Search results: fluency

Tracking My Progress: Fluency

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of student-engaged assessment and progress tracking in motivating students and supporting their achievement.  In this post I’ll share a few ideas for how to help students self-assess and track their progress towards the following target:

Teachers can think of reading fluency as the bridge between the two major components of reading: decoding and comprehension (Honig, Diamond, Gutlohn 2008). Differences in reading fluency can distinguish good readers from struggling readers.

To support students in self-assessing their reading fluency, visually friendly rubrics with clear criteria for success can be very helpful.

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After introducing the learning target to students, show them the rubric.  Ensure that students understand each of the four areas addressed (Phrasing, Rate, Punctuation, and Expression) and how to assess themselves within each area (Scoring a 1,2,3, or 4).  It can be overwhelming for students when the whole rubric is plopped in front of them and explained. Therefore I would suggest explicitly addressing only one area at a time.  Furthermore, it may not even be necessary to use the whole rubric with students if their next step in fluency is tied specifically to rate.  Use your professional judgement to make smart decisions for your kids!

In order for students to be able to self-assess their fluency using this rubric, they need to “hear” themselves as readers.  Rather than asking students to read-aloud, listen to themselves, and then self-assess, I think it’s much more effective to teach students to record their thinking, play it back, and then self-assess.  There is a free iPad app that works great for this…QuickVoice.

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QuickVoice is super user friendly and easy for students to use on their own.  Students can record and self-assess themselves several times using the rubric.  They definitely have fun with this!  To ensure that students are successful provide a model of what this self-assessment process looks like.  Additionally, provide students with short and engaging passages that they can read at an independent level.

For slow but accurate readers who need intense practice to increase their automaticity in reading connected text, you can try timed repeated oral reading.  With this strategy students can track their progress using a graph.

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Begin be setting a goal with students.  For example, if a student begins by reading early-first-grade text, his final goal might be to read mid-second-grade text at 90 WPM (words per minute).  Mark students beginning WPM score on their graph.  From this point draw an “aim line” to meet the point marking the students end of 9 week goal.  This line shows how much daily or weekly progress a students needs to make to meet their final goal.

Introduce one new, short, engaging text to students at the beginning of each week that they can read at their independent level.  Be sure to first read the text with the student and have a conversation about it.  Share with students that rereading the passage throughout the week will not only support their fluency, but will also help them to better understand the text!

Do a one minute timed reading with the student each day of the week until they meet their end of week goal (indicated by the aim line). Mark the students WPM score for the week in the corresponding box for the day.  Students can also mark their score with a colored pen on their aim line.

It’s great fun to see students enthusiasm and motivation for reaching their goal.

I hope these tools and ideas will help you better support students struggling with fluency.

Common Core Lesson: Asking Questions

Earlier this week I modeled a reader’s workshop lesson in a Kindergarten classroom tied to the Common Core State Standard RL.K.1:

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This is a lesson that my coaching colleague, Katie, kindly shared with me as an idea for how to teach this standard in a reader’s workshop. Although the lesson was planned for Kindergarteners, it could easily be adapted for other grade levels by increasing the complexity of the text.

Rather than teaching, asking and answering questions in the same lesson, I planned to first teach students how readers ask questions about books.  The text I selected for this lesson was Grandfather Twilight.

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Hook/Introduction

The hook or introduction during a reader’s workshop serves several instructional purposes.  It supports engagement, motivation, and a “need to know” for learning.  This is also the time when you can connect to prior learning and introduce the learning target for the lesson.

In the hook for this lesson, I shared with students how excited I was to share one of my favorite books with them.  I then introduced the learning target and the words we would use to help us ask questions.

Mini-Lesson/Think-Aloud

During the mini-lesson I modeled the thinking I wanted students to do as readers.  For this lesson, I read the first few pages aloud and paused twice to model asking questions.

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After modeling, I asked students what they saw me do as readers.  I wanted them to notice how I read the words carefully, looked closely at the pictures, and used our posted question words to help me ask questions.

Guided Practice

Guided practice is the component of reader’s workshop in which you create a safe place for students to practice the task before sending them off to work independently.  It is also an opportunity to assess student readiness for independent application and address misconceptions.

To begin guided practice, I shared with students that it was now their turn to practice asking questions.  I read the next few pages on the visualizer and asked students to follow along with their eyes.  Allowing students to better see the text helps support fluency.

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Independent Practice

To support students with independently applying the target, I made them bookmarks.

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As students were reading, the classroom teacher and I conferred with students to see how they were applying the target to their own reading-level appropriate books.  I was able to make some observations during this time that I followed up on during the debrief.

