Speed, Speed, Speed into Reading


Fluency Design

Leah Rockwell



Students need to be able to read with fluency.  Fluency means the ability to read words automatically and accurately.  Students also need to learn to read with expression. In this lesson, we will focus on getting the student’s to read smoother, faster and with more expression. Students will gain fluency through one-minute readings and timed readings.



1.  Copies of Jane and Babe for each student

2.  Stopwatch for each pair of students

3.  Chart with sentence (I like to ride my bike)

4.  Fluency checklist (1 per student)

            1. Pitch rose and fell.              YES / NO
            2. Paces sped up and slowed.  YES / NO
            3. Volume rose and fell.          YES / NO
            4. Phrasing made sense.           YES / NO
            5. Number of missed words      _______
            6. Number of words read in 1 minute_______

1.  Introduce the lesson to the students by explaining how important it is to read fast and fluently.  Explain to students what the word fluency means. Explain that the work fluency means to read quickly, accurately, and with expression. “Today we are going to be working on improving your reading skills to make you more fluent readers.  Fast reading is going to be our goal today.  Reading fast and smoothly makes us understand what we are reading better. Once you become a fluent reader, the text you read will make more sense to you because you do not have to keep stopping while you read. Every time you read the text, you become more familiar with it, so you also read much faster.  Today we will be practicing fluency by reading a text more than once and seeing how much we can improve during the readings.”

2.  “I am going to read a sentence from the chart in two different ways.  I am going to read this sentence without fluency.”  Read the first sentence in a word-by-word slow reading.  II llike tto rridde my bbike.  “Now I am going to read it differently.”  Repeat passage, but model fast, fluent reading. “I like to ride my bike.”  “Were you able to tell the difference between reading with fluency and reading without fluency? Listen once more as I read the sentence again.  I like to ride my bike. Did you notice how I read it fast this time because I have read it a few times and with that practice, I was able to read it fluently.”

3.  Have children practice reading the sentence: I like to ride my bike. Have them repeat it until they are able to read it fluently and then move on to reading through the book.

4.  Model fluent and timed reading.  “I am going to show you how to read fluently.  Today, I am going to read Jane and Babe.  Jane is a zookeeper at the zoo where Babe, a lion, lives. They are very good friends. One day, Jane tries to wake Babe so they can play, but Babe only wants to sleep! You will have to read the book to find out if Jane is able to wake Babe.”  After reading the Jane and Babe  talk about fluent reading.  “Did everyone notice how I read the book smoothly and my voice went higher and lower, faster and softer, and louder and softer.” 

5.  Have students get into partners.  I am going to split you into pairs.  You are going to take turns.  We are going to be reading Jane and Babe.  I want one student to read while the other student times that student’s reading. Afterwards, you will switch and the other person will time while you read. When it is your turn to read, I want you to see how many words you can read in one-minute at a smooth, but quick, pace. You will hear the stopwatch go off in one minute.  At the end of one-minute, place a sticky note where you stopped and go back and count the words that you read.  The reader will read the book three times and the listener is going to fill out the checklist after the second and third time the reader reads the book.  If you miss a word use cover-ups and then go back and reread.  If you miss more than one word on a page you might want to choose a new book to read.  Remind the students they are reading with fluency.

6.  To assess, I will call each student to my desk one by one and have them bring their fluency checklist that they completed with their partner. I will review it with each student, highlighting their areas of improvement.  Then, I will have each child read Jane and Babe once more and monitor fluency.

Rockwell, Lauren. Zoom Zoom Zoom. 

Copper, Erin. On Your Mark…Get Set…Read!

Dr. Bruce Murray, The Reading Genie. http://auburn.edu/~murraba/

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