Classroom App - Fluency
Gary Obermeyer, Mon November 14, 2005, 11:13 AM
This is the place to report on the fluency strategy that you applied in your classroom. Tell us:
What was the strategy you chose?
Did you choose it from the presentation or the Early Literacy Portal?
Why did you chose this particular strategy, i.e. what was your hypothesis about your student(s) needs or proficiency?
What was the effect on student learning?
I chose my teaching strategy by using the Early Literacy Portal. I wanted to find more activites to use in class that would increase reading fluency. I found a website called "Teaching Heart" and it had a list of Reader's Theater options. I chose a few familiar stories such as: "Swamp Thing" and "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" and assigned them to differnt groups. They had class time to practice and they were excited to present. I feel fun activities help to develope a love for reading as well as work on their prosody (reading voice).
I chose to keep up to date with my running records. As I am an ESL teacher and regularly read with children grades K-5 I chose to keep up to date with checking for readers fluency. I currently do this when I pull out groups to work however because I am so busy this year I really need to focus and assess kids on a regular basis. I chose this from the presentation. Hopefully it will show growth in the reading skills that I work with the children on.
In the literacy portal I chose a website that focused on reading fluency. As a special education teacher I find that most of my students struggle in this area. To make it a little more fun, I chose a site that had songs and plays. To go along with the up and coming holiday I chose 2 plays titled "Turkey Trotten" and "Chicken Little." My students have seemed to enjoy both of the selections. They are funny and entertaining for them to read. I have found that as the week continues they are becoming more fluent with the plays. In both plays there are a few very difficult words, but once they have learned those words they feel very proud of themselves.
I chose to find an activity on the Early Literacy Portal. I chose to use Readers Theater with my 4th grade students. Since exposure to many different types of classroom reading are important in the development of fluent reading, I felt that reading orally with Readers Theater, would be a great way to practice this. My students enjoyed reading in this way.
I decided to try a combination of ways to increase fluency from the lists for ELL, Special Needs and others, including the choral, echo, round robin and tape recorded reading assistance. Different strategies seemed to work with different students so I feel that none should be totally excluded from the others. They especially enjoyed hearing themselves on tape!
I have done running records before, but feel that I really need to focus more on this is my Intervention Classroom setting. I need a better idea of how the basal text is for my students. I am each week going to take a selection from the story that is about a 100 word passage, and keep a running record on the students. This way I can find out where the text is for my students and provide myself with a better idea of where I need to provide more support. This week I chose a selection and was surprised that half of my students were at frustration level and half at instructional level. I excepted them all to be at frustration. This was great to use this technique again.
I chose to do paired reading with a group of students. This is not used that much in the SRA curriculum I must use. It worked well with my third grade group. They helped each other and stayed focus on the reading. However, it doesn't usually work with my fourth grade group. The other student will zone out while the other one is reading. Therefore, I think it depends on the group of kids you have.
I used Paired reading from the presentation. The SRA program doesn't allow for much paired reading, but i find that i am able to use it in my guided reading groups that i now push into. i agree with Lynn above, it sometimes depends on the group of students and sometimes the day. One of my groups looks forward to paired reading, the other is mixed. some pairs start reading and then find themselves drifting from the task. For the most part i liked the out comes, they are able to help each other through the story and discuss question together to generate ideas.
I chose to use computer assisted reading. My students each have a laptop so they know how to have the computer read text to them. I had a couple of my lower students who use this strategy often and after they had had the computer read it to them I had them read it to me. It obviously helped with their fluency.
I chose to use paired reading to improve my students fluency. I had both student read simultaneously, so that one was not able to 'zone out', they both had to be constantly focusing and reading the text. I used paired reading during whole class instruction and during guided reading groups-when I had them reread the text together as a pair, without my support. It gave my students another experience reading the text, besides their first encounter, this way they were able to focus more on things like fluency and expression. By using the paired reading with the students second encounter of the text, they really seemed to enjoy reading together, and were able to focus on fluency and reading the text smoothly.
I believe that the more time you read a text and it becomes a "familar read" the better the fluency rate occurs and research does say this in guided reading and fluency reading. I use the read-a-long cassette tapes in my class with the Harcourt series. I introduce the story with the tape on Monday, then on Tuesday do it again, then have the kids buddy read it once again, then repeat the procedure again on Wednedsday, then choral read it, and continue throughout the week using different methods of fluent reading strategies. Kids remember the text and re-read the story more fluid each time a familiar read is re-read.
