literacy
Skill-based Fluency Instruction
In the past, fluency was defined as the ability to read smoothly and effortlessly, at a quick, automatic rate (Harris & Hodges, 1995; Logan, 1997). A student’s reading rate and accuracy are very important because less time spent on decoding leaves more time for the brain to focus on comprehension. However, after recent research, fluency has come to encompass much more. It now includes prosodic elements such as expression, volume, phrasing, pacing, and smoothness. When students read with prosody, they are able to capture the meaning of the story or script. Current research supports phrasing, pacing, and smoothness as elements that help develop fluency in students. (Clark, Morrison, & Wilcox, 2009)
Students who do not read fluently segment the text and read it word by word. However, students who read smoothly with appropriate expression, pacing, and phrasing make reading sound like natural language (Zutell & Rasinski, 1991). Fluent reading develops when students are able to make their reading sound like individuals speaking as they do in daily life.
Although fluency is a large part of reading curricula, it is often neglected in reading instruction (Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1993; Zutell & Rasinski, 1991). Many teachers refer to traditional methods of measuring fluency. This is usually comprised of giving students an unfamiliar passage and timing their reading while keeping track of errors. Research has shown that varying the fluency practice is beneficial in the classroom in order to motivate those students who are not motivated by competition (Tyler & Chard, 2000; Worthy & Prater, 2002). Repeated readings of familiar texts are necessary in order for fluency, and therefore prosody, to increase.
Use sound chips when saying each sound. |
Add the silent E with a dry erase marker and use the sound chips to read the word again, changing the vowel sound. |
Students read each sentence and underline and silent E words that they read. I then have them check with their partner to see if any have been missed. Then, they add any underlines that they missed. |
I have the kids whisper read to themselves as I listen in to them one at a time. Then, we read together. Finally, they read to a buddy. |
This page focused on “ack”. The kids were SO excited that the word backpack had TWO “ack” sounds in it! |
After completing all of the steps and reading the passage together as a group a few times, students buddy read. They listen for changes in their partner’s voice each time there is punctuation. |
Focusing on a skill while practicing fluency has been SUCH a blessing for my second graders. They are not at grade level and cannot handle second grade fluency passages. Using these passages with the same phonics skill repeated over and over again helps the students to read a full paragraph without stopping to “sound out” any words. They know the phonics skill and are able to apply it throughout the passage. After one day, I had these kiddos giggling and reading with expression in their voices. Why? Because the text was predictable and they had confidence in their skill.
Literacy Centers & Student Achievement
Why should you teach through literacy centers?
Literacy centers allow us to gradually release students throughout the year. We teach them directly in small group when they are just beginning, and then as they become more knowledgable, we allow them to work on their own. This gives students a turn to practice and reinforce the strategies that we teach them.
When students are at centers, it is easy to differentiate their work. Differentiation is also not as obvious to other students when it is done in centers. I can have completely different activities going on, but students do not realize it because they are around the room working in groups. Integrating content is SO simple when you teach in a classroom that is full of centers. Students can connect material throughout the day in reading, math, social studies, and science.
And of course, you can plan centers to align directly with your standards.
Finally, literacy centers should include the 7 main components of reading: comprehension, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, writing, speaking & listening, and vocabulary. Jen Jones, from Hello Literacy, calls these the Big 7 Rocks of Literacy.
If you do not have centers up and running in your classroom, the first thing you will need to do is figure out a layout for your furniture. Furniture should be placed in a way that will promote movement. In primary classrooms, it is convenient to have activities rotating around the perimeter of the room. In the picture above, you will see my first grade classroom last year. I placed my small group table in the back corner (with the ball chairs). My centers were then placed around the perimeter of the room so that I could “keep an eye on” everyone. Students who were reading would sit on the carpet in the center of the room. I liked this set up because the groups of students were separated just enough so that each group was able to stay on their assigned task.
Centers do not have to be at tables that are separate from desks. Frequently, I would set a center bin at a group of desks. Students would sit at that group of desks to complete the center. We also use the floor a lot. Students LOVE reading and completing sorting activities on the floor!
Is your school in love with data?
Mine is! There are state assessments, county assessments, school-wide assessments, grade level assessments, in class assessments, and observations. Whew! It can make a teacher crazy. However, we can use the important data to help us create center groupings.
In my classroom, I use summative assessments to determine reading groups at the beginning of the year. At this point, I do not know much about my students or their strengths and weaknesses. As reading groups are used throughout the first few weeks/months, I use the subsequent summative assessments to regroup students.
