The Day the Crayon’s became fluent readers!

 

Rationale: 

This lesson is designed to improve students reading fluency. Reading fluently is reading where nearly all the words are sight vocabulary; speed and expression are results. They must first be able to decode words in the text they’re reading to have reading fluency.  In this lesson, students will learn the strategies and skills that it takes to become a fluent reader through modeling and practice. Through reading, decoding, crosschecking, mental marking, and rereading, students will be able to confidently improve their reading rate and grow into fluent readers. Students will use the strategy of crosschecking after readings of a decodable text and repeated readings to gain fluency and independence in reading.

 

Materials: 

1. Pencils

2. Stop watch and timer

3. Fluency chart to record students’ words per minute

4. Cover up critters 

5. Reading rate chart 

6. Fluency checklist

7. The Day the Crayons quit: By Drew Daywalt 

 

Procedures: 

 

1. Say: “Today we are going to learn how to improve our fluency when reading. Can anyone tell me what the word fluency means? Fluency is when you read words quickly and automatically with expression.  When we read with fluency, we comprehend more of the story and the story becomes more exciting as well. To become fluent readers, we must have a large sight word vocabulary, or words that we know automatically, without decoding. To gain sight words we must practice reading through a method of repeated reading where we can decode, crosscheck, mental mark, and reread.”

 

 2. Say: “We have cover-up critters to help us decode, which means to read an unfamiliar word. For example, let’s look at the word quit. (Write the word quit on the whiteboard). I am going to use my cover-up critter to decode this word. I will cover up all the letters except for q. /q/…/q/…/q/. Then I will uncover u. /u/…/u/…/u../qu/. Next I uncover the letter i. /i/…/i/../i/../i/…/q/u/i/. Finally I will uncover the t and blend all the phonemes together. t/t/…./t/…/t/.. /q/u/i/t/…quit.  This word is QUIT. Let’s use the word in a sentence: “The crayon’s wanted to quit.”  When you quit something, you stop or leave it. 

 

3. “What if we come across a word that does not make sense even when we use our cover up critters to decode it?” *allow for answers* “We crosscheck! We use other parts of the sentence that we do know to help us figure out the word we don’t know. Look at the sentence I have on the board.” *write ‘The crayon was sad.’* “The crayons were /s/a/d/? Is that word sed? That isn’t a word! The crayon was sed? Oh! That word is sad! Now, I’m going to reread this sentence.” *read with expression* “Didn’t that sound like an expert fluent reader? We decoded and crosschecked the unfamiliar word. Then we read it to understand it. When we read a sentence over and over, the words become automatic for us to recognize. This puts them in our sight word vocabulary, and we become skilled readers! Remember, each time you read, you will get better and better.”

 

4. Say: “We are going to practice reading fluently. I want you to read the book, “The Day the Crayons Quit,” by Drew Daywalt silently at your desk. In this book, the crayons are very upset.  Each crayon is blaming their owner for something different and they’re writing letters to him to explain how they feel.  Let’s read and find out if the owner, Duncan, and his crayons ever resolve the issues.  Reading silently is without whispering or moving your lips. I want you to read it silently in your head.” 

 

5.  After the students read silently, I will then pair them up with partners. Say: “You and your partner will now get a stopwatch and a copy of “The Day the Crayons Quit,” a reading rate chart, and a fluency checklist. You and your partner are going to read, three times each, to build on your fluency. You will take turns being the reader and the timer. The timer will time your partner reading the book and will record their time on the reading rate chart. When you’re the one timing your partner, be sure that you hit start as soon as your partner starts to read and hit stop as soon as they are done reading. Record all three of the times on your chart. After your partner has read the book once, make sure you fill out the fluency checklist along with the reading rate chart. This will help your partner to see if they’re improving.” Before the students start reading, I will model how to fill in the chart and use a stopwatch. I will then observe the students reading the book. I will walk around the room and ask any questions the students may have and make sure that they are filling in the correct time. 

 

    Checklist:           

·         Did he/she read smoothly?

·         Did he/she show facial expression?

·         Did he/she have voices changes?

·         Does the student have an overall understanding of expression?

 

The following fluency checklist filled out for each reading partner will also be used as an assessment:

·         Title of Book:

·         Student’s Name:

·         Partner's Name:

·         Make a check if the following is true after the 2nd and 3rd Readings:

·         Remembered more words: 

·         Read faster:

·         Read smoother:

·         Read with expressions:

 

 

6. After the students are done reading, collect the data for yourself to analyze how your students did and who still needs to work on. Have each student read to you individually to you. Mark improvements needed and miscues, and ask comprehension questions.  I will ask questions such as: 

“Did the crayon’s owner read the letters?”

“What was their owner’s name?”

“What grade did the owner get on his picture assignment?”

“How did the owner make the crayons happy?”

 

7. Each day I will set a certain time for the students to get to go with their partners to practice reading for fluency. After a week of reading I will assess each student individually and change their partners up and let them see how another student is reading and what they could learn from them.

 

References:

 

Watson, Abby. “Splashing into Fluency” https://abbywatson120.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/growing-independence-fluency

 

Boldt, Joy. “Fancy Fluency” https://jdb0102.wixsite.com/mysite/growing-fluency

 

Daywalt, D., & Jeffers, O. (2016). The Day the Crayons Quit. London: HarperCollins Children’s Books.

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