I had our lowest students who are below grade level read an emergent book, then we took sentence strips with the sentences from the book and read them. Lastly I cut up the sentence strips and had the students put them together and continue to read the sentences to make sure they could not only read them fluently but also make sure they made sense.
I went in to the Early Literacy Portal and found a lot of good stuff under Reader's Theater. I printed off some of the Christmas Reader's Theater and split up my class into small groups and gave each group a different one. They have been practicing them and are going to perform infront of the class next week. As I have been listening to them, I have noticed better prosody. They are also comprehending the information and using more expression and voice. I would like to do more Reader's Theater in my classroom.
This is such an important part of reading, well all of these parts are all important. Since we teach from Harcourt there are a lot of repeated readings. I think this is a really important part of reading. Especially in Kindergarten. We reread a lot of books. Even though sometimes it just seems redundant the students are really showing improvements in reading and fluency. I think that it is always interesting by looking at the books the students pick out to read by themselves. Usually they are the books that I have read to them. It is familar to them and they know those books. In Kindergarten we don't always use the same book for the week. We might see that book every week for one day. Sa it is slowly building their familiarity of each book. I do believe that in Kindergarten we really need a variety of texts to enrich each student. The one example that I use a lot is the book Warthogs in the Kitchen a Sloppy Counting Book. I think this book is great because we've used it so much that now my students are picking up on the high-frequency words and they are beginning to sound out the words they don't know. So for Kindergarten I think it is important to have a variety of texts but also have the repeated reading. I found out that students love those books that they know and I read to them all of the time. It builds them up for reading by themselves. It helps them become more fluent as they begin to read.
We chose to focus on the Early Lit Portal for this section and decided to investigate the poems and songs site. At the K level, students need to have readings reinforced through the use of songs, chants, and poems. This is especially true for learning the alphabet. Students remember their letters and sounds faster by being presented with songs/chants that focus on each letter. Just think about the times when you here a child singing or chanting their alphabet. The repetitive nature of songs and chants, or even poems, can greatly enhance the effective learning processes. Another note, the use of non-linguistic representation can really create a more effective approach to learning (especially ELLs). The stories utitlized during our lit blocks have really made a positive impact on our students. They are becoming better (more fluent) readers from the repetition of these selections. We have the students participate in interactive writing at the end of the week that are focused on the story read. They are learning their sight words through these activities as well as through the constant exposure to the stories. This week, we actually revisited The Chick and the Duckling for the fifth time. The students comprehended the details from the stories and are able to illustrate them. We do dictations that encourage students to read and it gives them ownership.
I am going to use the Buddy Reading system with my little ones. We do this often when we are done with one activity and going on to the next, during transition times. My Kinders have wordless books that they can tell their own story, so I buddy them up and they tell one another their own version of the story. This works on fluency because they are pretending to read at the rate they talk. The children love to do this.
During my SRA time I had students partner read. I set had my NEP ESL student work with me inorder to create a safe enviroment for him to work on fluency. I think this is a wonderful way for students to develop thier fluency skills.
I went to the early literacy portal and to the portal that had oral reading fluency. Third grade is tested on ORF with DIBELS and wanted to check out more to help them. This portal only showed me what I already knew using DIBELS. I then went to the Reader's Theatre website and found some great things that I hope to have more TIME in my classroom to do. In a week we have a story that I am doing a reader's theatre on so I'm excited to try it out.
I used the "buddy reading" as my application. I used it during leveled reading groups and again as a center activity. For the center activity the kids could choose a book or something that we had read. They had to buddy read to 3 different people and then have each person they read to sign a piece of paper saying that they had been read to. The kids really enjoyed it. I talked to them about reading with voice and so they practiced that as well.
I did the buddy reading activity with my entire class. I used it because I thought this was a nice way to get the children listening to and critiqueing one another. It worked quite well. I modeled the buddy reading strategy explained in the article, which was a slightly different style than I learned. I like it because it had a specific chain of events rather than just asking the students to read to one another. They were able to give their partner positive feedback as well as focus on comprehension because the of the question/answer session after they were finished reading. Overall I plan to make this an intricate part of my centers.
I did the Buddy Reading activity in my classroom. My students read with a partner and focused on reading with fluency. They took turns listening to one another read a page at a time and then giving compliments on what they heard. They also gave each other ideas on how they could make their fluency even better. This type of feedback was a first for my students but it worked wonderfully. I was very pleased with the results. Thanks to our reading program, my students know what fluency is and practice reading with fluency regularly. This activity added a new spin to what we have been working on so far this year.