Formative assessment is perfect for taking note of how students are reading. While in small group, I use black return address labels to write little notes or observations that I see. At the end of the week, I simply peel each label off and place it on the inside flap of the specific student’s folder. These notes are wonderful during conference time. I am just beginning to use the app Confer to do this same thing. See my previous post about this data tracking app here. Formative assessment helps teachers to differentiate center work. Don’t wait for a formal test to change a student’s assignment! If you see something that they need, go for it!
Mini-lessons are the first part of my day.
I teach a short 10-15 minute mini-lesson to introduce our topic of the week or review something that we need to practice. I always love using literature, a short movie clip, or a song to grab the students’ attention! As teachers, we often teach too long in the beginning of a lesson because we are excited about the material. When we think about it, we are talking and students are “listening”. It is important that we let the students do the talking. When you keep a mini-lesson short, it leaves time for students to show their independence on that particular skill.
Literacy Centers
When you begin forming your literacy centers, you should think about the centers that you want to include in your classroom. Everyone has different preferences here. I had 6 different centers in my first grade classroom: read to self, spelling, word work, computers, content area, and work on writing.
How do you rotate?
Above is my rotation chart. I had three reading groups that I met with daily (horizontal across the top). These were homogeneous groupings. Vertically on the left, I had “center partners”. These were heterogeneous groupings. One child from each of the reading groups was placed together as “center partners”. So, at the end of the day, each student went to two centers and my small group.
When I asked students to find their first center, they would all go to the center in the first column. Three students would be at each center. Then, I would call my first reading group “Cardinals”. One child from each center would come to me, leaving two kids at the center. This continued during reading group two and three. After about two weeks, I didn’t need to send students to their centers first. They learn quickly and know to just skip the center during their reading group time!
Differentiation is my favorite part of centers. Centers make differentiation so simple! Look at the image above to see some fun ways to provide students with instruction that is at their individual levels. I love these ideas from two of my favorite teacher bloggers! The Brown Bag Teacher uses folders that are color coded to match student reading groups. These folders are placed in each center activity bin. When students go to the bin, they just grab their folder and begin working! Miss DeCarbo differentiates word work by integrating student choice and differentiated sight words. Students keep words for a short time or for a few weeks…depending on what the specific student needs.
Remember, these images are from the PD given to my school. In our county, social studies and science are NOT given separate times in the day. We must integrate social studies and science (and math!) into our reading block.
Integrating content into literacy centers allows teachers to create thematic units in the classroom. Students in my classrooms have always enjoyed learning when it is built into what they are reading. Using nonfiction texts or magazines in small group is a great way to integrate! As students begin to discuss and respond orally to what they are reading, it is easy for teachers to incorporate the new speaking and listening standards!
I compiled the following literacy block examples for different grade levels in my school in order to show teachers how to use the same topics and standards throughout many centers throughout the week. They may not work for your students or your curriculum. Please remember, these are just examples! 🙂
I also wanted to show teachers how the same six centers can be used in K-5 classrooms. I created these little charts as a way to show the progression of ideas and activities within each center from grade level to grade level. Again, these are just examples! Add or subtract anything you wish.
Small group is my favorite time of day. I love the “almost” one-on-one interaction that I get with my students. This is when I really get to know them. I love the layout that Dianna from Sassy Savvy Simple Teaching created. I printed it out and gave it to all of the teachers in the PD. It is easy to understand and perfect for planning your small group instruction! Below is an example of Dianna’s layout as well as a tweaked version that I created for our 3-5 grade teachers.
Fonts: Hello Literacy & KG Fonts. Backgrounds: Sassydesigns.net. Clipart: Melonheadz. |
Character Report Card
Here, an on-level student accurately described Ormie’s character traits. |
Here, a below-level student gave different grades, but he was able to provide accurate support from the video. |
Click the image to see more pictures of classroom activities this week! |
Be sure to head over to Miss DeCarbo’s blog to read more!
Co-teaching Reading in 3rd Grade
It’s been about a month since I began the leap from first to third grade, and I am loving it! Last year, I taught high achieving first graders who were almost (if not, just as high) as my third graders. So thankfully….the leap wasn’t too difficult. 🙂
My friend and now co-teacher last year in my first grade classroom. |
Co-teaching with one of my best friends and another energetic, hilarious, engaging teacher has been an amazing experience. We are each other’s physical, mental, and emotional help each day…which in the teacher world can be a wonderful thing! Today, I wanted to share a few of the things we have been doing…
Schedule
In our county, 18 is the maximum amount of students allowed in each classroom. Both third grade classes that I work in have about 25 students. Therefore, the school had to hire an extra teacher (me!) to work in both classrooms and provide support. I am teaching only reading. I begin each day with one teacher, and begin after lunch with the other. The three of us have synced our schedules. This way, I am teaching the same lessons when I am in both classrooms. It is SO nice for the three of us to plan together and bounce ideas off of each other! Here’s the layout we have. Grab an editable one here!
