From Fluency to Comprehension : Powerful Instruction Through Authentic Reading 9781462511822, 9781462511532

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ebook THE GUILFORD PRESS

From Fluency to Comprehension

Teaching Practices That Work Diane Lapp and Douglas Fisher, Series Editors www.guilford.com/TPTW Designed specifically for busy teachers who value evidence-based instructional practices, books in this series offer ready-to-implement strategies and tools to promote student engagement, improve teaching and learning across the curriculum, and support the academic growth of all students in our increasingly diverse schools. Written by expert authors with extensive experience in “real-time” classrooms, each concise and accessible volume provides useful explanations and examples to guide instruction, as well as step-by-step methods and reproducible materials, all in a convenient large-size format for ease of photocopying. Recent titles have Web pages where purchasers can download and print the reproducible materials.

35 Strategies for Guiding Readers through Informational Texts Barbara Moss and Virginia S. Loh The Effective Teacher’s Guide, Second Edition: 50 Ways to Engage Students and Promote Interactive Learning Nancy Frey Dare to Differentiate, Third Edition: Vocabulary Strategies for All Students Danny Brassell Effective Instruction for English Language Learners: Supporting Text-Based Comprehension and Communication Skills Julie Jacobson, Kelly Johnson, and Diane Lapp Transforming Writing Instruction in the Digital Age: Techniques for Grades 5–12 Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Dana L. Grisham Maximizing Motivation for Literacy Learning: Grades K–6 Barbara A. Marinak, Linda B. Gambrell, and Susan A. Mazzoni Talk That Teaches: Using Strategic Talk to Help Students Achieve the Common Core Jeanne R. Paratore and Dana A. Robertson From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak, Editors

From Fluency to Comprehension Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading

Edited by

Timothy Rasinski Nancy Padak Series Editors’ Note by Diane Lapp and Douglas Fisher

THE GUILFORD PRESS New York London

© 2013 The Guilford Press A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc. 72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012 www.guilford.com All rights reserved Except as noted, no part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America This book is printed on acid-free paper. Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 LIMITED PHOTOCOPY LICENSE These materials are intended for use only by qualified professionals. The publisher grants to individual purchasers of this book nonassignable permission to reproduce all materials for which photocopying permission is specifically granted in a footnote. This license is limited to you, the individual purchaser, for personal use or use with individual students. This license does not grant the right to reproduce these materials for resale, redistribution, electronic display, or any other purposes (including but not limited to books, pamphlets, articles, video- or audiotapes, blogs, file-sharing sites, Internet or intranet sites, and handouts or slides for lectures, workshops, or webinars, whether or not a fee is charged). Permission to reproduce these materials for these and any other purposes must be obtained in writing from the Permissions Department of Guilford Publications. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Publisher ISBN 978-1-4625-1153-2

About the Editors

Timothy Rasinski, PhD, is Professor of Literacy Education in the Reading and Writing Center at Kent State University, where he has directed the award-winning university reading clinic for more than 20 years. Dr. Rasinski has written extensively in articles, chapters, and books on working with children who struggle in acquiring full literacy. A former editor of The Reading Teacher and the Journal of Literacy Research, he currently serves on the editorial review boards for Reading Research Quarterly, Literacy Research and Instruction, and Reading Psychology. Dr. Rasinski is a member of the International Reading Hall of Fame. Nancy Padak, EdD, is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Education at Kent State University, where she directed the Reading and Writing Center and taught in the area of literacy education. Formerly she was the Principal Investigator for the Ohio Literacy Resource Center and has also been a classroom teacher and district administrator. Dr. Padak is an active researcher, author, and consultant and has served in a variety of professional leadership roles, including president of the College Reading Association and editor of The Reading Teacher and the Journal of Literacy Research.



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Contributors

Allison L. Baer, PhD, College of Education, University of Findlay, Findlay, Ohio Kaybeth Calabria, PhD, Education Department, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio Theresa Duncko, PhD, School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Carolyn Groff, PhD, Department of Educational Leadership, School Counseling, and Special Education, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey Terry Kindervater, PhD, first-grade teacher, Euclid City Schools, Euclid, Ohio Melanie R. Kuhn, PhD, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts Kristin Lems, EdD, ESL/Bilingual Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, National Louis University, Chicago, Illinois Julie McLeod, PhD, grade teacher, Good Shepherd Episcopal School, Dallas, Texas Elizabeth B. Meisinger, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee Kristie Miner, MEd, Intermediate Literacy Coordinator, Whitney Point Central School District, Whitney Point, New York Denise N. Morgan, PhD, School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Maryann Mraz, PhD, Department of Reading and Elementary Education, College of Education, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina James Nageldinger, MEd, School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Nancy Padak, EdD, Reading and Writing Center (Emerita), Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

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Contributors David Paige, EdD, Department of Education, Bellarmine University, Louisville, Kentucky Kristine E. Pytash, PhD, School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Timothy Rasinski, PhD, Reading and Writing Center, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio D. Ray Reutzel, PhD, Emma Eccles Jones Center for Early Childhood Education, Utah State University, Logan, Utah Brenda Rosler, PhD, College of Education, Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio Paula J. Schwanenflugel, PhD, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia Katherine A. Dougherty Stahl, EdD, Department of Teaching and Learning, New York University, New York, New York Melissa Sykes, MEd, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina Sheri Vasinda, EdD, College of Education, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma Lori Wilfong, PhD, School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Chase J. Young, PhD, second-grade teacher, McKinney Independent School District, McKinney, Texas Belinda S. Zimmerman, PhD, Department of Literacy and Early Childhood Education, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

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Series Editors’ Note

A

s our schools continue to grow in linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity, educators are committed to implementing instruction that supports both individual and collective growth within their classrooms. In tandem with teacher commitment, schools recognize the need to support teacher collaboration on issues related to implementing, evaluating, and expanding instruction to ensure that all students will graduate from high school with the skills needed to succeed in the workforce. Through our work with teachers across the country, we’ve become aware of the need for books that can be used to support professional collaboration by grade level and subject area. With these teachers’ questions in mind, we decided that a series of books was needed that modeled “real-time” teaching and learning within classroom instruction. Thus the series Teaching Practices That Work was born. Books in this series are distinguished by offering instructional examples that have been studied and refined within authentic classroom settings. Each book is written by one or more educators who are well connected to everyday classroom instruction. Because the series editors are themselves classroom teachers as well as professors, each instructional suggestion has been closely scrutinized for its validity. From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading, edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak, contains 23 chapters written by leading literacy educators who present a variety of instructional practices that support the development of reading fluency across grade levels. So often, fluency is thought of only as a very significant foundational practice for early readers that must become automatized to ensure their text comprehension. Also, the teaching of fluency is often discussed only as it relates to oral reading instruction. The chapters in this book move us beyond such limited thinking by illustrating that students’ silent as well as oral fluency—at any age, with any text—affects reading comprehen-



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Series Editors’ Note

sion and therefore must be thoroughly developed as they read across different text types with increasing difficulty levels. This book demonstrates the breadth of instructional practice that supports fluency development. Included in its chapters are fluency practices and routines that move from modeling to independence, as readers engage in choral reading, assisted reading, radio reading, repeated and deep reading; reading, writing, and podcasting Readers Theatre scripts; and phrasing and word study. Ideas for assessing fluency development are also included. So too is a very thorough literature review that illustrates that fluency as a reading practice has been studied through many eyes, for many decades. In addition to sharing very practical, easy-to-implement instructional practices, the chapter authors provide page-ready reproducible forms designed to support each practice. The writing style throughout is uniformly teacher friendly. Each chapter follows a similar format, offering a description of the instructional practice, a sequence for implementation, a classroom example, possibilities for extending and differentiating the instruction, and ideas to reinforce your implementation. It is quite obvious from their writing that the authors have supported many students through the process to becoming fluent readers who are able to comprehend across texts and grade levels. We invite you into the “real-time” teaching offered in this book and hope you’ll find this series useful as you validate and expand your teaching repertoire. And if you have an idea for a book, please contact us! Diane Lapp Douglas F isher

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Contents

1. Introduction: Fluency at the Core of Effective Literacy Instruction

1

TimoThy R asinski and nancy Padak

PARt OnE

Modeling Fluency for Students 2. Modeling Fluent Reading through Read‑Alouds

9 11

denise n. moRgan

3. Increasing Students’ Metafluency Awareness:

An Integral Part of Teaching Fluency

18

d. R ay ReuTzel

PARt tWO

Assisted Reading Strategies 4. Whole‑Class Choral Reading

29 31

david Paige

5. Paired Reading

40

TimoThy R asinski and nancy Padak

6. Audio‑Assisted Reading

48

kRisTine e. P yTash and k aybeTh c alabRia 

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Contents

PARt tHREE

Phrasing Strategies 7. Fluency through Phrasing: High‑Frequency Words

61 63

maRyann mRaz and melissa sykes

8. Teaching Phrasing through the Phrased Text Lesson

72

James nageldingeR

PARt FOuR

Deep and Wide Reading Practice 9. Repeated Readings through Readers Theatre

81 83

chase J. young

10. Powerful Pairing: Podcasting and Readers Theatre

91

sheRi vasinda and Julie mcleod

11. Writing Readers Theatre Scripts

103

kRisTie mineR

12. Authentic Repeated Reading through Poetry and Song

112

loRi Wilfong

13. Invoking Walter Cronkite: Radio Reading and the Fluent Reader

121

allison l. baeR

14. Increasing Reading Volume:

The Million‑Minute Reading Challenge

129

TimoThy R asinski and nancy Padak

PARt FIvE

Integrated Fluency Models for Beginning and Struggling Students 15. Implementing the Fluency Development Lesson:

An Intervention Model for Struggling Readers

137 139

belinda s. zimmeRman

16. Boosting Fluency of English Language Learners

with Music and Poetry Performance Activities kRisTin lems

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Contents

17. Getting Children Off to a Fast Start in Reading

157

TeRRy kindeRvaTeR

18. Fluency‑Oriented Reading Instruction

166

melanie R. kuhn, Paula J. schWanenflugel, k aTheRine a. dougheRTy sTahl, elizabeTh b. meisingeR, and c aRolyn gRoff

PARt SIx

Other Fluency Issues 19. Five‑Minute Fluency Active‑ities

177 179

bRenda RosleR

20. Word Study: The Foundation for Fluency

187

TimoThy R asinski and nancy Padak

21. Assessing the Fluency of Automaticity

196

TheResa duncko

22. Assessing Prosody

203

nancy Padak and TimoThy R asinski

23. Conclusion: Creating Time for Fluency

in Your Reading Program

213

nancy Padak and TimoThy R asinski

Index

221

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1

Introduction Fluency at the Core of Effective Literacy Instruction Timothy R asinski and Nancy Padak

P

eriodic reviews of research over the past dozen years have consistently recognized reading fluency as a key element of effective reading instruction (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, & Meisinger, 2010; Kuhn & Stahl, 2003; National Reading Panel, 2000; Rasinski, 2010; Rasinski & Hoffman, 2003; Rasinski, Reutzel, Chard, & Linan-­Thompson, 2011). Yet, conversely, for the past several years reading scholars surveyed about important topics in reading have indicated that reading fluency is not a significant topic for improving reading instruction (Cassidy & Cassidy, 2010; Cassidy, Ortlieb, & Shettel, 2011). We believe that this ambivalence has a source: the way that fluency instruction has evolved over the past decade. In many classrooms “fluency” has become synonymous with “reading speed.” Students who read fast are thought to be fluent; thus, the way to teach fluency is to teach students to read fast. Although fast reading is generally associated with fluency, instruction in fast reading is not the way to become fluent. We should want students to develop speed (or automaticity) in their reading in the same way that you reading this book became a relatively fast reader—­ through authentic practice in reading. Fluency instruction has also become associated primarily with oral reading. And so, according to this viewpoint, oral reading is the only way that fluency can be taught. Moreover, since oral reading is generally done in the primary grades, fluency has also become the domain of the primary grades. Although fluency has been linked to oral reading, it is clear that the way readers read orally is reflected in their silent reading as well. Indeed, a good body of research has linked oral reading

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Introduction

fluency with silent reading comprehension (Daane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, & Oranje, 2005; Pinnell et al., 1995; Rasinski, Rikli, & Johnston, 2009). Finally, because fluency is often viewed as a component distinct from authentic reading, it is often taught separately from authentic reading experiences of stories and informational texts in the classroom. As a result of these misconceptions about reading fluency, we often see fluency instruction as a time set apart from regular reading instruction; students orally read and reread short (usually informational) texts for the purpose of reading the texts faster and faster. Authentic reading for meaning and enjoyment is not part of fluency instruction. Time for comprehension instruction and reading for pleasure are other parts of the reading curriculum—­ apart from fluency. Fluency is not viewed, in many classrooms, as integral to real reading. If this is the case, then fluency instruction should be on the back burner. We believe, however, that fluent reading is important and that appropriate fluency instruction will make a significant difference in students’ literacy lives, potentially at all grade levels. That is the reason why we developed this book: to provide you, the reader, with methods of teaching reading fluency that have proven effective, that involve real reading for real purposes, and that can be engaging and enjoyable for students. In the following chapters you will learn about a variety of ways to approach fluency instruction in your own classroom, regardless of the grade level you teach. You will learn from scholars who have actually implemented approaches from authentic repeated reading practice done individually to choral reading in groups. Moreover, you can be assured that evidence exists that implementing the methods described here will lead to improved fluency and increased comprehension.

A Model of Reading Before we start by describing the methods to you, we think it is wise that we begin with a common understanding of the nature of fluency and how it fits into the bigger picture of reading. Pikulski and Chard (2005) have described fluency as a bridge from word recognition accuracy to text comprehension (see Figure 1.1). We think this metaphor is right on. Fluency consists of two essential components: automaticity in word decoding and prosody or expression. “Automaticity” refers to the ability to recognize words automatically or effortlessly (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974). Prosody completes the bridge by creating a link to comprehension.