I wanted to try echo reading because someone mentioned that it works great for your low readers. It went fairly well. I think I need to spend on lesson as a whole group on how to echo read. I have my students' buddy reading during their reading station while I'm working with a reading group. However, I noticed that some of my students were playing. So I wanted to try echo reading during the reading station but the students need more practice with this before I send them out into a station all on their own.
The past two weeks I did a unit on The Gingerbread Man and I used a lot of "repeated readings". We read different versions of the story and compared and contrasted the different versions. (Some versions have a wolf, some have a fox, etc.) It was also a great way to reinforce sequecing, and a lot of our activities revolved around sequencing and retelling the events. My students caught on quickly to the patterns in the story and could make good predictions about what was going to happen next.
I decided to concentrate on echo and choral reading from the presentation. I have been doing these already, but now I understand more of why I need to do them. While we did our read aloud, "Raccoons and Ripe Corn," in whole group, I had them echo back to me phrases at natural stopping points. They were very expressive and were able to memorize the text and read with me during repeated readings. I was able to see how they could learn by example of how a fluent reader should sound. We then acted out the story in small group as the students pretended to be the raccoons. We read the text together as the children acted out the story. I prompted them as needed as they echoed the text. I plan to do this with more of the readings. The students were able to practice what a fluent reading sounds like while expanding on a deeper comprehension of the text.
Again frustration as I cannot apply this in my classes at this time.
To improve my ELL third graders reading rate and word recognition when oral reading I've been using various methods learned in this chapter...I focus on key paragraphs that describe main events in their anthology ror the week. We reread, I establish understanding with realia and we have also varied the rereads with narratives and chorally or partners. In the end, the story becomes one of understanding rather then a long story without any meaning from their whole classroom readings...In addition, vocabulary is enhanced and summarization is learned.
I chose the strategy Echo Reading. During a classroom demonstration I decided to turn the reading for the day into an Echo Reading. The text really called for it, it was an expository piece on the life of a butterfly. The students and I sat in a circle and I read a sentence, and then they read the same sentence, we continued this pattern until we had finished the story. Then I broke them up into sections determined by the life cycle of the butterfly. One group read the part of the egg chorally, the others, the chrysalis, and so on; at the end we all read the part about turning into a butterfly. I decided to demonstrate the reading of the text from the basal this way because I wanted to model for the classroom teacher the sort of fun things she could do with her students to promte fluency. The first graders really got into the reading of the text. I then suggested to the teacher that they keep reading the text to become even more familiar with it, and possibly perform it as a Readers Theater for toher classes.My observation that morning of the students was that students who may not have taken a risk before to read out loud, stepped up.Since I read it first, it was less intimidating for the struggling reader, and providing a way for them to particpate as a whole group.
I chose to look on the early literacy portal and found some great new reader's theatre examples. I love using these with my students. They really get into these plays and the more fun we make them, they forget that they are working on their reading! Also, it gives us fluency practice because we read it over and over and they become better and better at it.
I chose Paired Oral Reading from the article. I like this strategy as it provides a great deal of opportunity for EL kids to practise oral language. I especially like the questioning and comment aspects. This promts my kids to higher order thinking (with some help from the teacher) and it reflects their comprehension. However, I only use this strategy only with my kids who are at intermediate proficiency or higher. I plan to use this more throughout the year. One extension I plan to conciously use is for the students to generate questions themselves and use it as a game to test the other students. I can even use this with k and 1st graders after reading a picture book, or generating a story from a wordless book.
I looked through the Early Literacy Portal, and I found a fluency strategy similar to Reader’s Theater Scripts and plays that I have used in the classroom. I have a product called the Storybook Club. It is a complete kit with story (big book), die cut pieces of characters and props, along with prereading, reading/rereading, and post reading activities. My students enjoy acting out the story as it is read by fellow students. This helps their reading fluency, because they are familiar with the story, and as they become familiar with the vocabulary and sequence of events they read with better understanding.
Using Readers Theatre is extremely motivating to most students. They love to perform and this will give them the needed motivation to practice fluency without them even knowing it. I explored the following Readers Theatre link on the Early Literacy Portal: http://teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm 54 scripts are supplied. Readers Theatre could be turned into a center where groups of students can select which play they want to practice and perform. I don't have my own classroom, but when I did, I had students sign up for the Readers Theatre scripts that I had. They all practiced, created the scene and performed for the class at the end of the week. I would use this strategy again and would ensure that it was a mandatory center and up through the entire year.
