Fluency Lesson

A) Fluency is very important to comprehension. When a student can read words automatically and accurately, there is less time spent on word recognition and decoding. This allows for more time focused on comprehension. Also, by reading with expression this implies a much deeper level of processing text.
Some key approaches to assessing students' fluency:
 Identifying letters, sounds and words automatically
 Reading quick and accurate
 Use of intonation and tempo
 Emphasizing meaningful contrasts
 Ending on a higher pitch
 Making use of the comma
 Put processes and strategies on “auto-pilot”
 Accuracy in decoding and word recognition
 Use of prosodic features (stress, pitch, text phrasing…)

B) The book I am reading is The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis. I would target my lesson at a 5th or 6th grade level. The passage I would focus on is on pages 21-26 in the story. The family is getting ready for dinner and there is quite a bit of speaking from many different characters. I would assign each student a role of a character: Parvana, Maryam, Mother, Nooria, Father and Narrator. The students will then read through the passage aloud in front of their classmates. I would model how I want the students to change speech patterns when speaking from a different character and to put emphasis on specific words and phrases while reading. The idea would be for the students to read quick and accurate, while emphasizing the contrasts between each characters speech tone and pattern. In the end I would hope to tie in their reading fluency to comprehension, in hopes that by reading the passage in first person, the students can identify with each character, personalize the thoughts and feelings of each and be able to discuss their characters thoughts and feelings from this passage as a class. This is a guided reading lesson where students are practicing fluency while also building on their comprehension of the text.