Automaticity in Word Decoding It is not sufficient for readers to read the words in text accurately: they need to read the words automatically. LaBerge and Samuels posit that all readers have a limited amount of attention, what we have come to call “cognitive energy.” If they have to use too much of their cognitive energy to decode the words in text, they will have 

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Introduction

Word Recognition

Fluency: Automaticity Prosody

Comprehension

FIGURE 1.1.  Fluency: The bridge from word recognition to comprehension.

little remaining for the more important task in reading: comprehension. These students are marked by their slow, laborious, and staccato reading of texts, and by their comprehension difficulties. One of our fluency goals should be for readers to read the words in texts accurately and automatically, so that they can focus on meaning, not word decoding. For many readers, comprehension while reading suffers not because they have an insufficient amount of cognitive resources to make meaning out of a given text, but because they have depleted those resources by having to use them for word decoding. These are the same readers who often easily understand a text when it is read to them—when someone else takes on the task of decoding the words, they can employ their cognitive resources to making meaning. Readers develop their word recognition automaticity in the same way that other automatic processes in life are developed: through wide and deep practice. “Wide reading” refers to the common classroom practice of reading a text once followed by discussion, response, and instruction aimed at developing some specific reading strategies and skills. The routine then begins anew with a different text. A general purpose of wide reading is to increase the volume of reading by having students read one new text after another. This is the type of reading done my most adults, and it is clearly a key component of any effective reading program. “Deep reading” involves a strong interaction with one text and is most commonly associated with repeated reading (Samuels, 1979). Deep reading occurs when a student reads a single text multiple times until he or she achieves a level of fluency. Think of those struggling students who have not yet achieved automaticity in their word recognition. During wide reading they may read a passage only once before moving on to a new passage. Their one and only reading of the text often lacks fluency and meaning. The slow, staccato, and monotone reading that characterizes less-than-­automatic word recognition will have a detrimental effect on reading comprehension. We think that rather than moving on to a new passage after one reading, as is done in wide reading, we need to have less fluent students read a passage several times until automaticity (and prosody—­see the next section) is achieved with that passage. The true value of deep reading occurs when students move on to a new and not previously read passage. What students learn from the repeated reading of one passage partially transfers to the new passage. Several reviews of research on fluency have shown that word recognition accuracy, automaticity, comprehension, and attitude toward reading improve with repeated readings (Dowhower, 1994; Kuhn &

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Introduction

Stahl, 2000; Rasinski et al., 2011). Wide and deep reading are both foundational to any effective reading program, especially those for struggling readers.

Prosody: The Link to Comprehension Automaticity is the link to word recognition; prosody connects to comprehension. The more common term for prosody in reading is “reading with expression” (and we would also add joy or enthusiasm). If we think of someone who is a fluent reader or speaker, we are likely to think of someone who uses his or her voice to help convey meaning to a listener when speaking or reading orally. Prosody enhances and adds to the meaning (comprehension) of a text. Take, for example, the following sentence: Jerry borrowed Sarah’s red wagon.

This declarative sentence describes something Jerry did. However, the simple oral emphasis can add implied meaning to the sentence. Jerry borrowed Sarah’s red wagon. (Jerry, not Tom, borrowed Sarah’s wagon.) Jerry borrowed Sarah’s red wagon. (Jerry did not steal Sarah’s wagon.) Jerry borrowed Sarah’s red wagon. (Jerry didn’t borrow my wagon; he borrowed Sarah’s.) Jerry borrowed Sarah’s red wagon. (Jerry didn’t borrow Sarah’s green wagon; he borrowed the red one.) Jerry borrowed Sarah’s red wagon. (Jerry didn’t borrow Sarah’s new bike; he borrowed her wagon.)

Emphasizing a different word adds implied or inferred meaning to the text, meaning that is not explicitly stated. The inferences created by a reader’s voice reflect a high level of text comprehension. Thus, the employment of expression or prosody allows the reader to comprehend a text at a deeper level than only the words themselves. Other scholars have argued that prosody in reading also assists the reader in identifying critical phrase boundaries that are not marked by punctuation (­Schreiber, 1980, 1987, 1991; Schreiber & Read, 1980). Again, prosody allows the reader to infer information not explicitly stated in the text. Prosody is not an issue solely for oral reading. Most adults we have surveyed indicate that they also hear themselves when they read silently. A growing body of research is demonstrating that prosody in oral reading is related to silent reading comprehension and overall proficiency in reading (Daane et al., 2005; Benjamin & Schwanenflugel, 2010; Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2006, 2008; Pinnell et al., 1995; Rasinski et al., 2009). Moreover, these studies have found that readers who read with poor expression (in a monotone and word-by-word manner) also manifest poor comprehension when reading silently. Prosody is related to good reading—­oral and silent. So how do readers develop their prosody in reading? Interestingly, prosody is developed in the very same way 

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Introduction

that automaticity, the other component of reading fluency is developed: through wide and deep reading practice. As readers read widely they encounter different texts that require different prosodic elements in order to read with appropriate expression and meaning. As readers read deeply (reading one text several times) they gradually recognize and embed into their reading the prosodic elements that allow for a meaningful and expressive rendition of the text. In the same way that actors rehearse a script in order to make a meaningful and authentic performance, readers read deeply in order to make a meaningful performance for themselves (or an audience if they are reading to others). Moreover, through repeated reading, readers become more adept and efficient at carrying over prosodic features into new passages not previously read. Thus, improved prosodic reading is another positive outcome of repeated reading. Prosody and automaticity should go hand in hand. Both are developed through wide and deep reading. However, when the primary aim of repeated reading is to increase reading speed (as is done in some fluency programs), then prosody will almost always suffer, and comprehension will likely suffer as well. Think about it: Where do students focus their cognitive resources in “read it quickly” approaches? Saying the words as quickly as they can. They neglect meaning. Fast reading very often is devoid of meaningful expression. Indeed, excessively fast reading can be disfluent just as excessively slow reading is—­prosody and meaning are compromised in both. Prosody is developed through wide and deep practice, as with automaticity. However, the goal of the deep practice has little to do with improved reading speed. When prosody is emphasized the goal of the wide and repeated reading is to achieve an expressive oral reading of the passage that reflects and enhances the meaning of the passage. For us, this is the true goal of repeated readings and fluency instruction (Rasinski, 2006). Any great instruction is both scientifically valid and artfully applied. The challenge we face in this book is to describe for you fluency instruction that meets both of these criteria. The chapter authors we have assembled are both instructional scientists and artists. When instruction is both scientific and artistic wonderful things are likely to happen.

Making Fluency Instruction Authentic and Effective In the chapters of this book you will read about teachers and scholars who have made fluency instruction both authentic and effective. Each of the brief chapters provides you with approaches and ideas for incorporating fluency instruction into your own literacy curriculum. Not only have these methods been found to be effective, students and teachers have also found them to be engaging. These approaches bring the joy of reading and learning back into the classroom, make reading a communal experience, and provide opportunities for students to shine, especially those students who often don’t get a chance to shine. We hope you will read each chapter and consider how you might apply the fluency approach described into your own curriculum—­we ask that you think both as

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Introduction

a scientist and as an artist. How can you weave the instructional approach into your classroom in a way that will increase the opportunity for all students to achieve fluency and proficient reading? At the same time we hope you will consider how you might employ the approach in a way that will maximize authentic interactions with texts that students (and you) will find satisfying and meaningful. We feel that poetry is a wonderful text for promoting fluency—­poetry is meant to be performed in a fluent manner (and so it needs to be rehearsed); it is relatively brief, so a reader can master it in a reasonably short period of time; it needs to be read with appropriate expression (prosody); and it is filled with deep and wonderful meanings. As you begin your journey into authentic and effective fluency instruction we leave you with a passage that we believe expresses what it means to be a scientifically effective and artful teacher. Success (anonymous, attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson) To laugh often and much, to win respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

And we would add: “This is to have been a teacher.”

References Benjamin, R., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2010). Text complexity and oral reading prosody in young readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 45, 388–404. Cassidy, J., & Cassidy, D. (2010). What’s hot for 2010. Reading Today, 26(4), 1, 8, 9. Cassidy, J., & Grote-­Garcia, S. (2012). Defining the literacy agenda: Results of the 2013 What’s Hot, What’s Not Literacy survey. Reading Today, 30(1), 9–12. Cassidy, J., Ortlieb, E., & Shettel, J. (2011). What’s hot for 2011. Reading Today, 28(3), 1, 6, 7, 8. Chard, D. J., Vaughn, S., & Tyler, B. (2002). A synthesis of research on effective interventions for building fluency with elementary students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 386–406. Daane, M. C., Campbell, J. R., Grigg, W. S., Goodman, M. J., & Oranje, A. (2005). Fourthgrade students reading aloud: NAEP 2002 special study of oral reading. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Dowhower, S. L. (1994). Repeated reading revisited: Research into practice. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 10, 343–358. Kuhn, M. R., Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Meisinger, E. B. (2010). Review of research: Aligning theory and assessment of reading fluency: Automaticity, prosody, and definitions of fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 45, 230–251. 

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Introduction Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2000). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices (CIERA Rep. No. 2-008). Ann Arbor, MI: Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2003). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 3–21. LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. A. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293–323. Miller, J., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2006). Prosody of syntactically complex sentences in the oral reading of young children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 839–853. Miller, J., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2008). A longitudinal study of the development of reading prosody as a dimension of oral reading fluency in early elementary school children. Reading Research Quarterly, 43, 336–354. National Reading Panel. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read. Report of the subgroups. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. Pikulski, J. J., & Chard, D. J. (2005). Fluency: Bridge between decoding and reading comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 58, 510–519. Pinnell, G. S., Pikulski, J. J., Wixson, K. K., Campbell, J. R., Gough, P. B., & Beatty, A. S. (1995). Listening to children read aloud. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Rasinski, T. V. (2006). Reading fluency instruction: Moving beyond accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. The Reading Teacher, 59, 704–706. Rasinski, T. V. (2010). The fluent reader: Oral and silent reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency, and comprehension (2nd ed.). New York: Scholastic. Rasinski, T. V., & Hoffman, J. V. (2003). Theory and research into practice: Oral reading in the school literacy curriculum. Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 510–522. Rasinski, T. V., Reutzel, C. R., Chard, D., & Linan-­T hompson, S. (2011). Reading fluency. In M. L. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, B. Moje, & P. Afflerbach (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 4, pp. 286–319). New York: Routledge. Rasinski, T., Rikli, A., & Johnston, S. (2009). Reading fluency: More than automaticity?: More than a concern for the primary grades? Literacy Research and Instruction, 48, 350–361. Samuels, S. J. (1979). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 32, 403–408. Schreiber, P. A. (1980). On the acquisition of reading fluency. Journal of Reading Behavior, 12, 177–186. Schreiber, P. A. (1987). Prosody and structure in children’s syntactic processing. In R. Horowitz & S. J. Samuels (Eds.), Comprehending oral and written language (pp. 243– 270). New York: Academic Press. Schreiber, P. A. (1991). Understanding prosody’s role in reading acquisition. Theory into Practice, 30, 158–164. Schreiber, P. A., & Read, C. (1980). Children’s use of phonetic cues in spelling, parsing, and—maybe—­reading. Bulletin of the Orton Society, 30, 209–224.



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Part One

Modeling Fluency for Students

2

Modeling Fluent Reading through Read‑Alouds Denise N. Morgan

What Is It? Your own voice is your greatest asset when teaching students about fluent reading. As you demonstrate effortless and expressive reading, you teach students how a reader breathes life into words on the page and enhances comprehension. Students cannot be expected to read fluently until they have had countless demonstrations of what it means to do so. Through regular and artful reading aloud you plant a seed in the minds of students of what reading should sound like both orally and in their heads as they read. This becomes the goal for students to work toward. This means as a teacher you need to read aloud well and regularly. As it has been well reported: “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children” (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985, p. 23). Although this statement encompasses all aspects of reading aloud, including the back-and-forth discussions and experiences that surround the reading of a book, it also refers to the demonstration of how a reader interacts with a book, how a reader can make text sound meaningful. To demonstrate the importance of and how much we appreciate text read aloud well, consider two things: commercials and audiobooks. Many famous actors are hired to do voice-overs in commercials and are tapped to read audiobooks. Why? Because they “read” well—they read fluently. If you happen to be a fan of listening to audiobooks you know the crucial importance of the right reader. I have stopped listening to many interesting books because I did not enjoy how the reader “performed” the book, preferring to read the book myself than continue listening to a particular reader. The role of the voice in reading cannot be underestimated.

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MODELING FLUENCY FOR STUDENTS

But it is more than simply having a voice. It is the deliberate way you use your voice to help students experience text. This lays the groundwork for students’ ongoing work and growth as readers so it matters that we make every effort to read aloud well. Many teachers instruct students to make their own reading “sound like when someone reads” but unless the teacher is offering regular demonstrations of how this should sound, students applying the “make it sound like when someone reads” idea to their own reading might be dangerous indeed.

Modeling Fluent Reading In some cases, the definition of reading fluency has been incorrectly misinterpreted and redefined as “reading fast.” Instead it should be considered in its “fullest and most authentic sense” that “fluency is reading with and for meaning” (Rasinski, 2012, p. 517). Reading for meaning and enjoyment is part of fluency instruction (Rasinski, 2010) and, as teachers, we must work to help our students develop a deeper, richer understanding of fluency than simply reading quickly. In some cases, we may have to work against what students have learned about fluency in previous years. The best way we can accomplish this goal is not solely through our words (“Say the words together in phrases”) but through our demonstration of, awareness of, and attention to phrases and expressive reading. This is our greatest opportunity to help students understand the role fluency plays in our understanding, in our comprehension. Students will love our fluent reading as they get swept up into the story. We have all encountered students who “chewed their words” when reading aloud like they were chewing dense bread; the effort for making one word is so laborious, the start and stop of their reading so halting that it can be difficult to listen to them, much less keep the meaning of their readings in our heads. Students should not have to work so hard and they need to know that reading should not sound like this. This kind of reading is counterproductive to aiding students’ comprehension, and we must work actively to help them not read in this manner. And one way we can do this is through our own reading aloud. The reason we read is for meaning. We set out with the intent of understanding what we read; we do not decide to read something because we think we will like the words in the book (Morgan, Mraz, Padak, & Rasinski, 2009). The reason for developing fluency is the search for meaning. When we read in a smooth, effortless, and expressive way we better understand what we have read.

How Do I Do It? If you want to get the most educational benefit from your read-aloud, you simply must read the text beforehand even if you feel hard-­pressed for time. Nothing can hamper your fluency as much as being unfamiliar with the text so that unexpected events, surprising twists, and difficult or unfamiliar words within the text interfere 

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Modeling Fluent Reading through Read-­Alouds

with your reading. You may even have to do several readings: the first so you can enjoy the text yourself; the second so you can determine the flow of your voice as you read. Books for our youngest students often have a clear cadence, a repeating line or phrase that generates a familiar feeling for the reader. This repeated phrase, above all, should be as smooth as silk in your reading. If the language is playful and tricky, your reading will continue smoothly because you have practiced it in your head. You may wish to use different voices for different characters. How do you want them to sound? Can you read the voices consistently? Nothing is worse for the listener than a reader who runs out of steam in the middle of the book and the reading, which starts off strong and true, peters out as the pages go by.

