As I find myself in the middle of my first "Review of Literature" for grad school I'm immersed in wonderful resources about how to foster fluent readers in your classroom. One name that has become very well known to me is Dr. Timothy Rasinski. For lack of better words...he's a fluency God! Click here to hop on over to his website which is jam PACKED with fluency presentations and resources. By clicking on "Presentation Material" you'll find many of his presentations in an easy-to-navigate powerpoint format. Here, he also provides many links to resources you can easily utilize in your classroom.
What is your "tried and true" fluency strategy?
Natalie, what a plethora of ideas and suggestions for teaching fluency! I was just talking to a friend today whose child was showing competency in phonics, word attack, etc. but was not reading fluently and had to get extra support. She said he went out every day to the computer lab for a 20 minute reading intervention program. Any ideas what it is? I really loved the “paired reading” ideas for best practices on how parents can support their child’s reading at home. To me it is common sense, but for most parents they don’t know best ways to read with their child. Often times, I see parents on one end where they make their child read books much too difficult for them and sound out everything or they don’t give their child even a second to think of the what the word might be and apply their reading strategies. What a great tool that I plan to share with my families. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWow! What a great resource to share! I even found some vocabulary resources that I might be able to use for my ROL. Fluency is such an important part of reading success. I love the reader's theater and poems that are on Dr. Timothy Rasinski's website. I really enjoy doing reader's theater with my class. I use leveled reader's theater and enjoy listening to my students read at their level with expression. Thank you for sharing this wonderful resource. I am bookmarking it so I can come back to it in the future.
ReplyDeleteRebecca, We have a program similar to the one you described above. The computer program we use is called Read Naturally.
Rebecca and Lori,
Delete"Read Naturally" is a program that our Title 1 teachers have been using for the past few years with our "bubble kids." It's actually where I got the concept of "cold, warm, and hot read." I'm not personally using the program itself but the same structure. Instead, I use a book found on the ReadingA-Z website that collates with that groups word pattern for the week (ie. "ai" two vowels walking...pattern). I present the students with their words and new book on Mondays. Before we do anything, the students record themselves reading a page from the book ("cold read..." no practice). We then do various activites between Monday and Wednesday when they do their warm read and more practice between then and "fluency Friday" when they do their final, hot read. They LOVE being able to hear the difference between Monday and Friday and then taking their books home to show off :) I'd love to incorporate some graphing in here somehow as a way to show them their improvement as well.
I don't have any fluency tricks for you since I teach middle school math, but it was very interesting to your blog and reading about phonics and fluency. I remember studying about phonics and fluency in a college course and being interested in it, not to teach but to help my future children learn. I really like how specific Rasinski gets when explaining how to pair read with children and how the adult should wait 5 seconds before speaking a word for the child if they don't know it. Thanks for the great resource!
ReplyDeleteWOW! I wish I would have known about this sooner! What I love most is that he has lessons and materials ready to go! I clicked on the poems resource and I will definitely be using some of these since we are doing poetry right now. Great find!
ReplyDeleteHave you tried having students record themselves reading and then playing it back? I also have them give a score to how they sounded.
ReplyDeleteNice meeting your team from St. Cloud. Hope you drive back wasn't too bad.
I use Newscaster which is a Great Leaps fluency strategy. To do Newscaster you first need to find a passage at their reading level. Then, I read the passage 3 times aloud while my students follow along. Each time I read a little faster and with more expression. On my last read aloud I have my students whisper read. Then, we read it all together the 4th time and wow do they blow me away with their expression! Then I have them partner read the passage for extra practice.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great link to information!
Natalie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing such a valuable resource! There are so many great ideas here that I can use in my classroom as well as for my ROL. I have been recording my kiddos and then playing it back for them to hear – there are some fun poems on here that would be great to use with that! Thanks again☺