Reading to get Speedy Gonzales

to his cheese!!

   By: Ashleigh Bonovitch

 

Rationale: 

Children first learn to read by decoding words.  Beginning readers are slow at decoding words.  Decoding usually requires some effort; beginning readers have to think about each word and its letters.  However, as beginning readers gain practice in decoding words, they can advance to independent fluent readers.  Reading fluency is the ability to recognize words accurately, rapidly, and automatically.  Once children can read effortlessly and fluently, then they can focus more on the meaning of the text.  This lesson is designed to help students increase their fluency by reading a text several times in order to become familiar with it.  During this lesson, children will learn what it means to read fluently, and they will have an opportunity to practice reading fluently.  They will also discover that reading fluently helps them gain more meaning from the text and learn to recognize words automatically.  They will be able to focus on comprehension and the meaning of a text.  After the lesson, the students will have practice in and an understanding of reading with fluency.  They will be able to use a strategy to increase their fluency in their independent reading. 

 

Materials:  

Smart board, or dry erase board and markers

Class set of Sam the Garbage Hound by Charnan Simon

Copy of fluency checklists for each student

Small charts (one per child) to keep up with words per minute-chart needs to be speedy Gonzales running to get the cheese as the students increase words per minute

Stopwatch

 

Procedures:

Begin the lesson by explaining that in order to become better readers, our first step is to read fluently.  “Boys and girls, reading fluency means reading faster, automatically, and effortlessly. Once we learn how to read fluently, we can pay more attention to what the words mean all together.  A great way to get better at reading fluency is by reading the same story a few time, reading faster each time since we are becoming more familiar with the book.  Fluency requires learning new words as sight words.   Once we know sight words, speed and expression are results!

First, lets go over how we can figure out a word that we may not already know.  We can use our cover-up technique.  (I will write scratch on the board) If I saw this word I would cover up everything but the a. (Cover up scr and tch) We know that a=/a/.  Now lets look at what is before the a, scr=/scr/.  Blend them together to get /scr/ /a/. Now lets look at the end of the word tch=/ch/. Put it all together and you have /scr/ /a/ /ch/.  Whenever you see an unfamiliar word, remember to use the cover up method to try to decode it.  Learning new sight words will help our fluency!” 

 

Next, show the students the difference between reading with fluency and reading without fluency.  “I am going to show you how to read with fluency and without fluency.  Listen to my reading and let’s see if you can tell me the difference.  I will write a sentence on the board and I will read it twice, once with fluency and once without fluency.  (Write on board: “The man has on a read hat.” Teacher reads sentence through once without fluency sounding out each word) The m-a-n h-a-s on a r-e-d h-a-t. Notice that I read the sentence slowly.  It is very hard to understand the sentence when I do not recognize the words in it.  I have to spend most of my effort sounding out the words, not understanding them.  Now listen to me read it again with fluency.  The man has on a red hat.  What did you notice about the second reading of the sentence?  Very good, it was a little faster because I recognized the words from the first time I read them. I could also comprehend or understand the words and sentence more because I did not have to spend so much time sounding out the words.  The words flow together.  This is what we will be practicing today.  I want you to be able to read by yourself just like I did.” 

 

“Now boys and girls, lets read Sam the Garbage Hound.  This story is about a dog named Sam.  Sam the dog lives in a dump and he eats whatever he can find.  He also sleeps wherever he can find a comfortable place to sleep.  It was fun for a while, but then Sam starts getting sad.  One day, a little girl and her mom came to the dump to drop off some trash.  The little girl saw Sam and loved him.  Will she adopt Sam?  We will have to read to find out what happens to Sam and the little girl!  Since we will be practicing how to increase our reading speed, we will be reading the book several times.  This way we can increase our reading fluency while also reading faster so that we can also understand or comprehend what we are reading!”

 

Next, the teacher will pass out a copy of “Sam the Garbage Hound” to each student.  “Now, I want you to practice reading this book on your own.  I will give you a few minutes to read the book to yourself.” If some students finish before others have those students reread the book.

 

After reading, discuss the story with the class in order to ensure good comprehension of the story.  Ask questions in order to check their understanding.  “What did Sam while he was living in the dump? Why was he lonely?  What event changed his life that made him happy?”  Allow students to reflect on what they read and answer questions as a group.

 

Next, the teacher will explain the fluency checklist to the students.  Explain to them how they are to fill out the cards.  “Boys and girls, I want you to find a partner next to you.  If your partner reads fast, check here.  Stops too many times, check here.”  Have each person read the story to his or her partner all the way through one time.  Then have the partners take turns reading to each other while the other is listening and filling out the fluency checklist.  Then they will switch roles and the other will read while the other fills out the fluency checklist.  As stated in materials, the checklist will include headings such as: read fast, read slow, stopped too many times, or no stopping during reading…etc.  The students will have to make a check under the headings that apply.

 

Assessment:

after the student pairs have each read through the first page three times, have the students, come one at a time, read a paragraph from the first pages. Ask them bring their record sheet so you can attach it to the back of my assessment sheet. You will time them on the paragraph read aloud, and use the formula given to record how many words they have read per minute.

 

words x 60/ seconds read

 

Use a list of comprehension questions to assess how their fluency is affecting their comprehension.  The teacher also needs a chart with Speedy Gonzales trying to reach the cheese in order to show the students their progress as they continue to read each time.  The teacher should show them a reasonable goal so that the students can work to reach their goal. 

 

Reference: 

Beason, Margaret.  Speedy Gonzales on the Race Track   http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/guides/beasongf.html

Moody, Elizabeth.  Serving up Fluency

http://ewm0006.wix.com/moody-lesson-desgins#!/mainPage

Simon, Charnan.  Sam the Garbage Hound.  New York:  Scholastic.  1996.

Reading Fluency Checklist: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/passages/baileygf.html

Reading Fluency Graph: http://www.mpsaz.org/pomeroy/programs/intervention/files/automatic_words_graph.pdf

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

 

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