Things to Consider When Implementing Read‑Alouds Set aside a regular read-aloud time. With the increasing demands on teachers’ time, it may feel necessary to steal a few minutes from read-aloud time or drop it entirely. It is important that you realize this is, in fact, teaching time. Hold it sacred. Vary what you read. It is important to read a variety of texts to your students. Students need demonstrations of fluent reading in all genres. While predictable books and fiction often have a rhythm to their words, it will be important for students to hear fluent reading in all genres. Help students understand that fluent reading aids in showing your comprehension. They need to see that your reading holds clues to your own enjoyment and amusement as a reader as well as your feelings, such as of tension and trepidation as you read. The students will know how you are feeling because they will hear it in your voice. This is very much like when our parents say our names. Even though they may only say one word, our first name, we know what is in store for us by how they say it. The same message can be conveyed through our reading. But we must call students’ attention to this fact. Of course it is important to talk about the meaning of the book after reading it, but consider also making space and time for talking about how the book was read. Ask students to identify points where they enjoyed the reading, enjoyed how the text sounded. Was the text read at an appropriate pace? Students will often want to talk about what happened, but you can use this time to help them learn a new way of talking about the text: a talk that focuses on how the reading went and how the reader did certain things that helped them better understand the text. Make the connection to students’ own writing. With the emphasis you place on reading aloud, you can also help students understand the importance of how words sound on the page. You can appreciate what you read and call students’ attention to how the words can be fun to say, how they slide off of your tongue, or have a nice ring to them while reading aloud. This sets the stage for helping stu

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MODELING FLUENCY FOR STUDENTS

dents understand that readers enjoy thoughtful language. It matters what students as authors write and how they write it because there is an ever-­present reader on the other side ready and able to enjoy their language and phrasing. This can help students also understand the importance of reading aloud their own writing to see how it sounds. They can listen for moments of “smooth music” and places where there are “clinkers.” Students are never too young to develop this habit of listening to their writing.

Extensions: Short Explicit Teaching In addition to the considerations mentioned above it is also possible to include some explicit lessons following your read-­alouds to further help students understand fluent reading. These should take no more than 2 to 3 minutes. The purpose of these lessons is to help students learn to identify aspects of fluent reading, ones that you will expect them to pay attention to when they are reading individually. These teaching points sprinkled throughout a year of read-­alouds help students further develop their understanding about fluent reading. Read a section fluently and then disfluently. Talk to the students about which was easier to understand and why. Read aloud a portion of text and then have a colleague, who did not listen to you, read the same portion. (He or she could tape the portion ahead of time if necessary.) Help students see how and where the reading sounded the same and where there were differences. Have them identify why they think this occurred. Focus on the similarities and why readers might read this portion in the same way. What do the readers know about reading that guided them to do this? Ask the students to listen while using a sticky note. Ask them to jot down certain spots where they really notice smooth, phrased reading. Discuss why this occurred. Enlarge a section or page of your read-aloud text. Then project it with a document camera, computer, or overhead. Using slash marks, show the students how you see the text when you read. Help them visualize how you break up the text when you read. This will help them see that you try to read more than one word at a time and also how you group words and phrases together. Your text might look like this: Once upon a time /; in a land far far away /; lived a young princess named Petunia.

It might also help students see when you decide to focus on a single word for emphasis, and you can share your reasons for doing so. You may also want to distribute an enlarged section of text and have the students collectively decide where they should group words together and take pauses. Then 

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Modeling Fluent Reading through Read-­Alouds

have the students look at their slash marks and ask them “What do you notice?” and record their answers. Do this several times and return to the previous “What do you notice?” section to help students see similar patterns across reading. See Form 2.1 at the end of the chapter. Tell your students how you prepared for that day’s read-aloud. Even hearing that you read the piece before or practiced it beforehand helps students understand the work that goes into a successful read-aloud. It helps set the stage for the work they may need to do when doing choral, paired, or audio-­assisted reading. See the “Assisted Reading Strategies” section of this book for more information about these techniques. Help students understand why a reader may sound differently when reading description versus dialogue. Help students understand that the reader has to pay extra attention to dialogue. Teach students that authors sometimes choose to use dialect, slang, or regional words and accents to help us better understand the character. In this case, the reader must do a bit more work to make sure that the reading is appropriate for the character.

Your Turn

1

Carefully select a text with strong voice. You want to begin with a very strong example so it is easy for the students to enjoy your fluent reading.

2 Read and reread the text if necessary. It is important that you “know” this text so that you know how your voice should sound while reading.

3 There are several things you can do when reading to prepare yourself for shar-

ing the text with students. You need to think first and foremost about your delivery. Consider the phrasing of the book. Are there any particular phrases that are critical to the book? If so, you will want to make sure you know how these will sound when you read them aloud. Ideally, you would read the text aloud to yourself or practice by “reading” in your mind where you follow the pace and same style you will use when actually reading aloud. This may be tempting to skip due to time constraints, but this is your practice for smooth reading. Consider where extra emphasis might be needed in the reading due to author clues (e.g., enlarged text, bold text, use of punctuation) and pay careful attention to those clues so that your reading reflects this information.

4

While preparing to read, think about the parts that really flow. Identify the parts/sections you want to focus on with students after reading. What part can you return to with the students so they can study your demonstration of fluent reading? One or two clear memorable examples are helpful to teach students what you mean by fluent reading. Decide on the best way to show students the text. Most likely they will need to see the text as they listen to your rereading of that text section

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MODELING FLUENCY FOR STUDENTS

so they can make the match of how you read the text as they look at words on the page. Here you can implement many of the ideas discussed in the Extensions section above.

Conclusion Each day that we read to our students while being conscious of how we sound, we offer a demonstration of what they should also do in their own reading, whether oral or silent. Our reading can be the living, breathing model for students to strive toward each day in their own reading. Our voice shows students how fluent reading can be accomplished and, more important, why it matters.

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Form 2.1

Looking at Read-Aloud Phrasing Text:

What we noticed about where we made phrasing decisions:

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

3

Increasing Students’ Metafluency Awareness An Integral Part of Teaching Fluency D. R ay Reutzel

What Is It? “Metafluency” is defined as the cognitive awareness or self-­monitoring of fluency processes to determine if they are going along as they should, leading to fluent oral renditions and comprehension of text. It should go without saying that accurate, automatic (fast), and expressive reading of text has but one ultimate goal: reading comprehension! Research has shown time and again that fluency and comprehension are tightly connected (Good, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 2001; Rasinski, Reutzel, Chard, & Linan-­Thompson, 2011). In fact, the connection between fluency and comprehension has been found to explain from 20 to 80% of the variance in reading comprehension (Rasinski et al., 2011). That is why fluency assessment has gained such popularity as a proxy assessment of reading comprehension. It is not enough for students to practice a great deal for fluency. Rather, students must also become aware of what fluent reading is and is not. In other words, students must obtain a level of conceptual clarity around the characteristics or attributes of fluent reading and then develop both a propensity and a set of skills to monitor themselves in order to determine if fluency processes are working as they should and what steps they need to take if they are not (Reutzel, 2012). In short, for students to become self-­regulating, fluent readers, they must become aware of what fluency is, whether or not they are reading in a fluent manner, and what they need to do if it is not! Hoffman (2003) offers the following advice about fluency instruction: “Work to develop the meta-­language of fluency with your students, which includes concepts of 

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Increasing Students’ Metafluency Awareness

expression, word stress, and phrasing. It will serve you well in explicit instruction” (p. 6). I might also add, it will serve you well when giving your students specific feedback about oral reading. They can only receive and understand feedback to the degree that they also understand the full nature of fluent reading! Students need to know that fluency is an important goal of efficient and effective reading. They must develop an awareness of fluency in order to monitor it, fix it, and improve it. Students must own the concepts, elements, and language and they need to understand the varying purposes of fluency in order to self-­regulate and improve it. We must not only facilitate reading fluency practice but also cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation of the importance of fluency as a personal and essential goal of reading improvement. Equally important, we need to develop students’ understanding of what we mean when we say that reading is “fluent” and when it is not and help them develop the awareness of and the tools for fixing up fluency when it isn’t fluent.

How Do I Do It? Developing metafluency with students does not require inordinate amounts of instructional time but it does require consistency and frequency. Initially allocating about 5 minutes per day for metafluency instruction and modeling should be sufficient. As students become aware of metafluency less time and frequency will be required. Steps involved in metafluency instruction are shown in the bulleted list below: Begin by defining fluency for students, for example: • Fluent readers recognize words quickly and accurately. • They read phrases, sentences, and texts expressively. • They understand what they read. Display this definition of fluency prominently in the classroom. Next, define each of the elements of the fluency definition: accurate word recognition, automatic (quick) word recognition, expressive reading that reflects the meaning of the text, and comprehension. Display definitions and/or descriptions of each of these elements of fluent reading prominently in your classroom. Over time and across many lessons, read aloud texts to the class in order to model what each of these elements sounds like. Select one element at a time for emphasis in a lesson. For example, you might model accurate reading for one or more lessons. Later on, you may select reading with an appropriate rate. Select one fluency element at a time for instructional emphasis. For example, you might model inaccurate reading. Ask students to follow along while you read and detect any errors you make in word accuracy. Of course, this modeling can be extended to reading texts too quickly or too slowly when focusing instruction on automaticity (rate).

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 Following teacher modeling, involve students in listening to, monitoring, and rating oral reading— their own and their classmates’—in each of the elements of fluency. Encourage students to focus on strong elements as well as areas of concern. Model for students in role plays about how to give and receive feedback about reading fluency across all of the elements of fluent reading. These role plays may involve you alone, you with other students, and eventually the students themselves moving toward independence where they self-monitor and give themselves feedback, perhaps by listening to a recorded version of their own oral reading or listening to their own oral reading using a PVC pipe fluency phone. Once students can identify elements of fluency that need attention in their own and others’ oral reading, then teach them “fi x-up strategies” for each fluency element. Display these fi x-ups prominently in the classroom. Again, select one set of fi x-ups for each fluency element for instructional emphasis. For example, phrasing might be poor due to lack of attention to punctuation. Model different fi x-up strategies for attending to punctuation while reading. Finally, practice, practice, practice—with consistent and formative feedback provided to others and to self, students will move toward becoming self-regulating, metafluent readers.

Example: Metafluency Instruction in Action Ms. Ada teaches in a high-poverty, low-achieving school in which many of her second-grade students are also second language learners. She has noted over the years that many of her students have mistakenly come to understand fluent reading as fast reading. This is in part due to an overemphasis upon student oral reading fluency often measured using 1-minute probes. Ms. Ada wants her students to develop into self-regulated readers who monitor their own fluency development, since fluency contributes to their understanding of text. Ms. Ada determines that she will teach her students a definition of fluency that is simple and understandable, but one that also promotes a broader understanding of the concept. She has prepared the following poster for display in her classroom: Becoming a fluent reader is important. In order to become a fluent reader, you need to: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Read what’s on the page. Read with a “just‑right” speed or pace . . . not too fast, not too slow. Read loudly enough that we can hear you. Try to read to commas, periods, or question marks without taking a breath or stopping. 5. Read smoothly with expression . . . like you do when you talk. 6. Remember the big ideas from what you read.

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Increasing Students’ Metafluency Awareness

She tells the children that fluent readers read what is on the page. They try to be accurate. They don’t guess at or skip words they don’t know. She goes on to explain that fluent readers read at a pace or rate that uses the “Goldilocks principle.” They read at a speed that is just right, neither too fast (she reads something very quickly) nor too slow (she reads a text very slowly). Fluent readers read just loud enough, not too loudly (she shouts reading a text) nor too quietly (she whispers while reading a text aloud). Fluent readers read with phrasing and expression, meaning taking a breath at the right places, reading chunks of words at a time, and paying attention to punctuation (a quick modeling of each is provided with a text). Finally, fluent readers can tell you about what they read when they finish reading. They remember important ideas from reading the text and often remember these in the appropriate sequence or order. Ms. Ada offers a quick summary of a passage read aloud with fluency. In conclusion, Ms. Ada displays her classroom poster on the definition of fluency. Using a pointer, she guides the children so they can read the poster aloud with her in unison. She tells the children that over the next many days and weeks they will be learning more about each one of the elements of fluency in this definition. Of course one lesson on the definition of fluent reading is insufficient to make the point with most readers. They will need to see and hear repeated models of these definitional elements. So, after the initial lesson in which the fluency elements are identified, the teacher models, employs thinks-­alouds, and otherwise demonstrates each of the fluency elements using authentic reading materials. Consequently, Ms. Ada selects one of the essential elements of fluent reading for a lesson, for example, accuracy. She might focus on accuracy while reading aloud the poem “The Crocodile” by Lewis Carroll for this lesson. How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin! How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!

After reading this poem aloud to the group of children with good accuracy, Ms. Ada reminds the children that accurate oral reading is reading the words on the page accurately or correctly. Next, Ms. Ada reads this poem aloud again using inaccurate oral reading. She tells her students to watch the words of the poem projected onto the screen using a document camera. She informs them that their job is to follow along as she reads and notice when she is not accurately reading the words on the page. Ms. Ada reads the poem as shown below: How both the little crocodile Improved his swimming tail,

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MODELING FLUENCY FOR STUDENTS And pour the waters of the Nil On every golden shale! How cheerfully he seems to smile! How neatly spreads his caws, And welcomes little fishes in With greatly smiling jaws!

Once the inaccurate oral reading of this poem is completed, Ms. Ada invites her excited students, usually amid their snickering and giggles, to comment on her “inaccurate” oral reading. As a researcher, I have often noticed greater attention and discussion among students flow from the inappropriate modeling of a fluency element. When I have asked children why this was the case, they often indicate that the teacher’s deviations from the printed text were more motivating to note than were examples of their own or other students’ inaccurate reading. As a result, during this phase of the metafluency lesson, students become very active in attempting to “detect” the teacher’s inappropriate modeling of the fluency element under focus during the lesson. After explaining, defining, describing, modeling, demonstrating, and discussing a focus lesson on a fluent reading element, Ms. Ada involves students in a practice reading of a selected short text—for example, a part of a story, a short poem, song lyrics, or an information text segment. She starts the practice session with choral reading. Ms. Ada likes to switch up or vary the reading practice using different types of choral reading, such as echoic, unison, antiphonal, mumble, line-a-child, reading rounds, and so on. (For those who are unfamiliar with these choral reading variations, I recommend reading Opitz & Rasinski, 2008, or Rasinski, 2010.) After the initial reading of the text in unison, Ms. Ada stops and asks her students to rate their own reading fluency using a reproducible reading fluency monitoring rubric that highlights the elements of fluent reading. Such a reading fluency monitoring rubric makes use of a simple dichotomous rating scale of “yes” or “no,” and for the younger children, a display of smiling or frowning faces (see Figure 3.1). Ms. Ada produces this rubric in a variety of sizes. One size is enlarged as a laminated classroom poster. Another is a smaller, placemat-­sized table or small-group rubric for discussion at tables, in pods, or in small instructional/practice groups. And a third size is a small, 3″ × 5″ index card for individual use. Before students use the rubric independently, Ms. Ada uses a “think-aloud” process to show how she rates reading fluency on one or more of the three definitional elements. She explains why she gave the ratings she did. After modeling this process a few times, Ms. Ada gradually releases the fluency monitoring process to the students themselves through three distinct phases. In the first phase Ms. Ada shares the task of monitoring fluency by asking students to rate the group’s reading fluency on each element displayed in the rubric; then Ms. Ada explains why her students gave the rating they did. Of course, the students will not hesitate to correct the teacher if she does not give their reasons! In phase two, Ms. Ada continues sharing the respon-

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Increasing Students’ Metafluency Awareness

Accurate Reading

Appropriate Speed or Rate

Expression

FIGURE 3.1. Reading fluency monitoring rubric. From Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B. (2012). Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the Difference, 6th Edition, copyright 2012, p. 190. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

sibility for completing the task of rating the group’s reading fluency by rating each oral reading fluency item herself. Then she asks the students to explain why she rated the group’s reading fluency as she did. And finally, Ms. Ada asks students to both rate and explain the ratings on the reading fluency rubric poster. As students become more proficient in rating the teacher’s, the group’s, their peers’, and their own reading, they are also taught how to “fix up” specific reading fluency problems. Ms. Ada explains, models, and guides her students’ practice through specific types of fluency problems and fix up for each type of fluency problem displayed in the classroom fluency definition poster. Fix-up strategies that Ms. Ada’s students learn and use are shown in Figure 3.2. In subsequent lessons throughout the year, Ms. Ada encourages her second-­grade students to self-­assess their reading fluency and then use these fix-up strategies with other classmates and themselves during group and individual reading fluency practice each day.

Extension One extension that Ms. Ada has used to increase her students’ metafluency awareness is called “Rate the Experts.” In this activity, students listen to prerecorded oral readings of books on tape obtained at the local public library or volunteer parent readings of short poems, information, or story excerpts on podcasts or MP3 audio files, and the like. Ms. Ada instructs her volunteer parent readers to read as they

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Accuracy 1. Slow down your reading speed. 2. Look carefully at the words and the letters in the words you didn’t read correctly on the page. 3. Think about if you know this word or parts of this word. Try saying the word or word parts. 4. Make the sound of each letter from left to right and blend the sounds together quickly to say the word. 5. Listen carefully to see if the word you said makes sense. 6. Try rereading the word in the sentence again. 7. After saying the word, use pictures to help you make sure you have the right word. 8. If the word still doesn’t make sense, ask someone to help you. Rate 1. Adjust your reading speed to go slower when the text is difficult or unfamiliar, or you need to read to get detailed information. 2. Adjust your reading speed to go faster when the text is easy or familiar, or you are reading to just enjoy the book. Expression 1. Try to read three or more words together before pausing, stopping, or taking a breath. 2. Take a big breath and try to read to the comma or end punctuation without stopping for another breath. 3. Be sure to raise or lower your pitch when you see punctuation marks at the ends of sentences.

FIGURE 3.2.  Fluency “fix-up” strategies for major fluency definition elements. From Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B. (2012). Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the Difference, 6th Edition, copyright 2012, p. 190. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

normally would for the prerecorded audio files, or alternatively, she may ask them to exhibit elements of disfluent reading in some parts of the text. Students enjoy listening to the expert reader while reading along with him or her. They eagerly and closely follow the reading in order to detect problems in fluency. Their discussion of exceptionally fluent and nonfluent readings in class help them internalize the nature of fluent and nonfluent reading.

Your Turn: Preparation and Implementation Preparing and implementing effective metafluency lessons begins with identifying a “scope and sequence” of skills, concepts, and strategies that fluent readers need to know and be able to do. Using the definition of reading fluency in this chapter, you need to prepare lessons (and reading materials) for addressing the following fluency elements that lead to or make comprehension possible: 

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Increasing Students’ Metafluency Awareness

Accuracy: (1) reading accurately and (2) reading inaccurately. Automaticity (speed or rate): (1) reading too fast, (2) reading too slow, and (3) reading at “just the right rate” for the text or task. Phrasing and smoothness: (1) reading with appropriate phrasing as indicated by punctuation, (2) reading with two- or three-word phrasing, and (3) word-by-word reading. Expression: (1) reading with appropriate pitch, stress, and intonation as indicated by punctuation and (2) reading in a monotone style. Volume: (1) reading with a just-right volume (2) reading too loudly, (3) and reading too softly. Next, prepare a set of charts, displays, or posters to be used during brief, 5- to 7-minute, metafluency lessons as shown in the illustration of fluency fix-up strategies (see Figure 3.3). Once you have identified the scope and sequence element of metafluency for instructional emphasis, prepare an explicit lesson using the reproducible fluency lesson template in Form 3.1. Be sure as you prepare this lesson that you involve the students in rating the quality of the fluent reading you model and that of the group. The frequent use of the reading fluency rating rubric with consistent teacher reminders will help students develop a personal propensity to engage in self-­monitoring of their own reading fluency. Over time and with consistent practice students will increasingly profit from reading fluency feedback provided by others and eventually

FIGURE 3.3.  Fluency fix-up strategies.

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MODELING FLUENCY FOR STUDENTS

become self-­regulating readers who monitor and control their own reading fluency and fix-up strategies when their reading is not leading to the end product of reading: reading comprehension.

References Good, R. H., Simmons, D. C., & Kame’enui, E. J. (2001). The importance and decision-­ making utility of a continuum of fluency- based indicators of foundational reading skills for third-grade high-stakes outcomes. Scientific Studies in Reading, 5(3), 257–288. Hoffman, J. V. (2003). Foreword. In T. V. Rasinski, The fluent reader: Oral reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency, and comprehension (pp. 5–6). New York: Scholastic. Opitz, M. F., & Rasinski, T. V. (2008). Good-bye round robin: 25 effective oral reading strategies (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Rasinski, T. V. (2010). The fluent reader: Oral reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency, and comprehension (2nd ed.). New York: Scholastic. Rasinski, T. V., Reutzel, D. R., Chard, D., & Linan-­T hompson, S. (2011). Reading fluency. In M. L. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, E. B. Moje, & P. P. Afflerbach (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 4, pp. 286–319). Philadelphia: Routledge. Reutzel, D. R. (2012). Hey teacher, when you say fluency, what do you mean?: Developing fluency and meta-­fluency in elementary classrooms. In T. V. Rasinski, C. Blachowicz, & K. Lems (Eds.), Fluency instruction: Research-­based best practices (2nd ed., pp. 114– 140). New York: Guilford Press. Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B. (2012). Teaching children to read: The teacher makes the difference (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

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FORM 3.1

Metafluency Instruction Lesson Plan Template (5–7 Minutes) Objective: Students will be able to read “A Very Important Day” with appropriate phrasing. Supplies: Textbook book copies; markers (red, yellow, green, blue); document camera; student books for choral unison reading. Text Types: Narrative (  )  Information Books (  )  Poetry (  )  Hybrid (X)  Other (  )

Explain: What is to be taught: Today boys and girls we will be learning about phrasing when we read. Important parts of phrasing are reading to the punctuation without pausing or stopping. Marks on the page called punctuation marks (she points to samples) help us to know when we need to pause or stop. When we come to punctuation, we need to remember to raise or lower our pitch as we read. Pitch is how high or low the sounds are that we make with our voices (she demonstrate high and low pitch). Why it is important to learn: Phrasing in reading is important because it helps you and your listeners understand and enjoy the story. When/Where will it be used: Phrasing is always an important part of reading.

Modeling: How you think about this or do it: Appropriate Model: First I am going to read this page with good phrasing while paying attention to what the punctuation tells me to do, such as pause or stop. Please look at the page on the board. Notice that I have colored each type of punctuation mark with a different color to help you see them more clearly. Red is for periods, which tell us to stop and lower our pitch. Yellow is for commas, which tell us to take a quick breath, lower our pitch, and then read on. Blue is for exclamation points, which tell us to stop and raise our pitch. Green is for quotation marks. Quotation marks mean someone is talking, so we change our voice to sound like someone else. Follow what I read with your eyes. Listen very carefully to see if I stop or pause with each punctuation mark.

Non-Modeling: Next I am going to read this page with poor phrasing, paying no or little attention to what the punctuation tells me to do. I won’t pause or stop. Please look at the page on the board. Follow what I read with your eyes. Listen very carefully and watch to see where I should have stopped or paused at the punctuation.

(continued)

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Metafluency Instruction Lesson Plan Template (5–7 Minutes)  (page 2 of 2) Brief discussion of what the children observe. Brief Whole-Group Practice: Whole Group: Now that I have shown you how and how not to read this page, let’s practice with echo reading. This means I read the phrase first and you echo me. We will begin reading this page all together. (Point.) Watch my pen so that we can all stay together. Reminder: Phrasing when we read means to read to the punctuation without pausing or stopping. Remind students that this element of fluent reading, phrasing, is to be applied in allocated reading practice time (oral or silent) with a partner or independently.

Part Two

Assisted Reading Strategies

4

Whole‑Class Choral Reading David Paige

What Is It? For students who have not developed appropriate fluency with connected text, monitored practice, that is, practice under the tutelage of a more fluent reader, is necessary. “Assisted reading” is a term given to a group of fluency-­building reading strategies where a more fluent reader is present and reads with the student to assist with decoding difficult words and monitor for appropriate reading pace and expression or prosody. In other words, assisted reading provides the reader with a model of fluent reading (Dowhower, 1989). Choral reading, paired reading, and reading while listening to an audio-­recorded version of the text are forms of assisted reading. Assisted-­ reading strategies, including choral reading, have been found in numerous studies to improve oral reading fluency. In their report on effective reading strategies, the National Reading Panel (2000) found that assisted reading strategies significantly improved fluency and comprehension in students. Although choral reading is often associated with the primary grades, there is evidence that it is appropriate for and welcomed by older students. In a study using whole-class choral reading (WCCR) where sixth-grade students in the treatment group read chorally for an additional 16 minutes per day, I (Paige, 2011a) found that students significantly and substantially increased their oral reading fluency. The study’s results suggest that students increased their application of decoding principles, resulting in improved word recognition automaticity with fewer decoding errors. Teachers implementing WCCR reported that although students could decode individual words, when they were put together into particular phrases representing unfamiliar

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syntax these words became difficult for them to read fluently as phrases. Teachers noticed improvement in student ability to read these unfamiliar word phrases with fluency during WCCR. In another study (Paige, 2008), teachers reported that students would participate in WCCR because of the anonymity provided by the WCCR format where no one student is called out to read. The emphasis in choral reading is on the class working as a team, reading with “one voice.” This means that no one student is ever recognized as either an excellent reader or one who needs to improve. Both praise and recommendations for improvement from the teachers are always given to the class as a whole. Finally, teachers also report that WCCR was simple to implement and could be easily applied to other content areas including the reading of directions. This flexible feature of choral reading makes it ideal for a variety of instructional settings.

How Do I Do It? Text Selection Before implementing WCCR, choose the text or texts to be read to and by the class. To aid in your text selection, think about how WCCR can be incorporated into your broader curriculum. For example, perhaps you’re teaching a science or social studies unit. Choosing texts from either a textbook or a grade-level related trade book that is closely aligned with the science or social studies curriculum provides the opportunity to leverage the WCCR strategy by building both fluency and content knowledge simultaneously. Because WCCR is an assisted-­reading strategy that provides students immediate support while reading, grade-level text can be used even if many of your students are reading below grade level. Another decision is to determine if a repeated (deep) or wide reading implementation of WCCR is desired. In a repeated-­reading implementation students read the same text over one or more days. For example, an instructional routine that I’ve found to be successful is one involving three readings of the text on day 1. The first is a read-aloud by the teacher to model fluent reading that is then followed immediately by a whole-class choral reading. To reinforce familiarity with the text, a second WCCR helps students remember unfamiliar words and phrasing that they have just encountered for the first time. On days 2 and 3, a single WCCR is used both to reinforce previous learning and to encourage students to be attentive to the finer points of fluent reading such as reading with prosody (expression). The key is to read the text a sufficient number of times for the students to gain fluency over the passage. You need to be the judge of the number of readings that are necessary. In a wide reading implementation, highly similar but different texts in terms of both content and reading level would be used, meaning students read a different text each day. Both strategies for implementing WCCR are successful, so it is your choice. One approach would be to initially implement a repeated-­reading strategy with WCCR. If doing a repeated-­reading version, we recommend a minimum of 4

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Whole-Class Choral Reading

and a maximum of 6 repetitions, depending on how the class progresses, with 5 being a good rule of thumb. After students have become comfortable with WCCR in repeated reading format, a wide reading strategy could then be used. The actual length of the WCCR passage is also important. My recommendation is to use texts that students can read in 2 to 3 minutes. Once a text decision is made, prepare the passage so that each student will have his or her own copy (an example is provided at the end of this chapter). You may identify several specific vocabulary words in the passage that you suspect may be difficult for students. These words can be bolded in the text to allow students to find them quickly as you will want to review the words before reading. Now that the text has been chosen and prepared for students, a helpful framework for the implementation of WCCR is to think in terms of before, during, and after reading (Paige, 2011a, 2011b).

Before Reading

1

Pass out the WCCR text for the day to students, keeping in mind that each student must have his or her own copy.

2 To aid comprehension, provide students with a very brief overview of the passage topic.

3 Review any vocabulary words that were highlighted in the text for pronunciation and initial meaning.

4 On Monday, model a fluent reading of the entire text while students follow

along silently. Advise the students to listen carefully to the three indicators of fluent reading: automaticity (the rate at which the text is read), word accuracy (how words are pronounced), and the expression (or prosody) with which you read the text.

5 After modeling the text, ask students for questions about specific words that they would like reviewed.

During Reading

1

To begin students reading on cue or at the same time, instruct them to begin reading after you countdown “Three, two, one.” After a false start or two, students will get the idea.

2 The emphasis is on reading the passage with one voice. This requires you to lead the reading in a voice that everyone can hear. In this role, you act as a kind of metronome to keep the class reading together.

3 While reading the passage aloud with the class, walk about the room and listen for “rough spots,” proper phrasing, and prosody.



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ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES

After Reading

1

Based on your monitoring, review words and phrases that were difficult for the class. Again, the emphasis is on the class as one, collective voice and no one individual.

2 This is a good time to give the class encouragement by highlighting what was done well and guiding students toward greater improvement.

3 On Monday it is often good practice to lead the class in a second reading. This allows for immediate reinforcement of what was done well, and a second attempt at correcting what was difficult.