I chose to practice echo reading in a guided reading group using our weekly phonic reader. I read a phrase out of the story modeling fluent reading and then had the students repeat the phrase. The students were able to practice reading smoothly with expression.
I used the Paired Reading strategy with my students and they really seemed to enjoy it. I like to mix up the partnerships each time and the students are doing really well with it. The students really took the time to listen to one another and my stronger readers helped the less fluent readers in a very positive way. I will use this strategy from now on in my classroom.
As a literacy coach I still see round robin reading going on in classrooms. Recently we have modeled readers theatre, paired reading and choral reading in classrooms with the goal of having more children actively involved in reading aloud at once. Some of the teachers appreciated seeing how much more fun this is for the kids. Also, for a third grade classroom I made up a reading rate graph for the teacher to use with the students' personal readers. They were practicing reading fluency but with no real feedback for the student. This way the students know what is expected of them in terms of reading rate and can chart their own progress.
Even though the presentation said there was no reading assignment for this week and there was, I went ahead and looked up phrase boundaries and applied it with one of my low readers. I decided to try this because I wanted to challenge her to read from the basal reading book, which is above her instructional/independent level. The text was indeed frustrational and even reading at a slow pace, she wanted to read the text on her own. She had difficulty summarizing what we had just read. I know the effects are neurological, so unfortunately I do not know if this will be a positive for her in the long run.
I decided to try the Round Robin strategy—just kidding :) The strategy I really used was from the Portal. Teachingheart.net has several reader’s theatre scripts available on line. My students do a variation of reader’s theatre when we retell stories with puppets and simple props. Retelling gives them an opportunity to practice their fluency with story telling.
I decided to apply the paired oral reading strategy in my classroom. I often have my students read in pairs and since they are first graders its usually all done orally. I wanted to see how it worked having the students read silently (or quietly to themselves) first before reading the the passage to their partner. It was also new to me and my students to have each partner read the passage/book three times in a row aloud to their partner. I found that these slight changes made a world of difference. My students seemed more confident when they actually began reading to their partners. By the third time through the book I often heard the majority of my students focusing less on the letters and sounds and actually concentrating on adding the correct expression which I found very exciting.
I use echo reading quite often in the classroom. The Harcourt big book of rymes is good for this. I read the poem once then for the second time I read a line and let the entire class repeat. Some students play during this time. I will reapeat the same line untill I get a majority of the class following along.
I choose to continue doing what I began, I have students re read what they read the day before, and I do a running record on them to see if they have made any improvements.
I went to a literacy portal on reader's theater. I also wanted to try the paired oral readings. I took a reader's theater off of the enchanted learning website. I was teaching about the water cycle and had found a grade appropriate play that I had my students practice and perform. They worked very hard practicing, rehearsing, and performing the reader's theater. My low readers gained more confidence in their reading abilities. My more fluent readers also added more expression and phrasing to their own reading. I thought it was fun and I plan to do it many more times throughout the year. The other idea that I wanted to try was paired oral reading. I modeled with a more fluent reader what to do. The students have done this reading in whole group activities as well as during guided reading. They really enjoy it. They have also gotten better at telling their partner what they noticed about the reading fluency.
I teach Kindergarten next to Ms. Boston. So we do the same pete and repeat readings. This sets the students up to expect fluency. We reread the books with different strategies in mind, and often the particular strategy interrupts the fluent story reading. Then with the Pre-decodable books the students seem to more readily accept that they too need to read and re-read in order for the reading to sound good. I try to set aside time each Friday for student readers theater. They like it, and more genuinely prepare for it.
One of our literacy coaches came in and showed me how to help my lower level reading students. I have been taking the time to read and show them how to read with expression and pay close attention to puncuation and where they need change their voice. I have seen a great improvement in their reading in just a few weeks.
I chose to do Echo Reading during my whole group reading block. I would read a sentence modeling fluency and then my students echoed me. This was great for my lower readers, they were able to track their print while echo reading with expression. They really like it. After echo reading with them, I noticed that when they were choral reading the stories later in the week they werew able to read with more expression!!
I spend very little time with reading. Most of my work is done with decoding so that the students can learn to read better. Our school uses the Accelerated Reader program. One of my teachers told me that my resource student was scoring very low on the AR tests. I watched him take the test just to find out that he was reading books that were ranked as 6th grade level although he is at a fourth grade level!! i really like the idea of taking a story and making sentence strips. It would help the students learn the words and use the corrrect expression. I try to keep away from round robin reading - since I've read that it is not the best way to teach however, many of my students really like to read in this manner.