GIF Design

Growing Independence and Fluency Design

Title: The Day You Didn't Quit Reading!

Rationale:

The goal of this lesson to help students comprehend longer texts and develop a more fluent understanding of language in reading. Students should be able to practice pace and comprehension to develop fluency, and this will be shown by the sight words that they are learning so that they can read words easily and automatically. Fluency is the ability to express oneself easily and articulately, and students will be able to do this with the lesson that is being taught. They will learn how to do this well through reading and rereading the story, “The Day the Crayons Quit.” The students will gain fluency through coverup critters reading decodable texts and then repeating their readings in individual silent reading and pair reading along with teacher-led reading.

Materials:

The Book: “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt (Teacher and classroom set)
Timer/ Stopwatch for each pair
Sample sentences for teacher to model
Peer Fluency Sheet (one for each student)
Cover Up Critter for Class
Crayons (one per student) with Velcro that moves from one shore to the other to count words per minute
“Crayon Box” for the crayons to jump and get into their spot in the crayon box.
Pencil for each student
Teacher Fluency Checklist (one for each student) with attached comprehension questions

Procedures:

Say: “Good morning class! We are going to become fluent readers today! Does anyone know what a fluent reader is? (Call on student.) A fluent reader is someone who reads very quickly! They also can read smoothly because they are quick to recognize the words on a page. Isn’t that fun?
Say: “There are many different ways that help you with fluency. First, we know how to decode! Our fun friend, the coverup critter, will help us decode words that we need to learn. For instance, (write decodable word on the board) I just wrote the word, ‘slack,’ and I am going to use the coverup critter to help me decode it. When we cover up all of the words except for the letter, s, we can see that ‘s says /s/.’ Uncover the l. ‘l says /l/. We now know that it says, /sl/. Let’s uncover the a. What does that say all together? (Ask class.) Yes! It says /sla/. Let’s see if we can put everything together without our coverup critter. The last part is ck. Ssssllaacckkk /slack/ that is right! Slack! See how when we listened to the word, and it didn’t make sense, we kept uncovering more and more letters. This is how you decode! Great job!
Say: “Now, let’s try it in a sentence and read like a fluent reader. (Have sample sentence ready.) Give me some slack! I want you to tell me if I am reading like a beginner or if I am reading like a fluent reader. (Read the sentence.) Gav me soom slack. Giiiive me suumm – someee slack. Give me some slack! Is this a beginner reader or a fluent reader? (Call on someone.) Yes, it is a beginning reading! Let’s try again. Give me some slack! Am I a beginning reader or a fluent reader? Fluent! That is correct!
Why did you think that I was a beginner reader the first time? (Let class think, and call on someone to answer.) I got stuck on the first sentence, didn’t I? I had to decode and repronounce words in the sentence. I had to crosscheck the sentence before I could fully understand it, and I also had to reread. What did you notice when I read the second sentence? I read the sentence effortlessly which means that it was much easier to understand! Now, let’s practice with each other!
Turn to your partner, and practice becoming fluent readers by reading the second sentence on the board. (Write: Tom likes to eat pizza, and he wants a water.) Read it aloud to one another until you become fluent.
We are going to practice our fluency again by reading the story “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt. The story is about all of these crayons in a box, and they all quit their jobs as crayons! They were not used enough, and decided to tell their owner, Duncan, that they are threw! Will they ever go back to being crayons again? We have to read to find out!
(Students will read books to themselves, and then they will read the story again to their partners without getting frustrated or help from their partners.)
(Wait for this to be over.) Now, we are going to play a game to make sure we are fluent readers! (Number students 1 and 2.) If you are a Reader 1, you will be reading first, and Reader 2 is going to time you with a stopwatch. You are going to time Reader 1 on how fast they read the first two pages of the book. That is two crayon letters to Duncan! Reader 2 will record this! Record what words your partner gets wrong, and then notice how they get better and better each time! Amazing work! (Ask them to do this, and then switch. Switch three times back and forth)
Assessment: Ask each pair to come up and read the passage individually to you. Ask two to three comprehension questions (Example: What did the color Blue need a break from being colored?) Time how long it takes the students to read the passages, and then average this out to record their words per minute on the chart. (Multiply number of words by 60 and then divide by number of seconds it took to read the passage!) Pass out the WPM to each student, and then let them move their crayon to that number to get into the crayon box on their own.