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Fluency with Junie B!

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Rationale: The goal of this lesson is to help readers improve their fluency to allow them to advance to longer texts and enhance comprehension of the material being read. Reading fluency can be defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. Developing fluency involves students recognizing sight words immediately and reading quickly. This lesson will teach students fluency with modeling and guided practice, and will encourage and motivate students to read. Throughout this lesson, students will be taught how to become fluent readers by decoding, crosschecking, and rereading. 

 

Materials: 

  • Class set of Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth by Barbara Park 

  • Pencils

  • Reading Checklist (class set)

  • Fluency Chart (class set) 

  • Stopwatch (class set) 

  • CoverUp Critters (class set) 

 

Procedures: 

 

  1. Say: Good morning class! Today we are going to learn about fluent reading! Does anyone want to guess what it means to be a fluent reader? (Wait for class responses). Being a fluent reader means that we will be able to read quickly and fully understand what the story is telling us! Not only are we going to be able to read quicker and understand the message the author is sending to us, but we will be able to read with expression. Who knows what the word expression means? (Wait for responses). Yes, thats right! Reading with expression means that we can use tones in our voice to represent the emotions in the story! Our goal is to not have to sound out each word that we see, so that way we can read quicker and with more expression! 

  2. Say: Before you get to read on your own and with a shoulder partner, I am going to show you a tool that you can use to help you develop your reading fluency! (Hold up coverup critter and show to class). This is a coverup critter, who is a friend that can help you read a word that you might not remember. Let me show you how to use it. (Write the word wish on the board) First I’ll start with the vowel and cover up everything else. I see that the vowel is short i and I know that i=/i/. Now that I know what sound the vowel is making, I can uncover the letters before the vowel. In this word, it is the letter w, which we know makes the /w/ sound, so we can put the /w/ sound with the /i/ sound to make /wi/. Now let’s look at the letters after the vowel! I know that s and h make the /sh/ sound. Let’s combine that all together! /wi/ and /sh/ together make /wish/. That’s how you use your coverup critter to decode words!

  3. Say: Now I want to show you how a fluent reader reads compared to a nonfluent reader! Our sentence is “My mom loves to cook pasta.” If I read the sentence like this, M-m-m-m-y-y-y-m-m-m-o-m-l-l-l-o-o-o-v-v-v-e-e-s-t-t-o-o-o-c-c-o-o-o-o-k-k-k-k-p-p-p-a-a-a-s-s-s-s-t-t-a-a, would I be a fluent reader or a nonfluent reader? (Wait for student responses). That’s right! A nonfluent reader would read the sentence like that, notice how they had to sound out every word and it took a long time. That makes it hard to understand what the sentence is telling us. How about if i read the sentence like this, “My mom loves to cook pasta.” That was much better, right! Could you understand the meaning of the sentence a little better? That was how a fluent reader would read that sentence! Don’t you want to be a fluent reader?

  4. Say (booktalk): Today we are going to be reading one of my favorite books, Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth. This book is about a funny little Kindergartener named Junie B. One day, her school has career day, where her class is visited by people with exciting jobs, like a firefighter, cop, and a dentist. But when Junie B. gets too excited she yells and interrupts the class! Will Junie B. get in trouble or will she be able to still learn about all the exciting careers? We will read this book and find out! 

  5. Say: Now we get to work with our shoulder partners on repeated readings. (Divide classroom into pairs and hand each pair a copy of the book, stopwatch, fluency checklist, pencil, and reading response sheet). 

  6. Say: Now that you are with your partner, one of you will read first, while the other will record their friend’s progress on the fluency checklist and time how long it takes them to read the first 5 pages! Remember, this is not a race and you still need to try to read as best as you can and understand the message of the book. After you have read the first 5 pages, switch with your partner so the person that read will now time their friend and fill out the fluency chart. Once you have done this, repeat the exercise another two times, so each person will read the book 5 times. That way we can see if your fluency will improve throughout the readings. 

  7. (Walk around the room while your students work and monitor their progress). Assesment: (After students have finished, go to front of the room and ask them the following comprehension questions.) Say: Why do you think Junie B. talked out of turn in class? Why did Junie B. get in a fight with Jim? Did Junie B. end up fixing the problem? How did she fix it? Now I want each of you to write a sentence about your favorite part of the story and draw a picture illustrating it! 

 

Fluency Checklist: 

Title of Book: _____________________

Name:______________    Partner’s Name:__________________

After 2nd Reading    After 3rd Reading 

______________    _______________    Remembered More Words 

______________    _______________    Read Faster

______________    _______________    Read Smoother

______________    _______________    Read with Expression

 

(Words x 60)/ Seconds = WPM 

First Reading: ____ Words in ______ Seconds

Second Reading: _____ Words in _____ Seconds

Third Reading: _____ Words in ______ Seconds 

 

Refrences: 

Park, Barbara. Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth. Scholastic Inc. (1997). 

Partying with Fluency- Casen Young https://cty0007.wixsite.com/literacydesigns/growing-independence-and-fluency-de

 

Back to Reading Genie: 

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/breakthroughs/

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Back to Homepage:  

https://lcs0050.wixsite.com/lessons

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Email: 

lcs0050@auburn.edu 

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