Rationale: 

To become a fluent reader, one must recognize sight words effortlessly and automatically recognize them. When words become sight words, the student will have a better understanding of what they are reading. This lesson’s purpose is to model and teach reading fluency by having the students reread a passage while being timed by a fellow student to check their fluency and smoothness. When students practice reading, decoding, and crosschecking, they’re on their way to becoming fluent readers!

 

Materials: 

• Book: The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister 

• Timers or stopwatches per student pair

• Whiteboard and Marker for marking and noting irregular words

• Pencils and paper

• Fluency Checklist per student

• Reading Rate Form for teacher

• Reading Record Timesheet per student 

• Comprehension checklist per student

• Cover-up Critters for every student

• Class set of The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

 

Procedures:

1. Say: To be the best readers we can be, we must work on being fluent. Fluency in reading is being able to read words automatically, quickly, and with expression.  When we are fluent readers, we can understand what happens in a story better. A good way to become more fluent is to read the same thing over and over. By reading a story more than once, you can become familiar with words that you did not get the first time. Today, we are going to get some practice with repeated readings so that we can swim to fluency. 

 

2. Say: First, I’m going to show you how a reader who doesn’t have fluency can become fluent. If I come across this sentence [write sentence on board]: “The fish like to swim” and I am not fluent, I might have to decode a word or two. The first time I see this word [point to swim] I might try to put together each phoneme /s/ /w/ /i/ /m/.../sw/-/E//m/, The fish like to /sweem/. No, The fish like to swim, Oh, that’s right. I don’t use the correspondence ee = /E/ or long e. I use i = /i/ or short i. Did you notice that I said sweem instead of swim? Now I’m going to try and read the sentence again. [Read the sentence slowly and without expression, but no difficulty]. That was a tiny bit better, but I know I can read it more smoothly with expression, if I read it a third time. [Read sentence another time, adding emphasis]. That’s it! I knew the words well enough that time to add some more expression because I understood what was going on in the sentence. This is cross checking! We crosscheck when there is some word that makes us not fluent readers. 

 

3. [Review using cover-ups.] Say: “What else do we use when we don’t know a word? Our cover-up critters! I am going to show you guys how we use cover-ups to remind you. Let’s look at the word “thought” on the board. If I have trouble reading this word, I can use my critter to help me sound it out. Let’s cover up /th/. What sound does /ough/ /t/ make? Yes! It sounds like /ought/. Now if I uncover /th/ can you tell me what sound it makes? That’s right! It sounds like /th/. Now let’s combine the two sounds: /th/ -- /ough/ /t/ Then we can add the /t/ at the end. /th/ -- /ough/ -- /t/. thought. We can use our critters to help us figure out new words. Just cover up the letters before the vowel to figure out the vowel sound. Then add back the consonants before the vowel and after it.

 

4. [Give a book talk for The Rainbow Fish] Far out in the sea lived the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean. The other fish liked his colorful scales. They called him Rainbow Fish. When the others asked Rainbow Fish to play, he just swam right past them as if he were better than them. But one little blue fish swam along behind him asking for one of Rainbow Fish’s glittering scales. Rainbow Fish said no and sent the little blue fish away. That’s not nice! I wonder if the little blue fish can convince Rainbow Fish to spare just one of his beautiful, glittery scales. Do you think the Rainbow fish can be nice? Let’s find out! 

 

5. Say: If you did not know some of the words in this first reading, it is okay. We are going to read it more times so that you can get better! I’m going to pass around for each student a copy of the book. Read silently, then read aloud to your partner. [Students read silently as possible for a couple of minutes, then help students with difficult words or irregular words; I will be walking around checking and observing.]

 

6. Say: Now, I want everyone to partner up. [Once students are partnered up, give each group a stopwatch, two feedback sheets, and two timesheets] Each of you has a Feedback sheet, a time sheet, and a stopwatch. First, I want you to count how many words are in the first couple of pages of the book, then write that number at the top of your time sheet. You will take turns reading the first two pages out loud to your partner; and they will time you to see how long it takes to read the passages. Write the number of seconds it took for your partner to read the first two pages on the timesheet, then use your feedback sheet to track your partner’s progress. If they read faster, more smoothly, or with more expression, then mark that box on the feedback sheet. After your partner has read the pages three times and you have recorded that information on both the time sheet and the feedback sheet, switch who is reading, and now the other person will mark on a different time sheet and feedback sheet. 

 

7. After you have both finished, bring your timesheet and feedback sheets up to my desk and I will calculate your WPM. As they read you will time them on the paragraph read aloud and use the formula given to record how many words per minute they read.

 

8. Students will assess each other with the reading timesheet and the fluency checklist. Calculate how many words are on the first 4 pages and use their time to get their words per minute rate. WPM = total words* 60/recorded time in seconds. After reading the passage, have the students answer reading comprehension questions. 

 

Assessment: 

I will review each student’s responses to the reading comprehension questions and review the partner feedback and time sheets to assess each student.

Reading Comprehension Questions: 

• What did Rainbow Fish do to upset the little blue fish?

(Rainbow Fish rejected the little blue fish by not sharing one of his many, many beautiful, glittering scales; acting as if he were better than the little blue fish.) 

 

• What does little blue fish do that tells us he’s upset? 

            (Little blue fish immediately swims away and tells all of his friends about how Rainbow Fish would not share one tiny, beautiful scale.)

 

• Why was Rainbow fish the loneliest fish in the ocean? How did he feel? 

(Rainbow fish was the loneliest fish in the ocean because fish stopped admiring his beauty. The other fish do not think he is being very friendly. That makes him feel oh, so sad.) 

 

 

References:

Activity guide/Teacher’s 

the rainbow fish 

 

The book:

The Rainbow Fish (17 pages) by: Marcus Pfister

 

Kirchharr, Alexa. “Flying to Fluency.” http://alk0018.wix.com/lessons-in-literacy#!fluency/c218n

 

Harris, Caroline. “Swimming into Fluent Reading.”

https://ceh0108.wixsite.com/carolineharris/growing-independence-and-fluency

 

Murray, Dr. Bruce. “Developing Reading Fluency.” 

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html

 

Partner Reading Feedback Sheet. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/checksheet.jpg