Jessica Sullivan
First Day of School With Amelia Bedelia and Fluency
Rationale:
In order to increase fluency in reading, students’ focus should be on reading faster, accurately, and effortlessly. Reading fluency is able to read with automatic word recognition. As students’ fluency increases, their comprehension grows, which in turn helps them enjoy reading more. This also means that the student is transitioning from decoding. The more time the student practices reading, the faster the students will be able to read. The best method of practice is repeated reading. By assisting a child to learn to read at a faster pace is the key to increases a student’s comprehension as well. This lesson will allow the students to use the strategy of crosschecking during repeated readings of decodable text to gain fluency and independence in repeated and timed reading.
Materials:
· Pencils
· Timer/stopwatch for each pair
· Class set of Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School by Herman Parrish
· Sample sentences on white board for teacher to model
· Peer Fluency Sheet (one for each student)
· Reading Rate forms for teacher
· Teacher Fluency Checklist (one for each student) with attached comprehension questions
Procedures:
1. Begin the lesson by stating, “Alright class, today we are going to become fluent readers. It is one of our goals to be fluent readers, but what exactly does that mean? What does it mean to be a fluent reader? A fluent reader is someone who is able to read very quickly and smoothly because they recognize the words. This helps us understand what we are reading because we automatically understand each word. This makes reading much more enjoyable.”
2. Now say: “Now lets look at a sentence written on the board: Sam ate the last cupcake. Everyone put your listening ears on. I want you to tell me if I sound like a fluent reader when I read this sentence aloud to you. S-s-s, /a/-/a/-/a/, m-m-m, Sam ate the last c-/u/-p-c-/a/-k ch, Sam ate the last cupcak. Oh, that doesn't make sense. It must be cupcake. Sam ate the last cupcake. Did you notice that when I read the sentence, I got stuck on the last word? To figure out what that word was, I reread the sentence from the beginning and tried what I thought the word cupcake said, cupcak. That did not make sense, did it? So I went back to reread to figure out what the word should read that would make sense. This strategy is called crosschecking, and it is super important to use when we are learning to become fluent readers! Since I figured out these hard words while reading it helped me become fluent. Thumbs up if you think I read that like a fluent reader. Exactly, no I wasn’t reading like a fluent reader because I had to decode the words in the sentence. Here's how a fluent reader would read that sentence: Sam ate the last cupcake. I read the sentence effortlessly, and it was much easier to understand! Now turn to a partner and practice reading the second sentence on the board. Pat the dog eats my shoe, and he runs like an ant! Read it aloud to one another until you read fluently.
3. Say: Now that I have read the sentence Sam ate the last cupcake! What did I get stuck on? In order to figure out how to read the hard word, I had to reread the sentence, remember my correspondences, and focus on my pronunciation. I knew at did not sound correct. I took a moment and remembered that a_e says /A/. Then after I corrected my mistakes, I went back, re-read the sentence, I realized that it actually made sense when I said ate. This strategy I used is called crosschecking.
4. Say: Today we are going to read Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School in order to practice our fluency. In this story, Amelia Bedelia is so excited for her first day of school. She is certain that she will just love everything about it. She knows she will love her teacher, her desk, her books, music class, gym class, everything! She can not think of anything better. Do you think Amelia Bedelia will love school as much as she hopes?
Do you think there could be anything better than school? Let’s read to find out if she loves school at the end of the day!
5. 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, I want you to get knee-to-knee with your reading partner. Then you need to go to you designated spots out around the room. While one buddy goes and picks out a place to sit in the room, the other buddy will come up here and get two, Partner Reading Progress checklist. Once the other buddy has claimed a reading area, I want them to count all the words in the first chapter of Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School.
- Each partner is going to take turns reading parts of chapter 1, of the story, aloud to one another three times each. While one partner reads, the other will uses a stopwatch to time them.
- Pay attention and make sure that each partner notes all of the mistakes your partner makes when they are reading aloud. Make sure to place a tally mark for each mistake. (show the tally method on the board)
- After you have finished your reading, you will continue on by doing the math problem to solve or fluency. The subtraction problem is the total number of words minus the number of tallies for each reading. The total number of tally marks should be subtracted from the total number of words in the section you have read. Do this three times.
-The next step is to figuring out the progress of each student -This should be done by answering the questions on the progress form. This should tell which reading was the fastest and which reading had the fewest number of errors.
- To continue, after finishing each reading, you can answer the three reader's response questions.
-
How did Amelia Bedelia hop onto the bus?
-
What game did Amelia Bedelia think she was playing with her name “tag”?
-
What happened with Amelia Bedelia’s desk?
-Upon finishing, the students will return to their desk. Each student should write down his or her own individual answers on a sheet of paper. This paper should be turned in, when they have finished. After the papers and checklist are turned in, a fluency graph will be given out. The three rates will be figured out and you will record your scores in the time spaces, which will show the individual reading rates.
Assessment: I will review student's responses to the reading response questions. Each student will have submitted these questions, after they finish. I will then complete the rubric, which I have attached, while reviewing students’ work throughout the lesson.
Reading Rate_________
81+
75-80
69-74
63-68
57-62
51-56
Less than 50
Wpm 1 2 3
Partner Reading Progress
Reader Name: _________________
Checkers Name: _______________
Total words in the chapter______
1. Tally Marks:
____total words- ____ tally marks= ____ words
_____ words in ____seconds.
2. Tally Marks:
____total words- ____ tally marks= ____ words
_____ words in ____seconds
3. Tally Marks:
____total words- ____ tally marks= ____ words
_____ words in ____seconds
Which reading turn had the fewest tally marks (errors)? ________
Which reading turn was read the fastest? _______
Assessment Rubric:
Student Name:
Date:
Answers accurate/ appropriate ___/2
Responded to comprehension questions ___/3
Improved fluency ___/2
Improved accuracy ___/2
Completed Partner Progress form ___/1
Total ___/10
Resources:
Parrish, Herman. Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School. 2011. Greenwillow Books
Gunter, Morgan. Flipping For Fluency.
Holley, Cate. Swinging Into Fluency.
Farley, Kate. Fishing For Fluency.
Below is a PDF file of the lesson above:
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