[AngelCat21]

What do you do to increase students fluency? How often do you work on this? My students are pretty decent with their fluency, but I do have some that could improve. Thanks.

[Suzydiana]

I am sure some others have better ideas. But, today I discussed reading with fluency. I read an example using "peck reading." Then I explained about making characters sound as if they are talking when reading dialogue. I talked about pausing at periods. I then read a chapter of a book we are reading to help model. I think one of the best things you can do is model by reading aloud a lot to them.

[JMonk]

At my school, we really stress fluency. I got a great idea from another third grade teacher. We keep binders for each student. Each week, we discuss one of the following...

1 week - Readers theater
2 week - poem
3 week - timed passage

For reader's theater we get a copy of a short play. I divide the class into parts, and they practice their parts every day and perform on Friday's in front of the class. It is up to the groups to determine who gets what part.

Poems- Make a copy of a short poem. Talk about reading the poem with fluency (expressions, accuracy with the words, phrasing). Use highlighters to highlight important factors like end marks and phrasing. The kids study this poem daily and recite the poem in front of the class. I usually model the way I expect the poem to sound on Mondays.

Timed reading - We "dibble" in our system which is a timed reading passage. We make copies of a short story that is timed. On Monday's the kids read it to me "cold turkey", They color in a bar graph how many words they read. During the week, the practice this... On Friday, I re-time them and then they color in how many "more" words they read... I hope you can get a visual here....

This is all kept in their "fluency folder'. IT mights take a little time to get things going, but after going through the first examples of each, it runs smooth as silk. They really get into character, they love it... They love to see their improvements each week.

Hope this helps.... I usually spend about 10 minutes each day on this.. Not much time, once they get the underlying concept.

[javamomma]

I do fluency every day!
We spend 10-15 minutes.

I went to a workshop by Dr. Timothy Rasinski, the fluency king and learned lots of quick practical things to do.


Each week I do these things:
1. Poem or reader's theater
2. Fluency Phrases (found in Rasinski's book The Fluent Reader
(I also make flash cards of these phrases and we practice anytime we have a quick minute or two to kill in line etc.)
3. Word Ladders (also Rasinski) This is a great 15 minutes to cover all sorts of phonics lessons!
4. Daily 1 minute self check on oral reading passage.
(done as a whole group with the timer set for a minute. then the students record their score.)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

Here's another fun activity which will stress fluency. Small groups can work on putting on a radio show using familar stories or fairy tales. Have them pick their character, write their lines, practice reading expressively and then the group records their story. They love listening to themselves.

Have you read Timothy Rasinski's book, The Fluent Reader? He gives some excellent ideas, after I read it I started working on fluency with poetry. We have a poem per week, we practice reading it chorally, partners, etc... then they go home to be read to as many friends and family who will listen and sign the back of their poem. I give little rewards to those who participate and the results are seen in the scores of the fluency assessments. If you need links for lots of kid friendly poems just email me.

[NJ Teacher]

I use a reproducible book from Scholastic. It contains short passages intended to be assigned as homework. The passages match skills (such as identifying the theme of a story) that go with our reading series. Students read the passage to their parents and answer some short questions based on the passage. Parent and student sign off that they did the assignment together. I like the fact that the children work with their parents to get this done, and the children get additional practice in fluency besides what we do in class.

[ellen]

I would love the poems. We've been working on fluency and I need some good poems. Thanks. Ellen

[Linda B]

Do you have a fluency form that you fill in? If so could you send me a copy?

Linda B

[teachfla]

I make fluency part of everyday instruction. We read a Morning Message as a class every day where I focus on rhythm and how we change voice patterns for different punctuation. We listen to our reading story on tape once a week, and I require my kids to follow along using their index finger. I think they notice more that way. When we read in their science or scoial studies books, we read chorally. If students don't read with the same cadence, we read it again. I require them to read all instructions for worksheets out loud together, too. If I read them anything, my rule is "I'll read to you. If you don't follow along (meaning with a finger) then you'll read to me." We recently sat down as a team to go over Dibels results and my kids had really high scores compared to the other classes. I guess it's working!

I choose a page from our reading story of the week and photo copy it for each student. On the first day I read it out loud to them while they follow along. Then they get with their fluency partner and they take turns reading it for 60 seconds. Their partner marks any words they missed and then counts the total number of words they read correctly. They graph how many words they read correctly in one minute. We repeat this exercise each day. Hopefully they are practicing and the graph should show how many words per minute they have progressed.

I would be interested in the links for kid friendly poems.
Thank you!

We do a "Coffee House" once a month. The students sit on bean bags and drink hot chocolate. Everyone has to read a story or poem that they have practiced. They are graded on flow, voice, eye contact, and word recognition. They really love this time and they learn to search for the stories and poems that not only they love but that they think the class will love as well. Since it is usually always the last Friday of the month, it gives the students plenty of time to practice. We also practice each week on poetry or reading from our writers notebooks. Small reading group is also used to focus on fluency. they read cold to me, read once with a partner, and finally to their parents.

I would love to receive the poems. Thank you!

[anngirl]

We do "6 minute fluency" everyday. It really only takes 6 minutes . It comes from a book that's really expensive, but I used this powerpoint summary to get me started: http://www.scred.k12.mn.us/files/6%2...%204%20web.pdf

[Fish Lady]

I tried to click on the 6 Minute Fluency site for the powerpoint presentation and it gave me an error. Could you please repost the site again? THANKS!

[Stuffer]

Could you please e-mail me the poems? Thanks.

Hello Kiki,

I would love to get your kid friendly poem links. I am always looking for great sources.

Thanks so much! I don't know how to email you though.

Kim