On Tuesday and Wednesday these steps can be modified to allow for student improvement. As students gain competence with the reading, you can utilize a gradual-­ release-­ of-­ responsibility strategy (Pearson, 1985; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) by lowering the volume of your voice and allowing students to take more of the lead in the reading. Eventually you should not have to join in at all as the class is able to engage in a proper reading of the text on their own. If using a repeated-­reading implementation of WCCR, and assuming that students are now competent with the text, Thursday and Friday can involve variations in the WCCR implementation. For example, split the class in two and have one half read a sentence followed by the other half reading the next sentence, a rendition known as “antiphonal reading.” In echo reading, one half of the group reads a sentence or paragraph followed by the other half reading the same text. This is continued until the passage is completed.

Example: WCCR in Action Ms. Abernathy teaches fifth grade and is concerned that her students lack proper reading fluency. After reading an article that pointed out that the poorest readers spend less than 10 minutes per week actually reading, Ms. Abernathy decided to turn to WCCR. She calculated that if students spent just 2.5 minutes per day reading with WCCR, this would add up to 12.5 minutes per week, a significant increase in time-spent-­reading for many students. Ms. Abernathy taught social studies daily. Her students struggled with reading the text due to unfamiliar words, syntax, and content. She had difficulty getting them beyond just basic learning of the content. After reading about WCCR and how it could be applied to content subjects, Ms. Abernathy decided to implement the strategy in her social studies class. The upcoming social studies unit dealt with the topic of rivers—­how they form, their impact on the surrounding geography, and how they generally shape human activities. These three topics would be presented to students over the course of 3 weeks. Ms. Abernathy devised a plan where she would use a wide reading WCCR strategy. The content for each daily reading would be drawn from grade-level trade 

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Whole-Class Choral Reading

books that closely aligned with the three big topics on rivers. She also decided that each topic would be read 1 week prior to its presentation in class. Her curriculum and WCCR readings were planned as shown in Figure 4.1. From Ms. Abernathy’s plan it can be seen that WCCR using passages on each topic began 1 week before she actually taught the topic. Ms. Abernathy reasoned that she could use WCCR to begin building student knowledge of both the content vocabulary and the content itself, while also working to improve student fluency with content texts. For each topic, Ms. Abernathy carefully constructed five, 250word passages from two different trade books that used similar vocabulary and addressed the same content knowledge that she would be presenting the following week (15 passages over the 3 weeks). When assembling a sequence of passages, Ms. Abernathy constructed them in a manner where each subsequent passage built on the preceding one. Her idea was to engage students by arousing their curiosity about “what comes next.” Ms. Abernathy was certain to use specific content vocabulary across multiple texts to ensure that students would have frequent encounters with important academic vocabulary. These words would be those that she would put on her academic word wall. Finally, Ms. Abernathy focused on constructing passages that introduced the foundational content that she would be teaching in the next week or two. This would allow her to spend less time on the basics and free her instructional time to take students deeper into the content. To implement WCCR, Ms. Abernathy followed the implementation plan outlined above with an important modification. Since students were reading a different, but closely related passage each day (a wide reading implementation), she modeled the new passage each day and then had students read it aloud twice. This allowed her students to gain exposure to a larger amount of content while gaining valuable practice reading new and unfamiliar text. Ms. Abernathy calculated that her students were reading aloud a little over 4 minutes per day, a total of 20 minutes per week. The first week of implementation was difficult as a number of her poor readers did not want to participate. On the other hand, the better readers thought WCCR was fun, and they liked the novel idea of sounding “like a choir.” After several days of WCCR, the class began to come together in their reading, several of the reluctant readers began to participate, and Ms. Abernathy (and students) quickly gained

Curriculum Topics Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

WCCR

1. How Rivers Form

2. Geography of Rivers

3. Impact on Human Activities

Next unit

Curriculum

Previous unit

1. How Rivers Form

2. Geography of Rivers

3. Impact on Human Activities

FIGURE 4.1.  Ms. Abernathy’s curriculum and WCCR.

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ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES

confidence with the strategy. She learned that it was important to provide a strong model of fluent reading to the class because the text changed every day. She also learned that by the end of the week her students were becoming more confident in their reading. As she took on the role of motivator, encouraging students to “read with one voice,” to “listen to each other,” to read “like a choir,” and to learn how to improve as a class, she found that even her reluctant readers were beginning to respond in a positive manner. The second week brought a new set of readings on the geography of rivers, and Ms. Abernathy continued the WCCR implementation protocol, which she was now quite comfortable with. The second week also began her instruction in social studies class on the Week 1 curriculum, “How Rivers Form,” the topic of the previous week’s WCCR readings. Ms. Abernathy administered a short 10-question formative quiz to assess prior knowledge of the week’s topic, something that she did every week as part of best practice. As anticipated, but still to her surprise, her students’ performance on the weekly test had improved so much from previous weeks that she now needed to alter her lesson plan to account for the previous learning due to WCCR. By the end of the week Ms. Abernathy had been able to go deeper into the content with her class, something that had never happened previously. Students began the week able to correctly read and pronounce the content words in the unit and had developed an initial schema on or understanding of the topic that she could now more readily build upon. Ms. Abernathy decided that she was able to advance the curriculum by at least a full day due to the prior learning afforded by WCCR. The third week brought similar results: much higher scores on the prior knowledge formative assessment, accurate use of new content words, and what Ms. Abernathy perceived to be a higher level of interest in the topic. By the end of the week she was able to introduce higher order thinking tasks into the social studies curriculum with better student outcomes. She concluded that developing WCCR passages required more work on her part, but the payoff in student learning and achievement was more than worth it.

Extensions Classroom opportunities offer several extensions of WCCR. For example, one enterprising teacher relayed this story. “In the past I would read directions to my class— assignments, homework, it didn’t matter. As soon as I finished half a dozen hands would go up asking me what I just said. Now that my students have been trained in WCCR, I never read directions to them. I have the students read the directions, chorally. And now there are no more hands.” Another extension is to spread choral reading to other content areas such as science, language arts, music, art, or even math. In art class, for example, have students chorally read a short poem to accompany a class on painting. In music class have students read (or sing) aloud in unison the lyrics to a song. If necessary, modify the lyrics slightly to ensure they flow, or better yet, give the students a writing assign

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Whole-Class Choral Reading

ment where they modify the lyrics and then read the best in a WCCR activity before setting them back to music. In science class as in social studies, make use of trade books to set curriculum topics to WCCR in new and interesting ways. Imagine the impact of harnessing WCCR to increase reading across the school by even 10 minutes per day—that’s 50 minutes per week! For many students this may be a four-to five-fold increase in time-spent-­reading, a significant amount that can make a difference for many students.

Your Turn WCCR is easy to implement. Begin with a repeated-­reading strategy of a text that you expect students to be able to read. Take the text directly from the curriculum so that it addresses the vocabulary and content that you’re responsible for teaching. Highlight vocabulary and make sure the text is divided into paragraphs rather than presented as one extended paragraph. Once the text has been selected and prepared, use the implementation steps listed earlier. Using WCCR requires two important steps. The first is your commitment to actually implement the strategy. Some teachers may not think that choral reading has much value beyond the primary grades. My own work in this area suggests that opposite: choral reading has great value in a number of ways. The second step is to stick with the strategy long enough so that your students begin to hear themselves improve. Gains will not occur by doing WCCR once. This instructional method needs to be a regular part of your literacy and content-­area curriculum. Once students hear themselves improving in their reading, they will likely be motivated to continue to improve their reading. You can use Form 4.1 with your students as a “self-check” when they participate in WCCR. With regular implementation student will also find WCCR enjoyable. Whether you choose to implement a repeated-­reading strategy where the same text is read over several days or a wide reading strategy where new but similar text is introduced every day, it is important to prepare the text in advance. WCCR is an easy and fun strategy with application across the curriculum that helps students become better and more confident readers with grade-level text.

References Dowhower, S. L. (1989). Repeated reading: Theory into practice. The Reading Teacher, 42, 502–507. National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-­based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (National Institutes of Health Pub. No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Paige, D. D. (2008). An evaluation of whole-class choral reading using science text on oral reading fluency in struggling adolescents. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Memphis.

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37 

ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES Paige, D. D. (2011a). 16 minutes with “eyes-on-text” can make a difference: Whole-class choral reading as an adolescent reading strategy. Reading Horizons 51(1), 1–20. Paige, D. D. (2011b). “That sounded good!”: Using whole-class choral reading to improve fluency. The Reading Teacher, 64, 435–438. Pearson, P. D. (1985). Changing the face of reading comprehension instruction. The Reading Teacher, 38, 724–738. Pearson, P. D., & Gallagher, M. C. (1983). The instruction of reading comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8, 317–344.

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38 

Form 4.1

Student Self-Check for Whole-Class Choral Reading Encourage students to answer the following statements for themselves as a self-check when participating in choral reading.

After the first reading or two:

Yes

No

Yes

No

1. I read the text silently to myself while I listen to the teacher read it aloud. 2. I make a “mental note” of words I am not sure how to pronounce. 3. While reading with the class, I pace myself with the teacher. 4. While reading with the class, I listen to the teacher for pronunciation of words I don’t know. 5. In order to read with expression, I try to copy the way my teacher reads.

After several readings: 1. I don’t need to listen to the teacher quite as much. 2. While reading, I listen to my classmates so we are “reading with one voice.” 3. I’m becoming more confident with reading this passage. 4. I can hear myself becoming a better reader.

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

5

Paired Reading Timothy R asinski and Nancy Padak

What Is It? Do you recall learning to ride a bicycle without training wheels? It was challenging at first, we’re sure. However, most of us had help. Usually our mom, dad, brother, or sister would run along beside us, holding the back of the seat, and keep us upright as we peddled. As the runs with our “helper” continued he or she would gradually release a bit of control from his or her grasp. Eventually that helper of ours would be running next to us, but would not be holding us up at all—we were riding our bikes on our own! Do you think this kind of help is possible in learning to read? Well it already exists, and its name is paired reading (PR). Although there are variations to PR that go by a number of different names (e.g., neurological impress method), we feel that the term “paired reading” really captures the essence of two readers reading, with one of them as the “helper” or guide for the other reader The research base for PR is quite impressive. Keith Topping, a school psychologist from the United Kingdom, was the first to write about PR. He was looking for a simple and quick way for parents to help their children grow as readers by improving their fluency. In his initial studies he asked parents to sit side by side with their children and for 10 to 15 minutes read a book or other text chosen by the child. Rather than alternate lines or paragraphs Topping asked parents to actually read along with their child—two readers reading together. So as the child was doing his or her best to read a text, the parent acted as the “helper.” The child could hear his or her parent’s fluent rendering of the same text. If the child wanted to solo read for a while, a nonverbal signal given by the child alerted the parent to read quietly while the child read orally. If the child hit a rough spot in his or her reading the parent simply jumped back into the reading, switching 

40 



Paired Reading

from silent to oral reading. Rather than turn the difficulty into an on-the-spot lesson, the goal of the PR was to maintain the fluent reading. Based on implementation and evaluation studies of PR, Topping (1987) reports that students involved in PR “make 3 times normal progress in reading accuracy and 5 times normal progress in reading comprehension” (p. 613). In other words, students who previously were making a half month’s progress for every month of reading instruction would now make 6 to 10 weeks progress in reading with the addition of a daily PR approach. Although those gains are likely to attenuate over time, it seems clear that PR has great potential for accelerating reading growth of struggling readers in fluency and comprehension.

How Do I Do It? PR is quite simple to implement. It requires a good reader (tutor) working 5 to 15 minutes per day with a student who needs assistance. The tutor could be you the teacher, a parent volunteer in your classroom, an older student, a student of the same age who is more advanced in reading, or parents working at home with their child. The specific protocol is laid out in Form 5.1, adapted from Toppings’s work, to share with parents or other volunteers you may wish to train for PR. Here is the daily procedure in a nutshell: Tutor and student sit side by side and for 5 to 15 minutes orally and together read a text chosen by the student. The student points to the words in the text as he or she reads. The tutor reads expressively and adjusts his or her reading to the pacing of the student. If the student wishes to read alone for a while he or she signals the tutor. The tutor then continues reading with the student, but silently. If the student encounters difficulty while reading alone the tutor returns to oral reading, says the difficult word(s), has the student say the word, and then continues reading together. Discuss the text before and after the reading with the student. If you are teaching PR to parents, paraprofessionals, students, or others who may not be familiar with the PR protocol, it is critical to provide training. A onehour workshop in which you go through the steps of PR (see Form 5.1), demonstrate doing PR with a student, and then have whomever you are training practice PR with their own student is normally sufficient to develop basic proficiency among tutors. However, it is always a good idea to follow up with periodic workshops to review PR and show tutors how they can extend the PR procedure into other literacy activities such as word harvesting, word games, word sorts, writing responses to what was read, developing artistic interpretations of the text, and so on. Helaine Donovan and Marilyn Ellis (2005) developed a PR program for parents of struggling readers

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ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES

in their school. Every 6 weeks they run a workshop for parents and their children to practice PR more deeply, answer questions, and nurture the joy of parents and children reading together in the PR way. After the initial workshop where parents learn the PR protocol, they have parents and children sign a contract (see Form 5.2 for an adapted and reproducible version of the contract) in which they commit themselves to making PR a daily part of their family routine. Donovan and Ellis note that not only do students make remarkable growth in their reading, parents find PR a wonderful way to connect with their children through reading. One parent wrote, “Margarita and I enjoy our reading time together. She has developed a real passion for reading, and I believe this program sparked her interested to read more” (p. 177). If students read more it is very likely that they will become better readers.

Extensions PR lends itself to many iterations. As we mentioned earlier, we see the major ways to implement PR is either in school between teacher and student or at home between parent and child. However, the PR tutor can also be a volunteer in the school or classroom, an older student, or even a tutor at the same grade level as the student to be tutored. The key is for the peer tutor to be a more advanced reader that the student. We often think of PR as being an activity done during the school year. However, PR can easily be adapted for parent–­child use during the summer months. Ten minutes per day of PR can go a long way to prevent the summer reading setback that plagues so many of our struggling readers. Short-term PR projects can be developed for extended breaks during the school year, such as winter recess or spring break. Some teachers think that the one-to-one ratio between student and teacher is a bit inefficient use of the strategy. We know teachers who have adapted PR so that one teacher reads with two or three students. Indeed Jamie Nelson, a local second-­ grade teacher, uses her document camera to do a version of PR with her entire class. Whenever she reads to students, she puts the book under the document camera so that the entire class can see the text. Then, as she reads the text aloud, she asks the girls and boys to alternate reading paragraphs with her. Each day she thinks of a different way to divide her class so that half the class is always reading aloud and along with her. “I know not all students are following along as we read together,” Jamie notes, “but just think of the potential. If we do my form of whole-class Paired Reading 10 minutes per day over the course of a 180-day school year, and if the students are actually reading along with me for half of that time, that is an additional 900 minutes, or 15 hours, of additional supportive reading. I know that will make a difference in my students’ lives.” Of course PR can also be extended by instructional activities that follow the PR period. The text that tutor and student read can and should be discussed. Interesting words from the text can be harvested and studied for word families or word roots. Students and tutors can compose summaries of what they have read. Indeed, 

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Paired Reading

c­ reative tutors and students can transform the text they have read into a poem, a song, a Readers Theatre script, or some other text form.

Example Mrs. Knox, principal of Jefferson Elementary School, wanted to get parents more involved in the life of her school. She worked with the Title I teachers, Mrs. Cash and Mr. Gerlach, to develop an in-­school Paired Reading Program for their school. The call went out for parent volunteers who could come to the school three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) for an hour, at the end of the school day. Within a week seven parents volunteered for the program. Mrs. Cash and Mr. Gerlach provided training in PR in a 1-hour workshop for the parent volunteers. The parents, then, were assigned a spot in the school: two were assigned to the school library, one parent took over Mrs. Knox’s office while she walked through the school, one was given an alcove in one of the school hallways, and the other three volunteers took over corners in the parent resource room. Each parent was assigned four students, primarily struggling readers. During the parents’ 1-hour PR duty three days each week, the four children visited their assigned PR tutor in 15-minute increments. The children showed up with a book in hand they wished to read. After a brief hello, parent and student sat side-by-side reading the text together for 10 to 15 minutes. At the end of the reading, the pair discussed what they read. The student then returned to his or her room and a new student met with the parent for the next 15-minute period. Mrs. Knox and the Title teachers are thrilled with the program. “Parents feel like they are doing something that is making a difference in students’ lives. And they are,” Mrs. Knox reports. “Our seven parents provide a total of 28 struggling readers with about 45 minutes of additional reading each week (15 minutes per day × 3 days per week). The only students who are not making exceptional progress are the ones who have missed a lot of school or who forget to come to their Paired Reading parent. I hope to double the size of this program next year. My challenge is to find space for 14 parents. But don’t worry. With the success I see in our Paired Reading program, I will make it happen!”

Your Turn The Jefferson School Paired Reading Program is a superb example of how creative teachers and school administrators can modify PR to fit the particular needs of students. How might you try to use PR in your own classroom? Here are some things to consider as you develop your own PR program: Who will be the PR tutors in my program—­myself, parents, students? What students would benefit most from PR?

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ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES

How I will arrange training for my PR tutors? What sort of follow-­up training will my PR tutors need? How will I keep enthusiasm in PR high? How will I monitor the PR training? (How often is PR done? How many minutes are devoted to PR?) How will I determine the effectiveness of my PR program? We love PR for a number of reasons. We are both strong advocates for parental involvement in children’s literacy. We want our instructional and intervention programs to be simple and easy to implement and efficient in terms of time. We want programs that have empirical evidence of their effectiveness in improving fluency and overall reading achievement. And, we want programs that involve authentic reading for authentic purposes. PR satisfies all of these criteria. We hope that you will consider adopting or adapting it for your own classroom.

References Donovan, H., & Ellis, M. (2005). Paired Reading—­More than an evening of entertainment. The Reading Teacher, 59, 174–182. Topping, K. (1987). Paired reading: A powerful technique for parent use. The Reading Teacher, 40, 608–614.

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Form 5.1

How to Do Paired Reading at School and Home It’s Fun to Read Together 1. Sit side by side with your student. Together read the words in the text out loud. Adjust your reading rate so that is at approximately the student’s speed. Read with good expression—you are modeling fluent reading for your student. 2. As you read together, the student must visually track and read every word. Have your student point to the words as he or she reads them with a finger or card. 3. When a word is read incorrectly simply say the word aloud and have your student immediately repeat the word. 4. Demonstrate your own interest in the book or text your student has chosen. Talk about the pictures. Talk about content of the book as you read it together. Try to do most of your talking before or after the reading so that the student does not lose track of where he or she is in the text. When you are done reading a section of the text ask your student what he or she thinks will happen next. Asking prediction questions is a powerful comprehension strategy. It Doesn’t Take Much Time 1. Your student will have the greatest benefit if you do Paired Reading every day for 5 to 15 minutes. Don’t read to the point where your student feels fatigued. 2. Select a time that is most convenient for both you and your student. It can be before or after school, after lunch, or during a break in the school day. If students are doing Paired Reading with one another, you can select a time when the whole class does it—after lunch or recess is always a good time to read a book together. If parents are doing Paired Reading try to select a convenient time where both the parent and student are not tired. 3. Paired Reading is so simple to do that if you unable to do Paired Reading with your student, you can easily train substitutes to come into your class. Parent volunteers, other school staff members, even older students can act as Paired Reading tutors in your classroom. You may wish to train a cadre of parent volunteers to come into your room three times a week to do Paired Reading with selected students. Find a Comfortable Place 1. Try to find a place that’s quiet. In a school setting this may be difficult. But try to find a place where you and your student will not be distracted by extraneous sounds. 2. Try to find a place that’s private. No one else should be in the room. This is a great opportunity for you (or a parent) to spend time with just one student. Perhaps you can use room dividers to set up a Paired Reading corner in your classroom. 3. Try to find a place that’s comfortable so both readers can concentrate on the story without having to shift around. An old couch can work wonders. Try to make Paired Reading a warm and enjoyable experience for your student and yourself. (continued)

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

How to Do Paired Reading at School and Home  (page 2 of 2) When Your Student Wants to Read Alone 1. When you are reading together and your student feels confident enough to solo, allow your student to read alone without your assistance. Develop a nonverbal signal for you to stop reading aloud. This could be a knock, squeeze, or tap with the elbow, or even a soft elbow in the ribs. As your student continues reading on his or her own, you continue reading as well, but silently. 2. When the student comes to a word that he or she is unable to decode or is having difficulty decoding, wait 5 seconds to allow the student time to decode the word. If the word is read correctly, be sure to praise your student. However, if the student is unable to decode the word, then simply say the difficult word aloud. Have your student repeat the word and both of you continue reading together out loud until the next signal to read alone. If your student mispronounces a word, simply read the word aloud correctly, have the student repeat the word, and continue reading together out loud until the next signal to read alone. Try not to stop the reading at a point of error and difficulty to make a mini-lesson out of the error. Stopping for a quick lesson will disrupt the flow of the language, distract the student from the reading, and have a negative impact on comprehension. Make a mental note of any difficulty that the student experiences and take a few minutes after the reading to revisit, explore, and reteach those areas with your student. 3. If you are unable to finish a book or chapter in one sitting, briefly summarize and discuss what happened so far in the story on the following day before you start reading where you left off. 4. If you finish a text before the end of the time, read it again. Repeated reading is very good practice. It builds confidence and comprehension. You may even wish to ask the student to read the text a second time with less support from you. You may wish to shadow read with the student—allow your voice to soften in volume and follow the student’s voice. Or perhaps you may wish to read at a slightly faster clip than in the initial reading. 5. Keep in mind that the ultimate focus of Paired Reading is enjoyment and reading together. We want students to learn to love reading and reading with a partner. Paired Reading is a wonderful way to make this happen! Some Points to Remember Point to the words while reading. Adjust your pace to the child’s. Read with good expression. Discuss the text; ask for predictions; comment on the language. Wait 5 seconds before saying a word the students has difficulty with. Child repeats word. Be sure to praise the student for his or her efforts. Develop a nonverbal signal for solo reading by the student.

Form 5.2

Paired Reading Contract Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

In the boxes above please record the number of minutes you spent in Paired Reading each day over the month of       . We promise to do Paired Reading at least 10 minutes daily during the month of       . We know that Paired Reading will help children become better readers.



Parents’ signatures and date

Child’s signature and date

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

6

Audio‑Assisted Reading Kristine E. Pytash and K aybeth C alabria

What Is It? Coaches will often tell athletes that it is not practice that improves performance, but “perfect practice makes perfect performance.” In the teaching of reading, perfect practice is often closely associated with repeated readings due to teachers’ and students’ attention to accurate and automatic word recognition (Rasinski, 1990). “Assisted reading,” reading while simultaneously listening to a fluent reading, is another powerful tool to develop fluency. One form of assisted reading, audio texts (audio-­recorded books or other recorded texts), can create opportunities for perfect practice for readers of all ages and of varying reading skills. Audio texts read by actors or fluent readers convey the rich expressive qualities and expert phrasing of written language, thereby assisting students in comprehending text. By listening to dynamic and confident readers, students can develop an internalized model of fluent reading (Rasinski, Homan, & Biggs, 2009). When a student reads aloud or silently with an audio text, the audio text serves as a scaffold for the student’s growth in reading with the inflection, voice, tone, and pace of a more skillful reader (Baskin & Harris, 1995). Audio-­assisted instructional devices, including old technology—­tape recorders—and new technology—­iPods and iPads—have all demonstrated positive results (Esteves & Whitten, 2011). These devices allow an expert reader to clearly model accurate and automatic decoding, appropriate expression and phrasing, and prosodic reading. The use of audio texts in the classroom and at home adds one more scaffolding tool to assist students in becoming fluent readers (Rasinski & Padak, 2005). Research has demonstrated that reading along with an audio recording increases the reading fluency and comprehension of students with learning disabilities and struggling readers (Carbo, 1981; Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; Esteves & Whitten, 

48 



Audio-­Assisted Reading

2011). In addition, students who are English language learners have profited from rereading books with audiotapes at home (Koskinen et al., 1999). Not only does this individualized format of using audio tools increase fluency, but various studies have reported increases in the discussion of books at school and at home, in a child’s free time spent in reading, and in children’s confidence to read more difficult text (Esteves & Whitten, 2011; Koskinen et al., 1999).

How Do I Do It? First, conduct an inventory of old and new technology that is available to use in the classroom. Figure 6.1 serves as a guideline to complete the inventory and identifies the possible advantages and disadvantages of specific tools. In addition, ask parents what technology is available in their homes. Children can make fluency gains when they practice reading along with audio recordings at their homes. Next, develop a catalogue of available audio texts. You may already have books with accompanying CDs or tapes. If the books have become frayed and worn, you can laminate the pages and place them into three-ring binders. Purchasing quality audio recordings with the accompanying texts for your classroom library or school library is a wise investment. The following list can provide you with potential sources of free online audio books: Ambling Books (www.amblingbooks.com) maintains a site of 1,500 books from Librivox, an online publisher of public domain audio books read by volunteers. Classics such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Anne of Green Gables are available on this site. Bus Songs (www.bussongs.com) has a large collection of lyrics, videos, and music for 2,247 children’s songs and nursery rhymes. The collection of songs includes counting songs, multicultural songs, and fun “camp” songs. You can search for the songs by title or lyrics. Folger Shakespeare Library (www.folger.edu) has a wealth of online teaching resources, including Shakespeare lesson plans and audio and video podcasts. A link on this site, “Shakespeare for Kids,” offers Shakespeare-­related games and activities. Inkless Tales (www.inklesstales.com) is a site with a variety of fictional stories for primary students. The audio quality is not as good as on some of the other sites, but fluent expressive reading is modeled. Lit 2 Go (http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go), a site maintained by the University of South Florida, is part of the Educational Technology Clearinghouse’s extensive resource for texts online. Text and audio public-­domain classics can be found on Lit2Go. This site is particularly easy to navigate because teachers can search by author, book, genre, collection, and readability. The site even lists Flesch–­Kincaid Grade Level readability levels for classic books or poems for readers from 1st grade to 12th grade.

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49 

ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES Technology

Advantages

Disadvantages

Potential uses

CD player and books

Can use prerecorded books that are read at a slower speed and within a child’s instructional level (Carbo Recorded books, K–8).

Books may become worn.

Small-group instruction

A CD player or access to a computer to “read” the CD is needed.

Reading station and individual use

Free online audio books read by actors or fluent readers

The pace of reading may be too quick for some readers.

Online books have either captioning or text.

For published stories, may need to calculate readability or reference a book’s lexile.

Can be used with interactive white board for small-group instruction.

Computer: audio recordings of books

Can check out and take home the CD and the book if the technology is available at home.

Can be used as a reading station for individual use. Can access at home.

Computer: PowerPoint

Can create a picture book and can record a fluent peer or teacher reading the book synchronized with the PowerPoint slides.

Voice quality may vary depending on the version of PowerPoint and the computer’s recording capabilities.

Can be used with an interactive white board for small-group instruction.

Cost per book that is uploaded

Accuracy is modeled, but not expressive reading.

With the text size, dictionary, and highlighting, an e-reader can be an interactive text for children; it can read sentences or passages to provide text support for unfamiliar words.

Cost per book that is uploaded can be prohibitive.

Individual and small-group instruction

Can scan a book into PowerPoint slides E-readers (Kindle and Nook)

iPad

Can download books from a variety of sources.

Can download books from a variety of sources that are read with natural speech. Can create own book.

iPod or MP3 player

Tape recorder

Book passages or reader’s Free books can be located, theater with an audio but the recorded voice can be accurate, though not particularly component can be created. expressive. The text version of the downloaded book would have to be located.

Can use prerecorded books.

Books may be worn due to this “older” technology; would need to laminate the books.

Tape recordings by fellow students can create classroom reading buddies.

Tape storage and maintenance

Tapes and books can be sent home.

Text and audio can be personalized. Voice Threads can be universally accessed online. The recorded voice is natural sounding.

A Voice Thread can be timeconsuming to create. An account must be established.

With this online application, PowerPoint slides, pictures, text can be created with accompanying self-recorded audio.

Would have to have a supply of earphones for each child.

FIGURE 6.1.  Technology inventory.

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50 

Individual practice can occur in a reading center.

Can quickly download free books or purchase audio books. The equipment does not take up space.

Can record the reading of a book by a teacher or a fluent reader in the classroom or from another grade level. Voice Thread

Uses a mechanical voice that children can find irritating.

Can be uploaded to a website or attached to an e-mail to be read at home.



