Growing Independence and Fluency

Moving Fluency with Muffins and a Moose

By: Cassidy Stephens

Rationale: Fluent reading is essential in comprehending. Reading fluency is the ability to recognize words quickly, accurately and automatically. The student is transitioning off from being dependent of decoding. Fluency is important for readers because they can focus their attention on becoming quick and smooth readers while showing more expression and comprehending the content. Through reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading, students will be able to confidently improve fluency and grow into improved readers. The student will start enjoying reading by improving their sight word vocabulary instead of getting frustrated. This lesson will require students to crosscheck throughout this repeated reading of decodable text. This activity will enhance their fluency and independence in repeated and timed reading.

Materials:

· Sentence strip that states, “I like to eat muffins.”

· Class set of If You GIve a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond

· Stopwatch for each pair of students

· Timesheet

· Pencils and paper

· Coverup critters

· Fluency checklists

Procedures:

1. Begin the lesson by saying, “Alright class, today we are going to work on becoming fluent readers. We know that our goal is to become fluent readers, but what does that mean? What do you think of when I say a fluent reader?” Wait for students’ responses. “Fluent readers are able to read quickly, smoothly, and with expression because they recognize words automatically. This also helps us to understand what we are reading because we don’t have to stop and figure out each word. This makes reading so much more fun! Now let’s get started.”

2. Display the sentence strip reading, “I like to eat muffins.” on the board for the class to see. Say “Alright, everyone! Listen to how I read this sentence you see on the board. (Read by separating each sound). “I l-l-i-i-k-k-e-e t-t-o-o e-e-a-a-t-t m-m-u-u-f-f-i-i-n-n-s-s. Was that easy or difficult to understand?” Wait for the students’ responses. “Right, it was not easy to understand what I was saying. Let me try reading this sentence again.” Read the sentence slightly faster and slightly more fluent. “That was a little better, right? I still did not get the full message from the sentence. So let’s try again!” Now read the sentence quickly, smoothly, fluently, and expressively. “I like to eat muffins!” It makes a lot more sense now, right? Does everyone see how I reread the sentence a few times before I could understand what it meant? Which reading did all of you follow and understand the easiest?” Wait for the students’ responses. “That is exactly why it is so important that we learn to become fluent readers. Today our goal is to learn how to do just that!”

3. Say: “When you get a word that you don’t know, you can use your cover up critter to figure out what that word is. Let me show you an example.” Write the word “fell” on the board. “I’ll use the cover up critter to help me figure out this difficult word. First, I start with the vowel and cover up every other letter. The vowel here is ‘e’, and I know that e=/e/. Once I figure that out, I’ll uncover the letters before the vowel. In this case, it is the letter f, which says /f/. Then I’ll put up the f and the e together to get /f/ /e/. Now I’ll uncover the letters that are left which are l and l. I know they say /ll/ when they are put together. Now I’ll put it all together … /f/-/e/-/ll/ … ‘fell’. That isn’t so hard, right? It can be fun if you look at it like a riddle.”

4. Give an engaging book talk about the book: If You GIve a Moose a Muffin. Say: “In this book, we meet a boy who gets a visit from a moose. He gives the moose a muffin. After the boy gives the moose a muffin, the moose decides that he wants some jam to go with it, so the boy gets some of his mom’s homemade jam. After the moose eats the muffin, he wants another muffin, then another, and another until they’re all gone. The moose still wants more muffins, and the boy cannot get the moose to leave. What will the boy do now? Let’s read to find out.”

5. Tell the class they will now be doing repeated reading with an assigned partner. “We do repeated readings because they will help us become more fluent readers. The more we read a story, the better we will be able to read that story. One way to become fluent readers is to practice many times. I will read the beginning out loud to you all, and I want you to follow along with me. I will read as fluently and expressively as possible, so pay attention to the way I read the story.” I will read the first three pages aloud with smoothness and expression.

6. Divide the class into reading pairs. Give each pair a copy of the book, a timer, a fluency checklist, a pencil, and a reading time sheet.

7. Once students are ready to go, give instructions. Say: “With your partner, one of you will read first, and the other will record. You may decide within your groups who goes first. When it is your turn to read, you will begin when your partner tells you to. Read the entire book and your partner will time you. An important thing to remember is that this is not a race, so don’t try to go faster than your classmates so you can “win”. This exercise is meant to help each of you improve your fluency so that everyone can read faster and more smoothly. This exercise is not so that you can try to read faster than your partner. After you have read, and your partner has recorded your time, you will swap roles. You will then become the recorder and your partner will read. When you are the recorder, tell your partner when to begin reading. When you say “begin,” you will start the timer. When your partner has finished the book, stop the stopwatch. Record their time on the time sheet. Fill out the fluency checklist based on how your partner did. Once you have filled out both forms, switch forms again. Do this process three times each, so you each read the book through and you record each other three times total. This will test to see if your fluency has improved throughout each of the readings.”

8. While students are doing their reading, walk around to monitor progress. You can offer help if needed, but avoid giving too much help as they should learn to do it on their own.

Assessment: Students assess each other by filling out the fluency checklist and the time sheet. The teacher assesses each student by using the fluency formula to determine words per minute: (wordsx60)/seconds. The teacher will assign each student to write one complete paragraph describing the story in their own words. This helps to assess the level at which each student is comprehending the lesson.

Fluency Checklist:

I noticed that my partner…

After 2nd reading…

After 3rd reading…

Remembered more words – yes or no

Read faster – yes or no

Read smoother – yes or no

Read with expression – yes or no

Reading Record Time Sheet:

Name: ___________________

Date: ___________________

1st reading: _____________