Share/Debrief

After students have had time to work on applying the learning target independently, it’s important to honor their efforts with a brief share.  For this lesson, you might ask students to share one question they had about a book they read with a neighbor.  After students have had a chance to share, make a connection between the specific learning target for the lesson and the larger context.  You might ask students, “Why do you think it’s important we practice asking questions as readers?”

Continue to work on this standard using a variety of literature and make appropriate adjustments based on the needs of your kids.

A special thanks to Katie Shenk for providing the foundation for this lesson.

Thanks for reading!

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8 Strategies for Scaffolding Instruction

With the advent of the common-core standards, our thinking about how to support second language learners has become super important. While opting for services like Translation Services London is an excellent way to get one’s work translated, one also has to know more than one language fluently. Our current focus for supportive instruction may be on grammar and vocabulary or we may be modifying the texts English Language Learners (ELLs) work with during a lesson so they’re at a more “appropriate level.”  Under the standards developed through the Common Core State Standards Initiative, however, instruction for ELLs will have to move beyond modifying lesson materials and teaching fundamental components of language.  Educators now have to ensure that we are teaching ALL kids, no matter their language background or where they are academically, how to grapple with complex, grade level information and texts.

So how do we do this?  Well, a piece of it is thinking more carefully about what supports or scaffolds we can add to our instruction.

Through my experience working as a classroom teacher in an urban school with a large number of second language learners, along with two years experience as our school’s English Language Acquisition Teacher Leader, I have identified eight “scaffolding strategies” that I believe should always be considered when planning instruction for second language learners:

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Click Here for the 8 Scaffolding Strategies Printable

When I set out to plan a lesson, I always consider how to use any or all of these eight scaffolding strategies to support comprehension and language development.

1. Visuals and Realia

Whenever I can I include realia, or real life, tangible objects in my lessons.  I have found that realia is super supportive for vocabulary development and engagement.  For example, I recently selected a text about coral reefs for a close read lesson.  I wasn’t sure students would know what “coral” was, so I brought in an actual piece of coral to pass around.  If you don’t have realia available for a lesson, use visuals or images!  You can frequently find me on Google images, looking for that just right visual to support my lesson.

2. Modeling/Gestures

If you were to observe me teaching a lesson, you would likely see me making all kinds of funny looking gestures.  Funny looking maybe, but supportive definitely!  When all you do is talk/lecture to students who don’t speak English as their first language, most of what you say will probably fly right over their head.  Modeling and gestures help bring your words to life.  Couple this with the use of supportive visuals and say hello to comprehension!

3. Connect to Background Knowledge

When planning for the “hook” or introduction in a lesson, I consider what background knowledge students might have that I can connect to.  For example, I might show them a picture of something related to our lesson and ask them a question about it.  Connecting previous knowledge/learning to new learning is always a great support for ELLs.

4. Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers may not be an appropriate scaffold for every lesson, but they are for many!  You can create your own or use one of the many free ones to be found on the www.  Graphic organizers can be used as a tool to help students organize their thinking when responding to a text.  They key is not to make them too complicated or they may end up being exactly the opposite of a useful thinking support.

5. Sentence Structures/Starters

Sentence structures can be a great support for English Language Learners.  I often use them during the close of a lesson in the debrief or share.  You can also slightly differentiate graphic organizers or recording sheets you provide students by adding sentence structures.

6. Read Aloud

Reading a grade level, complex text aloud to students at the start of the lesson can serve three important purposes:  support engagement, support fluency, and give ELLs some access to the text they’ll be working with.  When reading a text aloud to students, it’s important that it is displayed in a way that all students can easily see it.

7. Intentional Small Group/Partner Work

To support students during independent work time, you can consider small group or partner work.  I say “intentional” small group/partner work because it’s important to consider how and why you’re pairing certain students.  Pairing two students just because one is a “high” reader and the other is a less sophisticated reader can quickly backfire if you haven’t considered how their personalities/work styles might pair up.  Additionally, if you have chosen to provide a small group of students with additional support, just be aware of how much support you’re providing…hopefully not too much!  We don’t want to take away all the challenges that a text/lesson presents.

8. Use of First Language

If a student’s first language is available to you, then by all means make use of it as a scaffold.  I’m not implying that the whole lesson should be translated.  However if you can translate important vocabulary words, make connections between concepts presented, or translate specific instructions then go for it!

As a final note, even if you do not work with ELLs, try to keep in mind that good instruction for second language learners is great instruction for all kids!

Thanks for reading, and download your Scaffolding Strategies Printable for free.

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