Audio-­Assisted Reading

Magic Keys (www.magickeys.com/books) contains beautifully illustrated books grouped into categories for young children, older children, and young adults. Unfortunately, only a handful of the books have accompanying audio recordings. PBS kids’ website (www.pbskids.org/lions/stories) has a collection of audio texts for primary students in the following categories: animals, food, folktales and fables, and art and music. Reading Is Fundamental (www.rif.org) has books, rhymes, and songs with audio clips and texts. The site is designed to capture the attention of toddlers and preschool children; however, the site may provide an additional source of audio texts. This site also provides stories read aloud in Spanish. Storyline Online (www.storylineonline.net) is a collection of 20 books that range in reading level from 1.9 to 4.5 (lexiles ranging from 350 to 760). Actors and actresses read the picture books with exemplary prosodic features, thus providing excellent models to highlight all the aspects of fluency. The Screen Actors Guild maintains this site. Storynory (www.storynory.com) is a collection of original and retold classic stories for primary students. The British-­based website provides categories from which to select: original, fairy tales, classic, and educational. The text is provided, but the words are not highlighted as they are read. The books are read by professional actors and may result in your students reading with a delightful and expressive British accent. You can download the stories to an iPod/MP3 device or iPad. Wired for Books (www.wiredforbooks.org/kids.htm), a site maintained by Ohio University, includes “A Kid’s Corner” that features Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Alice in Wonderland, The Gift of the Magi, and The Wizard of Oz. Once audio texts are added to the classroom library collection, you can include audio-­assisted reading as part of your daily schedule. Give students time each day to read and reread passages within their instructional levels. Students can follow a schedule of 10- to 20-minute increments and rotate through a literacy workstation equipped with the texts and audio recordings using older technology: tape recorders, computers, and CD players. In high school settings, high school students can use more portable technology, such as netbooks, iPads, iPods, and MP3 players, at their desks and read silently. Audio-­assisted reading also provides a flexible method for effectively using audio-­assisted texts when working with students in small groups. For example, teachers can use an interactive white board so students can listen to the passages and read the text projected on the screen. During the recordings, you can stop the recording and highlight specific features for the fluent readers. For example, you could point out how the reader paused after different phrases, or how the reader raised his or her voice when asking a question (Thoermer & Williams, 2012). After the students have listened to the story, the students can read the text again either orally or silently.



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ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES

Matching the audio text to the student’s reading rate can be challenging. Many of the audio texts, purchased or online, are read at rates that are too fast and with phrasing that is too advanced for students to comfortably read along orally. Marie Carbo has developed primary-­leveled books that are read at a slower rate (Hudson, Lane, & Pullen, 2005). Another option is to create your own recorded versions of books. For example, students in the upper grades can record books for younger students or fluent readers in the same grades can become reading buddies and record books, poems, song lyrics, and jokes for their peers (Rasinski & Padak, 2008). The classroom-­made recordings can be made on tape, as a podcast, or within a PowerPoint slide presentation. Voice Thread (www.voicethread.com) is an online application that can be used to record voice to accompany text and pictures. An additional advantage of having students create recorded books is that the students who develop the recorded books need to engage in rehearsal (repeated readings) of the books they intend to record. You will also need to consider how to monitor students’ participation in reading aloud with an audio text. As Beers (1998) and Rasinski (1990) have pointed out, if a student is not supervised, then perfect practice may not occur. One potential solution is to assign the oral reading with an audio text as homework, with parents monitoring reading performance. Within the classroom, students may keep logs (see Form 6.1) to demonstrate accountability for their reading. This log asks the students to rate the accuracy, the pace, the phrasing, and the expressiveness of their reading. Of course, a scheduled oral reading of the assigned text to the teacher can provide an incentive to engage in reading with the audio recordings. Developing a literacy workstation can provide shared access to audio texts. At the reading station, students can use a timer and the provided log to rotate through the station at least three times a week. Making family and friends aware that the donation of “old” technology such as tape recorders, CD players, and MP3 players would be welcome gifts can increase the number of students who can participate in a station as well as increase the amount of time in the station.

Example: Audio‑Assisted Reading in Action The welcome mat is definitely out in Ms. Edison’s fourth-­grade classroom when you hear the excitement in her voice as she describes her students and her coteacher, Ms. Belenos, the intervention specialist. She describes how she tries to meet the challenges of an inclusion classroom by planning the use of staffing arrangements, parental involvement, and technology. At the end of the school year, Ms. Edison and Ms. Belenos assessed the available technology in the classroom and noted that they had four computer workstations with Internet connectivity, a CD player, a tape recorder, and an interactive white board. In the classroom library, they had accumulated approximately 10 books with tape or CD recordings. The school library stocked approximately 30 books with audiotapes or CDs. Ms. Edison and Ms. Belenos developed a wish list for an iPad, two e-­readers, and several iPods and additional 

52 



Audio-­Assisted Reading

funds to purchase downloadable online fiction and nonfiction books. With support from the school’s parent organization, they were able to purchase one e-­reader and two iPods for classroom use. Over the summer, the two teachers rescued two CD players and one tape recorder from their friends and families who were discarding “old” technology. At the beginning of the following school year, the teachers composed a letter to send home with students requesting information about the students’ access to technology at home. They knew from information on students’ individualized education plans that the five students with disabilities in their classroom had access to a variety of technology, and the one student who was an English language learner in the classroom had an iPad to assist in translating and composing text. Using all this information, the teachers created reading centers and activities to support the acquisition of fluent reading. In September Ms. Edison worked with a small group of proficient readers who were reading above grade level and preparing to read picture books to first graders. She and the students formed a semicircle around the interactive white board where she had The Rainbow Fish (Pfister, 1995) from www.storylineonline.net displayed on the board. On the first day of instruction, the students and Ms. Edison listened and read silently with Ernest Borgnine’s interpretation of the book. Ms. Edison periodically stopped the online audio text and highlighted the actor’s phrasing, inflection, tone, and pace of reading. On the second day of instruction, Ms. Edison asked students what they noticed as the story was read. After Mr. Borgnine read, “His scales were every shade of blue and green and purple, with sparkling silver scales among them. Oh, beautiful,” Ms. Edison stopped the tape and asked the students, “How did Mr. Borgnine change his voice?” Charlie answered, “He slowed down at each color word and then he speeded up.” Melissa explained, “He really emphasized the word sparkling, and he read it very slowly, and he sounded happy.” Trey added, “He read ‘Oh, beautiful’ with a very big pause after ‘Oh’ and his voice went kinda high when he started the word beautiful.” After the student feedback, Ms. Edison restarted the recording, and the students continued to read quietly aloud with Mr. Borgnine. Ms. Edison listened to individual students and took notes on their reading for later review. She placed this audio text in a literacy workstation to provide the students additional opportunities to read along with Mr. Borgnine. Ms. Edison commented to Ms. Belenos, “I think the students are beginning to understand how their voice interprets the text and adds so much meaning to the text. I am excited for the first graders to hear them read this book!” Ms. Belenos worked individually with Sam, a student with Asperger syndrome. Sam could decode text flawlessly, but his comprehension was at times below expectations. Sam often spoke and read in a monotone fashion, and his reading was often rushed. Ms. Belenos explained to Sam’s parents, “By reading in this way, Sam often misses the nuances of written and oral language, which hinders his comprehension.” Sam’s parents agreed to read with Sam at home and emphasize the melodic quali

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ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES

ties of text. Sam also volunteered to read a picture book to the first-grade class, and he was motivated to practice every day. He selected one of his favorite books from www.pbskids.org, How to Be a Good Dog (Page, 2007). He read the book with his parents and Ms. Belenos several times. He read the book accurately, but he tended to rush through commas and periods. He also read without inflection. Although he heard his parents and Mr. Belenos change their inflection, pause at punctuation, and emphasize certain words with different characters, Sam had made little improvement in reading the book with expression. Ms. Belenos hoped that reading with the audio text would provide the additional modeling that Sam required. Ms. Belenos liked this particular storybook because the book has enlarged certain words for emphasis, and this enlarged print could possibly serve as a visual cue for Sam to change the way he says the words. Ms. Belenos assigned Sam to the literacy workstation for 2 days. He was instructed to read quietly aloud with the audio text. On the third day, Ms. Belenos listened to Sam read along with the audio text. She stopped the audio text at the end of the page. She pointed out to Sam, “I heard your voice become a little louder and slower when you read, “You are a GOOD DOG, Bobo. Come let’s get you a treat.” Sam commented, “I also sounded really happy and excited, when I read ‘get you a treat.’ ” Ms. Belenos smiled and said, “I agree.” As Sam continued to read, she was pleased to hear Sam change his voice and pause as he read the line, “but being good was VERY DIFFICULT.” Sam paused after “but,” and he read “being good” as a phrase; he read on and drew out “was,” and in a big voice Sam read, “VERY DIFFICULT.” Ms. Belenos smiled as she thought, “He is beginning to read with prosody!” After additional fluency practice, Sam’s oral reading improved dramatically; he sounded less robotic and more natural. Also in the classroom, two boys, Tyler and James, worked independently at a computer station to coedit riddles and jokes for children. They posted the comedic material on Voice Thread, an online application. Both students had computers at home and became proficient at uploading pictures, texts, and voice recordings at school and at home. James read the jokes and riddles that they selected with appropriate expression and with a humorous voice. Tyler’s mild cognitive impairment caused him to read below grade level; his oral reading was halting and without affect. Since beginning the project, Tyler can read with greater fluency. Moreover, the boys came to enjoy the status of class comedians and were motivated to keep reading. As Ms. Edison walked around, she stopped to sit down with Tyler and James. She asked, “What is the riddle of the day?” Tyler pushed the button and they listened to him read the riddle, “HOW do YOU make a HAMBURGER for an ELEPHANT?” Tyler successfully emphasized key words in the riddle and let his voice rise as he asked the question. James read the answer with emphasis as he paused at each comma, “FIRST, you take 500 jars of mustard, THEN 60 gallons of catsup, THEN 90 pounds of onions, and then you get this BIG BIG BUN!” Ms. Edison chuckled, “I think this elephant riddle is ready for your Voice Thread joke book.” Through this process of working with a peer and the success he enjoyed in reading 

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Audio-­Assisted Reading

to peers, Tyler gained confidence. Ms. Belenos commented to Ms. Edison, “I am thrilled that I can show Tyler’s improvement at the annual individualized education plan meeting! Everyone can hear Tyler’s improvement in reading accurately and expressively!” Ms. Edison used her planning period to tape-­record chapters of The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School (Fleming, 2007). She had conferred with Leyla’s parents and related her plans, “I would like to send home an audio tape to go with a book that Leyla has selected. I think by Leyla reading along with me that it will help her hear and see the English words; it will help her see and hear how the punctuation signals how my voice will change; and it will help her comprehend the story.” Leyla was an English language learner who had emigrated from Lebanon with her family. She attended a French language school in Lebanon and could speak and read Arabic, French, and English, but reading in English was sometimes challenging. She read in a slow and quiet manner as she carefully decoded words. Leyla requested to read The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School after Ms. Edison read this book to the class. Taking advantage of Leyla’s motivation, at home Leyla read the text along with Ms. Edison’s recording. Leyla’s parents commented to the teachers that they enjoyed listening to the text and Leyla’s reading.

Extensions and Modifications Your use of audio texts may vary due to staffing arrangements, parental involvement, and the availability and type of technology resources. Here are some tips: Either using an interactive white board or a LCD projector, the books online can be projected on a screen; students can then participate in choral readings or whisper-­read while listening to the audiotape. Recruit older students who are fluent readers to record library books appropriate for younger students. Poems, songs, and other types of short text can be easily copied into a PowerPoint presentation. Using the record feature in PowerPoint, a fluent reader can record the text written on each slide. A literacy workstation can be developed with available technology and inexpensive headphones, especially earbuds. By wearing only one ear bud, the students can effectively monitor the volume of their voices.

Your Turn First, you need to assess the technology available in your classroom. List the technology and the audio books that you can use with it. Then brainstorm ways to increase your audio text collection.

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ASSISTED READING STRATEGIES

Second, send a letter home to explain the usefulness of reading aloud with an audio text and asking parents for their assistance. A sample letter is presented in Form 6.2. Ask parents about technology available at home. Students can complete an at-home log before they return to class. Third, set up a reading center with the applicable technology and with an abundant supply of inexpensive earphones or ear buds. Create a rotation schedule for students. A timer may improve the flow of students working at their stations. A log may help to keep students motivated to complete their passages. Finally, evaluate the success of the program by observing student engagement while working in the reading center, students’ requests for more audio books to read, and parents’ comments on a survey about at-home reading. Of course, note students’ gains in fluency, perhaps using procedures outlined in other chapters of this book. Keep in mind that all students can benefit from listening to and reading with more fluent readers. Becoming a fluent reader is a process for the proficient reader as well as the struggling reader because all students benefit from acquiring the internal voice of text across all grade levels and all texts.

References Baskin, B. H., & Harris, K. (1995). Heard any good books lately?: The case for audiobooks in secondary classroom. Journal of Reading, 38, 372–376. Beers, K. (1998). Listen while you read. School Library Journal, 4(4), 30–35. Carbo, M. (1981). Making books talk to children. The Reading Teacher, 35, 18–189. Chard, D. J., Vaughn, S., & Tyler, B. J. (2002). A synthesis of research on effective interventions for building reading fluency with elementary students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 386–406. Esteves, K., & Whitten, E. (2011). Assisted reading with digital audiobooks for students with reading disabilities. Reading Horizons, 51(1), 21–40. Fleming, C. (2007). The fabled fourth graders of Aesop Elementary School. New York: Schwartz & Wade. Hudson, R., Lane, J., & Pullen, P. (2005). Reading fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and how? The Reading Teacher, 58, 702–714. Koskinen, P., Blum, I., Bisson, S., Phillips, S. M., Creamer, T., & Baker, K. (1999). Shared reading, books, and audiotapes: Supporting diverse students in school and at home. The Reading Teacher, 53, 430–444. Page, G. (2007). How to be a good dog. New York: Bloomsbury USA. Retrieved from www. pbs.kids.org. Pfister, M. (1995). The rainbow fish. New York: North South Books. Retrieved from www. storyline.net. Rasinski, T. (1990). Effects of repeated reading and listening while reading on reading fluency. Journal of Educational Research, 83, 147–150. Rasinski, T., Homan, S., & Biggs, M. (2009). Teaching reading fluency to struggling readers: Method, materials, and evidence. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 25 (2–3), 192–204.

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Audio-­Assisted Reading Rasinski, T., & Padak, N. (2005). Three minute reading assessments: Word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. New York: Scholastic. Rasinski, T., & Padak, N. (2008). From phonics to fluency: Effective teaching of decoding and reading fluency in the elementary school (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson. Thoermer, A., & Williams, L. (2012). Using digital texts to promote fluent reading. The Reading Teacher, 65, 441–445.



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Form 6.1.

Audio-Assisted Reading Log and Self-Evaluation Student: Date: Text: Minutes read: After listening to the tape, read 5–10 lines of text independently. Rate your own oral reading: I could read the words correctly. 1 fair

2

3 good

4

5 great

I could read at a good pace and speed up or slow down where appropriate. 1 fair

2

3 good

4

5 great

1 fair

2

3 good

4

5 great

1 fair

2

3 good

4

5 great

2

3 good

4

5 great

2

3 good

4

5 great

I could read with good expression.

I could read in phrases.

I knew what the words in the passage meant. 1 fair

I could understand what I read. 1 fair

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Form 6.2

Sample Letter to Parents Reading News Date:            (Send after the initial crush of letters and forms that are sent home.)