During my first two small groups of the week (on- and above-level students), we are reading the novel, Stuart Little. Here are some of our supplies. You can grab them here. My readers are working SO hard on accountable talk and discussion. Some groups are getting really comfortable with it! One little boy even said, “Hey, you can’t talk so much! You’re suppose to be invisible!”
Our on-level students still struggle with writing complete sentences and explaining their thoughts. We do LOTS of writing to try to fix this. Here is a prediction that one of my students made before reading chapter 3. It is not a perfect sentence, but she was working oh so hard!
- Computer – We have a program called iReady that is used throughout the school. All students take individualized reading and math lessons on the program during this center.
- Vocabulary/Reading – My novel study groups read their novel, make annotations, and respond to their flippy prompts (blue flaps seen above). When we are not reading a novel, students complete vocabulary activities at this center. Our lower groups do not go to this center because vocabulary is taught explicitly to them in small group
- Skill Practice – This center changes depending on our skill. It is differentiated for the two sets of groups. Sometimes, there are even two separate activities for certain students. This center usually includes writing. Sometimes it has task cards. Overall, it is based on the standard that we are teaching that week.
- Text Evidence – This center is completed only by on and above level students. They are given books or passages and questions. We make sure that they are focusing on finding text evidence and responding in complete sentences with evidence based sentence starters. Paired text passages work very well with students in this center.
This is a Skill Practice center focused on point of view. Students were researching an animal and then writing about the animal from the animal’s point of view. |
Professional Development
Have a great week!
What A Pair! {Using Paired Texts to Compare and Contrast}
I have be crazy busy with my new job back in the classroom {more to come on that soon}, but I wanted to share this fun set with you today! Last week, our skill was to compare and contrast two texts. In third grade, students are asked to compare and contrast the major points in two texts about the same topic. My two coworkers and I were searching for products to use, but we weren’t finding anything that worked for us…
Fast forward to the weekend. I decided to create a passage to go along with the book Officer Buckle and Gloria. We wanted the students to be engaged in the topic {dogs}, so we used a fun fiction book that they would giggle at. 🙂 In the past, I have read Officer Buckle and Gloria to kindergarteners and first graders, so I was slightly worried. I didn’t know for sure if my third graders would think it was funny. OH was I wrong! They were laughing and asking to see the flipping dog picture again and again.
Reading two texts can be time consuming, but “Just Do It!”.
With my on level groups, I read Officer Buckle and Gloria aloud and then students read the paired passage silently. With my below level groups, I read the book aloud, but the students read some of the passage and I read some of the passage. With my lower below level groups (many are already in RtI or receiving services), I read both texts aloud. In one of my classes, I read the book aloud whole group which saved a bit of time. Yes, it takes a long time, but there’s no other way to expose them to two texts before discussing and responding.
Discussing the texts
After reading, we started discussing each text separately. I asked students to retell aloud using major details, and we talked a little bit about each character. I prepped students for the questions to come by showing them similarities and differences in the structure of the text: fiction/nonfiction, text features, real pictures/illustrations, paragraphs, etc. We also looked at similarities and differences between the characters/subject in both texts.
My school is big on accountable talk right now, so we made sure to answer questions in complete sentences with sentence starters. My friend Katie from Simply Creative in KY, has a great pack that helps remind us to use accountable talk. You can check it out here.
Responding to the Text
In order to hit two standards at once, I added response questions AND compare/contrast questions to the passage. My on level groups only did the compare and contrast questions with me, because they are able to answer text-dependent questions on their own. My below level groups were guided through everything. {A picture of both handouts is shown below.}
We compared and contrasted the text structure and the topic (dogs, worms, trees, apple pies, bumblebees) in each set of paired texts. Students then explained which book they enjoyed reading most and why.
It wasn’t the easiest skill for my struggling readers, however, it did make them think. And think HARD! They were prepared for their practice assessment on Friday, and did very well. {Celebrate Small Moments!!!} Pretty soon, the service dog passage was turned into a whole pack!
These are the five books that I used to pair with the nonfiction passages. But, any fiction book on the same topic as the passage will work just fine! 🙂 They are not included in this pack, so check out your local library or head over to Amazon. {Amazon Prime is my weakness!}
I hope you enjoyed this mini preview! If you are like me and focused on standards, standards, standards, then I hope this little pack helps to narrow down your planning for LAFS.RI.3.9 or CCSS.RI.3.9! Click here to see a larger preview!
Have a great week!
Informational Writing – Red Eyed Tree Frog