to become more independent with their readings!

Materials: A stopwatch for each pair of students, pencils for each student, cover-up critters, fluency chart, fluency checklist for each student, sample sentences for the teacher to model, white board, expo marker, and class set of the book “Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus”.

Procedures:

Say: “Alright class! Our goal is to be the very best readers we can be, and in order to do that we must be able to read fluently. Reading fluently is when you can read smoothly and quickly so that you don’t have to sound out each word. We also want to create sight words. Sight words are words that we don't have to sound out or figure out because we recognize them right away. By becoming fluent readers, we are able to enjoy the book we’re reading much more because we can focus on the story and not get hung up on each word.”
Say (model): "I am going to let you listen to me read a short passage from our book two times. When I'm done, I'll take a vote on which time I sounded better. (Read choppily) “eee-xxx-ccc-eee-ppp-ttt I ddd-ooo-nnn-ttt don’t lll-iii-kkk-eee like to kkk-nnn-ooo-www” (come back after to change to know, known by cross-checking) know.” (Read smoothly) Let me try this passage again. “Except I don’t like to kunow know.” (Ask for a show of hands) “Who liked listening to my first reading? How about the second? Why did the second time sound better to you? Right! The second time sounded a lot better to listen to because I didn't have to stop to figure out any of the words, I just went back and fixed the one I didn’t know.”
Say: Did you notice that I cross checked when I couldn't get a word? I finished the sentence with the word I couldn't figure out to see if I could figure out the tough, new word that had silent letters, like the e at the end of like and the k at the beginning of know. The first time I read them, I pronounced how they looked like they should sound, but they didn't sound like real words I've ever heard of. When I finished the sentence, I could tell what the words were, like know instead of kunow.
Say: “Let's try reading the two sentences that I have written on the board together. I see a couple of tough new words in the sentence. (Susy read): “Just then another mother and a boy came in. And Mrs. went off to talk to them instead of me.” “I heard some of you having trouble reading the words came and instead, but I did hear you all read on to the end of the sentence to figure out those words! The word instead makes an an /e/ sound in the middle of it and even though we spell it with an ea it is going to sound like an e with the a next to it. In the word came, we have /A/ in the middle of it and we know that the silent e at the end tells the A to say its name. Let's all read these two sentences together again now, thinking about these special spellings as we read the words almost and ride.
Say: “Today we are going to read about a kindergartner named Junie B. Jones! She is at her first day of kindergarten and meets her teacher named Mrs. Junie B. cannot remember the rest of her name. Mrs. asks Junie B. if she will be riding the bus home, but she starts to act a fool because no one will answer her question about where the bus is going. Her mother gets onto her. Will Junie B. figure out where the bus is going and ride it? We will have to read further to find out!”
(Write the directions on the white board for students to look at. As you are writing it down, explain what you will have the children do.) Say: “Now, we are going to partner up with our reading buddies. While one buddy comes up to the front to get 2 copies of the book, a reading response questions form, a fluency chart, and a stopwatch. The partner that is finding a place to read will be counting up the number of words on the 5 pages after we left off and will write that number at the top of your fluency charts. You and your partner will each read those 5 pages 3 times while the other times you’re reading with a stopwatch. If you are the partner that is not reading, you need to be paying close attention to the mistakes your reading partner makes. On the last reading I want you to make a little tally each time your partner makes a mistake. (Show tally method on the board)“ After you have read the second and third time you will fill out the fluency checklist to show what your partner improved on. Lastly you will take the total number of words from those pages and subtract the number of tallies for the last reading and plug that number into the formula on the sheet. Your answer will read ‘___ words in ___ minutes.’ You will then use this number to fill out the bottom of the fluency checklist. “When you finish the fluency checklist, discuss your answers to the reading response questions. Each of you will write your answers in complete sentences back at your desk and turn in those and your fluency charts to me.”