No Monkey Business!!

Growing Independence and Fluency


Jillian Wyatt


Rationale:         This lesson will focus on reading expressively. Expression makes any story more enjoyable and creates a relationship between its character’s lives and the reader. Becoming more involved in the plot also increases comprehension and voluntary reading. Sight word recognition is the crucial element for developing fluency. Once the obstacle of having to decode is removed, the student will derive meaning, comprehension, and simple joy from books.


·       Multiple copies of book: West, Cohn, “Not me!” Said the Monkey. 1987, Walker Books, Ltd. London

·        Drawings of animals (a lion, snake, rhino, elephant, and monkey) from art class

·        Questionnaires

Procedure:         -

1.     The teacher will review the importance of expression when a person is speaking. The teacher will give the students a few examples for reviewing expression. If I were to say, ‘We are going to have extra recess today.’ (said solemnly), does that sound right? How would I really say the sentence?”

2.      Teacher will introduce the new lesson by talking to the students about fluency “Today we are going to learn the difference between smooth reading, and reading that is not so smooth. You may not think about how you read very much, but today we are going to learn about the way we read and how it makes us better readers. I will reveal tactics you can use that will make you all, who are good readers, even better.’

3.      The teacher will model by reading the first page of “Not me!” Said the Monkey without expression, and smoothly with expression. The teacher will ask, “Which one sounds better?”

“Who keeps drooooopping banana (quickly) peeeeeeels around here?’ (quiety and subdued), growled the lion. ‘‘Nooooot meeeee (sheepishly)!, said the monkey.’”


“Who keeps dropping banana peels around here?’ growled the lion. ‘‘Not me!, said the monkey.’” (read with expression and correct speed and character voices)


4.   The teacher will have the students split into groups of five and have the students take out their animals. The students will be assigned a character and read each part the book that corresponds to their character and hold up a drawing of their animal. The teacher will remind     them to read smoothly and with expression. While the students read, the teacher will visit each group to monitor their progress.

5. The teacher will give the students evaluations for each other in the groups and the       students will fill in the evaluations.

                        a) Recognized Punctuation          yes           no           sometimes

                        b) change in voice pitch yes    no           yes, but incorrectly

                        c) changed tempo in reading            yes          no

                        d) attempted to distinguish between characters    yes            no

e) other comments:

6.     The teacher will ask the students to vote on the best reader in their group (or the teacher will choose the reader) and have one student from each group volunteer to read a part the story to the whole class. The volunteers will all take part in reading the story aloud.  The teacher will comment on how well they show expression. 

<>Activity idea adapted from: Santrock, John. Educational Psychology. McGraw-lull, 2001. pg. 398. Adams, M.J. Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning AboutPrint. MIT Press: Cambridge, 1990. 88~94.

Reading Genie Website

Brandy Thomas- Lights, Camera, Action

Tara Greene-As Smooth As Silk

 Adapted by: Jillian Wyatt

Click here to return to Explorations.