Growing Independence and Fluency

Jumping into Fluency with Junie B. Jones

Rationale:

In order to be able to comprehend while reading, fluency is necessary. What is reading fluency? It is the ability to recognize words accurately, quickly, and automatically. Fluency in reading comes after the decoding phase. It is important for readers to have fluency because the quicker and more accurate they can read, the more their comprehension can improve as well. All of the important factors in reading-- decoding, cross checking, mental marking, rereading, etc-- are important when working to improve fluency and build confident strong readers. Students will enjoy reading more if they are able to do it fluently. Their sight word vocabulary will improve and they will get less frustrated as fluency improves. This lesson requires students to cross-check the reading of the decodable text. The goal of the activity is to improve their overall fluency and enhance their independence with timed reading.

Materials:

“Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business” by Barbara Parks
Mini white boards / markers (one marker and board for each student)
Stop watch/ timer (one for each pair of students)
Fluency checklist
Reading comprehension questions

Procedures:

Say: “Class, today we are going to do an activity that helps us become fluent readers. Being a fluent reader means that you can read smoothly, quickly, do not have to sound out each word that you read, and you understand what you’re reading. We can focus on understanding what we’re reading, as opposed to getting stuck on all the words.
Say (model): "First, you are going to listen to me read a passage two times. After I read twice, I'll take a vote on which time I sounded better. (Read choppily) “Thhhe neeexxtt daaaayy, weeee plllaayyyeeddd ouuutsid (come back after to change to came, known by cross-checking) outside..” (Read smoothly) Let me try this passage again. “The next day, we played outside.” (Ask for a show of hands) “Who liked listening to my first reading more? Who liked listening to the second one more? Why did the second time sound better to you? Right! The second time sounded a lot better to listen to because I didn't have to stop to figure out any of the words.”
Say: “Did you notice that I went back cross checked when I couldn't figure out a word? I finished reading the sentence, to see if I could figure out the difficult word.. The first time I read them, I pronounced how they looked like they should sound, but they didn't sound like real words I've ever heard of. When I finished the sentence, I could tell what the words were, like outside, instead of outside.
Say: “We are going to read some sentences that I have on the board. We are going to read them together. I see a couple of tough new words in the sentence. (Choral read): “Then we walked outside and saw trees, and plants. “I heard some of you having trouble reading the word ‘trees’, but I did hear you all read on to the end of the sentence to figure out the word! The word trees has /ee/ at the end of it and we know ‘ee’ together sometimes says a long /E/ sound. And then we can’t forget to add the s at the end of the word to make it plural (trees). Let's all read these two sentences together again now, thinking about these special spellings as we read them again”
Say: “Today we are going to read about a silly kindergartner named Junie B. Jones! In this story, her parents tell her they have a huge surprise for her! She thinks it might be a toy or something super special for her to play with. Let’s read the first two pages together and see what surprise we think Junie B is going to get!”
(Write the directions on the white board for students to see. As you write, explain to your students the task and remind them to look at the board if they have questions).

Say: “Now, we are going to partner up with our reading buddies and work on fluency and timing each other. We have worked with the stopwatches before, so let’s remember our behavior with them. They are a tool, not a toy.

After I finish giving instructions, I want buddy A to come up to the front to get 2 copies of the book, a reading response questions form, a fluency checklist, and a stopwatch. Then buddy B will find a place to read. They will be counting up the amount of words on the first 5 pages and will write that number at the top of your fluency charts. “You and your buddy will each read those 5 pages 3 times while the other buddy times your reading with a stopwatch. If you are the buddy that is not reading, you need to be playing close attention to the mistakes your reading buddy makes. For every mistake make a little tally mark” (Show tally method on the board) “After you have read each time, you will do a subtraction problem to calculate fluency. Take the total number of words from those pages and subtract the number of tallies for each reading. Your answer will read ‘___ words in ___ minutes.’ “When you finish timing each other, discuss your answers to the reading response questions. Each of you will write your answers in complete sentences back at your desk and turn those and your fluency charts into the turn in bin.”

Reading Comprehension Questions:

Why does Junie B know how to spell the word ‘baby’?
How does Junie B feel about having a little baby brother or sister?
Why was Junie B upset after learning the news that she will be having a baby sibling?

Fluency Checklist:

Title of the Book: ________________________________
Reader’s Name: ____________________
Timer’s Name: _________________________

After 2nd reading

After 3rd reading

Remembered words

Read faster

Read smoother

Read with expression

(words x 60) / seconds = WPM

0---10---20---30---40---50---60---70---80---90---100

Correct words per minute

References:

Adapted from Boyd, Logan. Reading Genie Website.

https://lolomakayla99.wixsite.com/mysite/fluency-with-junie-b

Park, Barbara.” Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business”, Peeky Spying. 1992. Random House.

https://www.amazon.com/Junie-Jones-Little-Monkey-Business/dp/0679838864

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