Rationale: Being a fluent reader helps you better comprehend texts and understand the story. When you are a fluent reader, you can learn new words to be able to recognize them as sight words. This helps you to read quicker and with more expression. Fluent readers can correctly decode, crosscheck, and reread the text. In this lesson, students will learn strategies and skills that will help them become fluent readers by rereading Rosie Revere Engineer. When they come to an unfamiliar word, they can decode it.  If they still do not understand the word, they can crosscheck, finish the sentence, and reread the sentence. 

 

Materials.

• Whiteboards and markers

• Sample sentences on a whiteboard

• Class set of: Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beaty

• Reading comprehension worksheet

• Stopwatches for each sets of pairs

• Partner reading recording sheet

• Teacher fluency checklist

 

Procedures.

1. Say: Today we are going to talk about fluent reading! Can someone tell me what a fluent reader is? When someone is a fluent reader, they can read quickly, smoothly, and can understand everything they are reading. Fluent readers can also read with expression, meaning the reader can change their voice to match a certain text. Today, we are going to practice being fluent readers!

2. Say: First, we are going to look at this sentence on the board. I am going to show you how we crosscheck when we come across a word we don’t know or may have forgotten. [Model] and say: For example, say I read this sentence (show sentence on the board, “I ride my bike to the park”) “I ride my /b/i/k/ …” hmm that sounds a little funny. Let me try reading the rest of the sentence… “to the park”. Oh, now I understand! “I ride my bike to the park.” The word was an i_e word, so that means the letter I says /I/ not /i/. Now I’m going to reread the sentence so that I can know what it says and remember the words for later. “I ride my bike to the park.”

3. Say and model: Now I am going to show you how a fluent reader may read, and how a non-fluent reader may read. Let’s look at this sentence. (Show sentence on the board, “The dog did a trick for me.”) A non-reader may read like this: “The ddogg did a ttrriickk for me.” See how I read really slow and stretched out the words? Reading that way can make it harder to understand what I am reading about. Now let’s try again and see how a fluent reader may read. “The dog did a trick for me.” [Read smoothly, with expression]. See how my words flowed better, and we had a better understanding of what the sentence was about? That is how a fluent reader reads! Now let’s read it all together: “The dog did a trick for me.” Amazing job!

4. Say and model: Now let’s look at how we would read a more difficult word. (Write white on the board). This word can be harder to read because some letters are silent. If I look at this word, I might say /w/h/i/t/, but that isn’t a real word. We need to remember the rule i_e says /I/ not /i/. We can help remember this by using body-coda blending, where we start with the /I/ sound, then add our other letters. So, in this case, we would start with the i_e, then add the /w//h/ to the beginning and a /t/ at the end. We also remember that /wh/ says /w/. That’s it! White! (Everyone says white together).

5. Say: Now everyone, find a partner, so we can practice being fluent readers! [Pass out Rosie Revere Engineer to the pairs]. This book is about how Rosie is an engineer by using everyday objects and turning them into inventions. She makes many different things but gets made fun of and fails. One day she decides to make an invention that will fly for her aunt. Will she be able to persevere and build a flying machine?

6. Students will read the whole book silently to themselves and then fill out the reading comprehension worksheet. Then they will read the book aloud to their partner. They cannot help their partner, only record their progress. 

 

Reading Comprehension Worksheet:

Name: ________

Date: _________

 

1. What did Rosie create? 

2. Why did the zookeeper make fun of her?

3. What did Rosie learn from her crash?

4. How did Aunt Rose help Rosie?

 

7. [Pass out the recording sheets and stopwatches to each group]. Say: Now we are going to play a fluency game! Reader 1 will start off reading and Reader 2 will control the stopwatch and record how fast it takes Reader 1 to read. Reader 2 will record Reader 1’s time on the time sheet I just handed you. After recording your partner’s time, you will switch, and Reader 2 will read. Reader 1 will record. You will do this three times each. As you listen to your partner, I want you to listen to them carefully to see how their reading changes each time. Do they read smoother? Do they read quicker? Do they remember more of the words or read with expression? Mark the changes you see on your paper.

 

Partner Reading Recording Sheet:

Title of Book: ­­­­_______

Total # of Words: ­­­____

Reader: ____________

Timer: ___________

Date: ________

1. ____ words in ____ seconds

2. ____ words in ____ seconds

3. ____ words in ____ seconds

 

1. After all students have read through the text three times each, have each student come up one at a time and read the first two pages to you. Ask them to bring their record sheet and determine each student’s words per minute (WPM) using the formula, (words x 60) / seconds, and record them on the teacher fluency checklist. 

 

 

 

 

References:

Andrea Beaty and David Roberts: Rosie Revere Engineer, 2013

Rosie Revere Engineer, Andrea Beaty and David Roberts (youtube recording)

https://www.amazon.com/Rosie-Revere-Engineer-Andrea-Beaty/dp/1419708457

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Lillie Brooke's Weaving a Fluency Web:

https://leb00796.wixsite.com/my-site-2/growing-independence-and-fluency

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