Growing Independence and Fluency

Fluency with Frog and Toad!

A Growing Fluency Design Lesson Plan

Rationale: This lesson is designed for children to help with fluency and to better understand what they are reading. Fluent reading is the ability to read with accuracy, speed and with the proper expression. Being a fluent reader can help with comprehension and the understanding of what is being read. It is important because we need to know what is happening in any type of reading. The goal of this lesson is to teach and guide students to become more fluent by different strategies like crosschecking, reading aloud, decoding, and understanding.

Materials: Frog and Toad are Friends(classroom set), stopwatches, fluency evaluation, WPM chart, comprehension questions, practice sentences, primary paper, and pencils.

Procedures:

Say: “Today we are going to work towards our goal of being fluent readers. Does anyone know what the qualities of a fluent reader are?” (call on a student or multiple until the correct answer is stated.) “A fluent reader is someone who can recognize each word that they are reading so they can read smoothly and quickly. Being able to read quickly and smoothly can make reading more enjoyable and fun!”

Say: “Now lets look at the practice sentences on the board: Jim likes to walk his dogs. When I read the sentence, do I sound like a fluent reader? Jjj-iii-mm ll-iii-kk-ee-sss (likes) t-o www-aaa-ll-kk (walk) hh-ii-ss ddd-ooo-gg-ss. Jim licks to wake his dogs? No, it must be, Jim likes to walk his dogs! Yes, that makes better sense! Did everyone notice that I got stuck on two words when reading the sentence? I had to go back and crosscheck my reading to fix it. Crosschecking is the strategy of rereading a sentence from beginning to end and it is important to do when trying to become a fluent reader. Since I fixed the words I messed up on, it helped me become a fluent reader. A fluent reader would read the sentence like this, ‘Jim likes to walk his dogs.’ See how I read it smoothly? Now, with your partner you are going to practice fluency by reading the sentence on the board: I rode the bus to school today. Keep crosschecking this sentence until you and your partner can get it right!”

Say: “Now everyone pull out their book Frog and Toad are Friends.In the book there are several stories about frog and toad’s friendship and adventures. In the chapter we are going to read, we read about how it becomes the season spring and we see how frog and toad feel about it. Let’s read to find out what happens! I want you to read the first chapter, Spring, on page 4 to yourself silently."
Say: “Now that everyone is done reading silently, I am going to pair you up so you have a partner to read with. I am going to pass out a stopwatch and a fluency elevation. I want you and your partner to read 2 times each to practice working on fluency. When your partner is reading, I want you to use the stop watch to record their time on the time chart. After each time someone reads, fill out the fluency reflection and the time chart. Remember to take turns and be kind to your partner. You are to help them not criticize them! I will be walking around the room, if you have question please ask!” (walk around the room, observe, and take note of each students reading. Make sure they are using the stopwatch correctly, recording the time correctly, and filling out the fluency reflection.)

After the students are done with the partner reading and reflection. Call each student up to your desk (or to a reading area in the classroom where they can focus). Go over their time and fluency reflection to make sure they understand what it means. Then have them read the story to you. Take more notes and analyze where this student is at. Make a mark on a WPM of the student reading.

Say: “I am putting a few comprehension questions on the board about the book you just read. I want you to answer each question. While you are doing this, I am going to call you up one at a time to review what we did in class today!”

Time Chart:

Title of Book:________________

Name:____________________

Partner’s Name:__________________

Time after 1streading: _______________

Time after 2ndreading:______________

Comprehension Questions: