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Growing Independence and Fluency (GF) Design

 

Finding Fluency with Detective Duck

 

By: Hana Burdick 

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Rationale: 

Reading fluency is a skill that is essential to reading comprehension. Students must practice expression, pace, and comprehension. In order to achieve reading fluency, this lesson will teach a variety of strategies. These strategies will include decoding, crosschecking, and rereading. 

 

Materials: 

  • Pencils

  • Timer for each pair 

  • Class set of Deductive Detective 

  • Sample sentence on white board for modeling 

  • Peer Progress (one for each student) 

  • Fluency check sheets (one for each student)

 

Procedure: 

  1. Say: Today we are going to be practicing how we can read smoothly and quickly at the same time. This skill is called reading fluency and it will help you to become a great reader! Who doesn’t want that? Reading fluency is so important so that we can understand what we are reading, which will make reading more fun! 

  2. Say: Now I am going to help you learn how to read fluently. Let’s take a look now at the sentence that is written on the board: The duck will track down the cake. Listen up and let me know if I sound like a fluent reader to you when I read this sentence. “Th- th - e  d-d-d-/u/-/u/-/ck/-/ck/, w-w-, /i/-/i/- l-l, t-t-r-r-/a/-/a/- ck -ck ck, d-d-/o/-/o/-n-n-n, th-th-th- e-e, c-c-/A/-/k/. The duck will track don the cake? That doesn’t make any sense! Oh, down! The duck will track down the cake. Did you notice that when I got stuck on the word in the middle of the sentence, I reread the sentence to figure out the word I was missing? This strategy that I used is called crosschecking, and it is very important in learning to become fluent readers. Now, how did that sound to you? It doesn’t sound like I was reading very fluently, does it? Touch your head if you think I read that sentence fluently (wait for response). Right! I was NOT reading that sentence like a fluent reader! Here’s how a fluent reader would read that sentence: The duck will track down the cake. That time that was a lot easier to understand. Now turn to your partner and practice reading the sentence on the board like a fluent reader: The fat rat is on a mat. 

  3. “Now we are going to practice being fluent readers by reading a book titled the Deductive Detective. Someone has stolen a cake from the office. It is up to Detective Duck to be able to solve the mystery. It was no the mouse, the cake was much too big for her to eat. That leaves 11 suspects. Who will Duck question next? What clues will he find? Let’s keep reading to find out. 

  4. Students should read the book silently to themselves. They will then read their book to a partner without helps. 

  5. Pass out the recording sheets and stopwatches to each pair of partners. “now we are going to play a game to test our fluency. The first reader is going to tart the game and Reader 2 will take control of the timer. Reader 2 is going to time how long it takes Reader 1 to read the first two pages of the Deductive Detective, and record the time. Then you will switch places and do the same thing. Each reader will play three times. As you listen to you partner, make notes of how their reading changes. Are they able to read more words, more quickly, or more smoothly? Mark the changes you notice. Note changes on the Fluency checksheet. 

  6. Assessment: When the students finish with their partner work, have them come one at a time to read the first two pages. Assess speed readings by taking times with a stopwatch and watching improvement on the chart. Take notes on miscues. Use the formula to compute words per minute. Assess comprehension with questions listed below. 

 

Reading Comprehension Worksheet: 

  1. How many suspects did Detective Duck find in the beginning? 

  2. Why did Duck not suspect mouse was the thief? 

  3. Who stole the cake? 

 

References: 

Read- aloud of book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gux6ITsbFjQ

 

Rock, Brian, and Sherry Rogers. The Deductive Detective. Arbordale Publishing, 2013. 

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Caitlin Brown: First, Fluency

https://caitlinbb.weebly.com/growing-independence-and-fluency-design.html

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