Growing Independency:

Best Friends: Fluency, Frog and Toad

Rationale:

In order to reach the point of understanding the meaning of texts and enjoying reading, students must first gain the skill of fluency. Fluency in reading means that most of the words that the reader encounters are sight words, which are effortlessly and automatically recognized. When words become sight words, the student does not have to work as hard and there is more mental capacity freed up for reading comprehension and creating smoothness in reading aloud. This lesson’s purpose is to model and teach reading fluency by having students reread a passage while being timed by a fellow student to check for expression, pace, and fluidity.

NOTE:

Because the word count ranges from 19 to about 89 on each page in “Days with Frog and Toad: The Hat”, there are several words and this may likely be too much reading for an early/beginner-level fluency reader at first. Therefore, this lesson would probably best be performed in smaller, more manageable chunks, like the first 4 pages read through 3 times, and then the next time read the last 4. As they readers progress in skills and reading ability, have them read the whole book through several times.

Materials:

Timers or Stopwatches
Pencils and Paper
Fluency Checklist copies
Reading Record Time Sheet
Whiteboard and Marker for marking and noting irregular words
Sentence written on board: “Frog gave Toad a hat to wear.”
“Days with Frog and Toad: The Hat” (p. 38) by Arnold Lobel

https://www.amazon.com/Days-Frog-Toad-Read-Stories-ebook/dp/B007Y35GCS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=days+with+frog+and+toad&qid=1586828117&sr=8-1

Procedures:

1. Say: “Today we are going to learn how to become fluent readers! Being a fluent reader means that we can read texts quickly, smoothly, and with expression because we recognize sight words and don’t have to spend as much time thinking about how to pronounce each letter! This means that we can enjoy stories and reading much more than before!

2. Say “How do we make sight words? Well, the more times we see the word, we recognize it and learn how to pronounce it and make a mental note of what it looks and sounds like. When we keep reading the word or passage over and over again, it becomes easier each time. We have lots of different strategies that can help us with this fluency. One of them is called crosschecking. Watch me as I read this sentence on the board: [Frog gave Toad a hat to wear.] ‘Frog gave Toad a hop to wear.’ Hop? Frog gave Toad a hop? That doesn’t make sense! Oh, Frog gave Toad a HAT to wear! That’s better!” I used crosschecking to recheck my sentence and figure out the right word, which helps me become a more fluent reader!

3. Say “Another way we can help ourselves with tricky words is using these little Coverup Critters. [ Write the word SAIL on the board.] When you come across a word you don’t know, start with the vowels that you see. We see ai, which says /A/. Then start at the beginning of the word and figure out the sounds and uncover each letter one at a time. S says /s/, then our /A/ for -ai that we found, then L says /l/. Put those sounds together /s/ /A/ /l/, oh, sail!

4. [Give a book talk for The Hat] It’s Toad’s birthday! His friend Frog gave him a beautiful new hat, which Toad loves! Uh oh, the only thing is that the hat is too big and falls down over Toad’s eyes. He trips over rocks, bumps into trees, and even falls into a hole because he can’t see. Toad is sad because Frog got the hat specially for him, but he can’t wear it! What do you think is going to happen to Toad next? Do you think there is anything Frog can do to help his poor friend?

5. [Explain to the class that you are going to read the book out loud and after they will pair up and do repeated readings.] Read The Hat all the way through, but stop after a few pages each time, asking open ended questions, “what do you think Frog will do? What will happen next?” etc. Write irregular words from the book on the board that are not pronounced the way they look, like DELIGHTED, THOUGHTS, PLEASANT, LARGER, BEAUTIFUL, and model how to pronounce them so the students can remember it throughout their readings.

6. Split the class up into groups of two and give them each a copy of The Hat, pencils, a timer, a Fluency Checklist, and a Reading Record Time Sheet. (Note: This Frog and Toad book is slightly long for both students to read 3 times through each, so for time management purposes have them read just the first 4 pages. You can repeat lesson again with last part and/or whole book) Say: “With your partner, decide who wants to read first and who wants to time the read aloud with the stopwatch. Whoever is timing will tell the reader when to start and will keep the timer going until the reader finishes and will write their time down on the Reading Record Time sheet. Reader, remember that this is not a race! The whole point of this repeated reading exercise is to naturally gain more speed, fluidity, and expression as we keep practicing and recognizing words becomes easier. Once the time is marked on the sheet, read through the passage two more times and then the Timer will mark the Reader’s progress on the Fluency Checklist. Then switch roles!”

7. Make sure that the students only comment on positive aspects of observing their partner and what they did well each read-through.

8. Walk around and monitor the pairs and offer help if needed but leave room for them to learn and grow on their own!

Assessment:

Students will assess each other with the reading time sheet and the fluency checklist. Calculate how many words are on the first 4 pages and use their time to get their words per minute rate. WPM= total words* 60/recorded time in seconds. After reading the book or passage, have the students answer reading comprehension questions, like “Why did Frog give Toad a hat? [It was his birthday.] Why did Toad trip over trees and holes? [Because the hat was too big and covered his eyes]. What did Frog tell Toad to do when he went to bed? [Think of tall things while he slept so he might grow taller overnight.