Let's Have Fun with Fluency and Junie B. Jones!

Rationale: In comprehension, fluent reading is important. Fluency in reading is the capacity to easily, correctly and automatically recognize words. The student switches away from being reliant on decoding. For readers, fluency is important so they can concentrate their focus on being fast, smooth, more articulate readers and understanding the content. Students will be able to confidently develop fluency and evolve into enhanced readers by reading, decoding, cross-checking, mental labeling, and rereading. Instead of getting irritated, the student can start enjoying reading by developing their visual word vocabulary. Throughout this repetitive reading of decodable text, this class will require students to crosscheck. In repetitive and timed reading, this practice can boost their fluency and independence.

Materials:

White board/markers (1 for each student)

Fluency Chart

Class set of Junie B. Jones and Some Sneaky Peeky Spying

Stopwatches (1 per pair of students)

Reader Response Form

Procedures:

1. Say: “Today we are going to be working on our fluency in reading. Reading fluently is when you can read smoothly, and each word you come to is said effortlessly. We are able to enjoy the book we are reading even more by being fluent readers so we can concentrate on the story and not get caught up on each word.

2. Say (model): "I am going to let you listen to me read a short passage two times. When I'm done, we will discuss which one sounded better. (Read choppily) “Aaa-ff-ttt-errrrr, aaaff-terrrr, after th-aaa-t that, aaaann-o-th-errr anoth-er another grrrr-aanddd-ma grandma caa-aaaa-mm cam (come back after to change to came, known by cross-checking) in.” (Read smoothly) Let me try this passage again. “After that, another grandma came in.” (Ask for a show of hands) “Who liked listening to my first reading? How about the second? Why did the second time sound better to you? Right! The second time sounded a lot smoother when I didn’t stop to pronounce words. This is what we will be working on today.”

3. Say: Does anyone know what I did when I got stuck on a word? That’s right, I crosschecked. I finished the sentence with the word I couldn't figure out to see if I could figure out the tough, new word that had silent letters, like the e at the end of came. When I first read it, it didn’t sound like words I had heard before. I could tell what the words were, like came instead of cam after I finished the sentence and corrected my mistakes. We can improve our fluency by becoming more familiar with sounds and sounding it out all together. Our goal is to try and read smooth and not choppy

4. Say: “Let's try reading the two sentences that I have written on the board together. I see a couple of tough new words in the sentence. (Together read): “He said to stay in my wood chair. Then he called Mother on the telephone.” “I heard some of you having trouble reading the words chair and called, but I did hear you all read on to the end of the sentence to figure out those words! Good job on crosschecking. The word chair has /ai/ in the middle of it and we know ai together says a long /A/ sound. In the word called, we have chunks call and -ed. Call is just the word all with a c at the beginning! Let’s try again and reads the two sentences over.

5. Say: “Today we are going to read about a girl named Junie B. Jones who is a kindergartener! Do you know what a spy is? That’s what Junie has decided to be in our story today. She has to be sneaky, quiet, and peak at people through cracks and holes. There’s a problem though! Junie B. can’t practice her spy moves if her mom won’t let her. I am going to read the first two pages of this book, so we can find out the start of her adventure together.”

6. (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, we are going to partner up with our reading buddy. I need one buddy to come up to the front to get 2 copies of the book, a reading response questions form, a fluency chart, and a stopwatch. The partner that is finding a place to read will be counting up the amount of words on the 5 pages after we left off and will write that number at the top of your fluency charts.” Next, say“You and your partner will each read those 5 pages 3 times while the other times your reading with a stopwatch. If you are the partner that is not reading, you need to be playing close attention to the mistakes your reading partner makes. For every mistake make a little tally. (Show tally method on the board) “After you have read each time, you will do a subtraction problem to calculate fluency. Take the total number of words from those pages and subtract the number of tallies for each reading. Your answer will read ‘___ words in ___ minutes.’ Next, “When you finish timing each other, discuss your answers to the reading response questions. Each of you will write your answers in complete sentences back at your desk and turn those and your fluency charts in to me.”

Comprehension Questions:

What does Junie B.’s grandpa drop?

Where did Junie B. hide at grandpa Miller’s house?

What is the real name of the vegetable Junie B. called Sue Keeny?

Grades are computed using the following system:

Followed Directions: 1 point

Improved Speed: 2 points

Improved Fluency: 2 points

Answered all 3 questions in complete sentences: 3 points

Answers are accurate and appropriate: 2 points

Total: 10 points

(Words x 60)/Seconds = WPM