Greetings!! One of my goals for this year is to help students read orally in a lively and expressive way. When your child can read with expression, then your child will better comprehend what he or she reads. One way to accomplish this goal is to have each student orally read the text of a book along with an audio recording of a book. The person reading the text may be a peer, an older student, a teacher, or a professional actor or actress who can model the inflections, phrasing, and tone that are all characteristics of a fluent reader.    I have set up a reading center in the classroom for the students to listen to and read along with the text and audio recording. I would also like your child to read along with an audio recording at home. If you could share with me the types of technology available at home that you are willing to let your child use, I would be grateful. With this information, I can develop reading assignments that are enjoyable for you and your child. Thanks so much!!!

Name of the teacher(s): Name of child: Name of parent(s)/guardian(s):

   compact disc player



   computer with Internet connectivity



   iPad



   iPod



   MP3 device



   tape recorder

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Part Three

Phrasing Strategies

7

Fluency through Phrasing High‑Frequency Words Maryann Mraz and Melissa Sykes

What Is It? While the English language consists of hundreds of thousands of words, some of these words appear more frequently than others in the texts that we read. Several lists of high-­frequency words have been compiled, most notably the Fry Instant Word List (see www.uen.org/k-2educator/word_lists.shtml#frywords). According to Fry (1980; Rasinski & Padak, 2007), the first 100 instant words, such as the, of, and, a, to, and in, are used in up to half of all written material; the top 300 words comprise approximately 65% of all written text (Vacca et al., 2012). A limited amount of practice in reading these words in isolation can be helpful to students for several reasons. The ability to recognize commonly used words by sight helps to improve reading fluency. Students are able to identify words quickly, efficiently, and accurately, thereby reducing the need to labor over common words as they read. Moreover, some high-­frequency words, such as the, is, and are, cannot be sounded with phonic rules; they must be learned by sight. Additionally, while many high-­frequency words do not carry meaning when read in isolation, these function words—such as articles, conjunctions, pronouns, verbs of being, and prepositions—­do help to convey the meaning of connected text. Several strategies, including word banks (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnson, 2011), word walls (Cunningham, 2012), environmental print, and language-­experience strategies have been shown to have beneficial effects on students’ word recognition skills. Although learning high-­frequency words in isolation can help students to recognize these common sight words, such instruction can also have the drawback of reinforcing the concept that reading is simply about recognizing individual words,

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rather than about deriving meaning from a text (Rasinski, 2010). Gaining fluency practice by repeated reading of high-­frequency words in the context of short phrases that contain those words helps to place high-­frequency word study in meaningful contexts. High-­frequency phrase reading also teaches students that, along with reading accurately, and at an appropriate pace, fluent reading means reading smoothly and in meaningful phrases that are marked with appropriate expression. This chapter explains how to introduce high-­frequency words and high-­frequency word phrases to your students. It will suggest a variety of strategies, for both the lower elementary and upper elementary levels, to help students to build fluency by learning high-­frequency words and word phrases.

How Do I Do It? Many students who struggle to achieve fluency may need help in learning high-­ frequency words. Students should learn the words gradually and have multiple opportunities over time to engage with the high-­frequency words in order to build fluency. Using high-­frequency word phrases can help to facilitate this. The 300 words on Fry’s list should be mastered during the early elementary grades. We recommend that teachers focus on just a few phrases per week so that students can have time to practice the high-­frequency phrases through repeated reading and apply them with real texts (Rasinski, 2010). Below are some examples of phrases and short sentences using some of the words on Fry’s Instant Word List First Instant 100 Words list. In each phrase or sentence, the high-­frequency word is bolded: by the sea

the people

part of the time

from my house

all day long

with his dad

It may fall down.

This is my cat.

Look down.

Where did they go?

Here are some basic steps for familiarizing your students with these high-­ frequency word phrases: List five phrases on a white board or chart. Ask your students to listen as you read the phrases aloud to them. Practice reading the phrases chorally with your students several times a day. This only takes a few seconds and can be used as a warm-up activity, as part of a transition to a new activity, or at the beginning or end of the day. Have the students read the phrases on their own. Read a story or text passage that contains the high-­frequency words or phrases that are your focus of study for the week. The very nature of high-­frequency words means that just about any text your students read will contain high-­frequency 

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words and phrases. Ask the students to listen as the passage is read aloud fluently. Then encourage students to use the repeated reading technique so that they can read the passage fluently too. Encourage students and parents to engage in home literacy activities with the high-­frequency word phrases. Simple games, such as word or phrase bingo or matching games like concentration, and even flash cards for quick practice can help to reinforce fluent reading practice.

Extensions High-­frequency word phrase activities can be adapted for a variety of learner levels. Below are some ideas for both lower elementary learners and upper elementary learners.

Lower Elementary Learners High-­frequency words personal “playlists.” As an easy way to differentiate instruction, students can create their own reference book using the high-­frequency word or word phrases with which they need the most practice. As students accumulate additions to their playlist, pictures and sentences can be added to accompany their word and phrase lists. As an extension activity, students can swap playlists to gain additional exposure and fluency practice. For enrichment, students can create sentences or stories using their playlist phrases and playlist words. Word, Word, Bird. Similar to Duck, Duck, Goose, this is a fluency version of the game that incorporates high-­frequency word and phrase reading practice. An easy fluency activity, teachers write targeted words on individual index cards, replacing the word with a picture of a bird on a few. Sitting in a circle, all students randomly select a card from the stack held by the teacher. Their cards will either contain a high-­frequency word or phrase or a picture of a bird. Keeping their cards face down in their laps, one student is selected as the “goose” and must work his or her way around the circle, reading the words as each student flips their card over. When the “goose” reaches a “bird” card, the chase occurs and the students pursue each other around the circle in a manner similar to the traditional game, with one student taking a seat and picking a new card from the stack and the other becoming the “goose” and starting the game over again. Word dice. Use four large foam boxes as “dice” from a board game. Label each of the sides with words or phrases specifically selected as high-­frequency targets for the class. Be sure that one die includes words that can act as the subject of a sentence and another die contains verbs or verb phrases. In pairs or in small groups, have students take turns rolling the dice and reading the words and phrases aloud. An enrichment activity can include students creating sentences from the words or phrases on the dice. Another option is to write complete sentences on the sides of

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two of the dice and replace key words with blanks. Encourage students to roll the dice and complete the sentences they roll using the words from the two remaining dice. If the sentence doesn’t make sense, they must roll again or generate their own answer that allows for sentence completion. Word prints in the sand. As a more tactile approach, fill a shoebox or cookie tray with sand and encourage students to leave “footprints” by tracing high frequency words or phrases using their fingers. Have the students repeat each word or phrase aloud as they trace it. With a simple shake of the box, the slate is wiped clean and the students can start the process over. This game can also be played with personal white boards, on an iPad with a drawing application, or on a class-size white board.

Upper Elementary Learners Have students create sentences containing high-­frequency words or phrases on a dry erase board; then remove one of the words. In a game of Round Robin, have students swap sentences with partners identifying the missing high-­frequency word or phrase that is needed to complete the sentence. High-­ Frequency Dance Party. Create high-­frequency phrase cards and assign specific movements to each phrase. Have students perform the corresponding “dance” for each card, progressively getting faster and faster until students are dancing their way through the list. Guess My Word or Phrase. Have students place a card with a high-­frequency word or phrase card on their forehead and then guess the word or phrase based on clues provided by their peers. The information given to aid student guessing can range from context clues and words that rhyme to connections to the text from which the word or phrase was taken.

Example Incorporating high-­frequency word and phrase lists into fluency instruction can be relatively easy when adapted as part of the daily classroom routine. Miss Coreen, a first-grade teacher, found that read-aloud time, poetry sharing, and even author’s chair where students shared their own writing, provided opportunities to practice high-­frequency word and phrase reading. As an independent activity, Miss Coreen created a high-­frequency word puzzle based on the words her class had been learning, using software found at http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.asp. Form 7.1 shows one puzzle she created from some of the words on Fry’s Instant Word List. Upper elementary teacher Ms. Yost found that her fourth graders who struggled with fluency benefited from lessons that combined fluency with comprehension instruction. Form 7.2 shows how Ms. Yost used familiar nursery rhymes to help students identify the high-­frequency words and phrases needed to complete each story 

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so that it made sense. Once students selected the appropriate words and phrases to complete each text, they practiced reading the text aloud, and even recorded their personal narration of the stories. Once completed, they shared the recordings with their first-grade buddies in Miss Coreen’s classroom listening center. Ms. Yost plans to use simple editing software or a website such as www.voicethread.com to have her students combine their oral reading with visual illustrations so that their story renditions can be both watched and listened to by each class, supporting the fluency development of all students.

Your Turn Often, “reading rate,” or the number of words a student can read per minute, becomes an overemphasized component of fluency programs and assessments. Students try to read as many words as possible in a minute. Although it is important for students to identify high-­frequency words and phrases automatically so that automaticity in word recognition and an appropriate reading rate can be achieved, “prosody”—reading with expression and intonation so that oral reading sounds like natural speech—­is all too often a neglected focus of fluency instruction. One of the purposes of oral reading prosody is to assist readers in parsing text into meaningful phrases or other text chunks. Many of the high-­frequency word and phrase strategies discussed in this chapter can be adapted in order to support students in developing prosody as part of fluency building. To encourage students to extend their fluency practice and to focus on prosodic reading, Fry and Rasinski (2007) suggest the following: To familiarize students with the important role that punctuation plays in guiding them toward fluent reading, have the students read high-­frequency word phrases within the context of sentences, paying particular attention to how the punctuation of each sentence influences how their voice sounds as they read. When reading aloud, the way in which words are chunked affects the meaning of what is communicated. Students who struggle with fluency often call out words one by one, paying little attention to how the words might make sense when grouped together. Have students practice chunking words so that they can better understand how word phrases enhance fluency and text meaning. For example, the sentence below has been broken into chunks two different ways. When read aloud, the first example makes unusual sense; the second is more conventional in its meaning: I like chocolate chicken / and corn. I like chocolate / chicken / and corn.

To help students develop prosody, discuss with them the importance of stress and pitch. Tell them to read a list of phrases like they are robots, and then have them

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read the same phrases while placing stress on a word they wish to emphasize in the phrase. Next have them read the phrases again using a higher or lower pitch in their voice to change the meaning of what is being read.

Conclusion Effective instructional practice calls for a balance between working with the words and phrases in both isolation and in context to reaffirm word meaning and sentence placement. The games and strategies presented in this chapter allow students to practice reading high-­frequency words and high-­frequency phrases in order to build fluency. Incorporating both isolated and integrated high-­frequency word and high-­ frequency phrase instruction can support students as they build both fluency and comprehension skills in their reading and writing of authentic texts.

References Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2011). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Cunningham, P. M. (2012). Phonics they use: Words for reading and writing (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Fry, E. B. (1980). The new instant word list. The Reading Teacher, 34, 284–289. Fry, E., & Rasinski, T. (2007). Increasing fluency with high frequency word phrases. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education. Rasinski, T. V. (2010). The fluent reader: Oral and silent reading strategies for building fluency, word recognition, and comprehension. New York: Scholastic. Rasinski, T. V., & Padak, N. (2007). From phonics to fluency. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Vacca, J. L., Vacca, R. T., Gove, M. K., Burkey, L. C., Lenhart, L. A., & McKeon, C. A. (2012). Reading and learning to read (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

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ARE DAY DOWN FIND HIM INTO

LIKE LONG MAKE NOW SAID

THERE TIME USE WITH

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Form 7.2

Mother Goose Is Missing Words! Mother Goose has forgotten her rhymes. When you reach a blank, help her remember by filling in the word you think best fits with the sentence. If you need help, look at the words on the bottom of the page. Be sure to read your sentences to make sure they make sense.

The Queen of Hearts The Queen of Hearts,       tarts       on a summer’s day;   the Knave       Hearts, he       the tarts and       clean away. The King of Hearts,       for the tarts       the Knave full sore;        Knave of Hearts      back the tarts      vowed he       no more. stole

she made some

and

brought

called

and beat

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of

took them

all

steal

There Was a Crooked Man       a crooked man and he       a crooked mile,         crooked sixpence       a crooked stile, he       a crooked      ,       caught a crooked mouse,         lived together       a crooked little house. He found a

in

upon

bought

There was

cat

walked

which

was

and they all (continued)

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Mother Goose Is Missing Words!  (page 2 of 2) I Saw a Ship a-Sailing       a ship a-sailing, a-sailing       the sea;   and oh,       laden       pretty       thee.       comfits in the cabin and apples       hold;   the sails       made of silk       masts were       of gold. The four       twenty sailors       stood between the decks,         four and twenty white mice       chains       their necks. The captain       duck       packet       his back,   and       the ship       move, the captain       “quack, quack.” with a

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8

Teaching Phrasing through the Phrased Text Lesson James Nageldinger

What Is It? Many of our struggling readers tend to read in a word-for-word or flat monotone style devoid of expression, to such a degree it is often painful to listen to them. This manner of reading is also indicative of poor comprehension. One aspect that is obviously missing for these kids is the ability to break sentences into meaningful phrases. By that I mean the grouping of words that lend meaning to the overall text. This chapter presents a strategy for helping students parse sentences into logical phrases, leading to improved comprehension. In the latter part of the last century researchers began investigating the relationship between written punctuation and oral speech patterns. They found that good readers group words into meaningful phrases that authors may not have not always indicated with punctuation (Chafe, 1988; Schreiber & Read, 1980). These word groupings, or phrases, are a major factor in conveying meaning when reading orally. Indeed, one could argue that the phrase, not the word, is the essential unit of meaning in English. Recent research has indicated that good readers also separate text into meaningful phrases during silent reading to aid in comprehension (Kentner, 2012; Steinhauer, 2003). Expressive reading, or prosody, has been shown to be directly associated with silent reading comprehension—­even in the upper grades (Paige, Rasinski, & Magpuri-­Lavell, 2012; Rasinski, Rikli, & Johnston, 2009). Struggling readers who have been given explicit instruction in phrasing improve in both fluency and comprehension (LeVasseur, Macaruso, & Shankweiler, 2008; Rasinski, 1994). It is likely that the flat, nonexpressive voice of a struggling reader .

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reflects the lack of an expressive inner voice that would give rise to greater comprehension. In order to develop this expressive inner voice, then, these students need both to hear good expressive reading and to practice it themselves. The lesson presented here is a good way for struggling readers to increase both fluency and comprehension. In addition, in the process of developing the ability to parse sentences into meaningful phrases, they are also exercising the meaning-­making skill of inference (Erekson, 2010). We can help our struggling readers develop their fluency and comprehension by making the invisible punctuation in text visible. Long a trick employed by public speakers to assist them in delivering a written speech, visual cues can also assist children to become fluent readers. These cues are as simple as making a horizontal line or slash before and after meaningful phrases. Shorter pauses are indicated by a single slash; longer pauses such as commas and end punctuation are indicated by double slashes. Based on the recommendations of reading and language scholars who have recognized the effectiveness of using phrased texts (e.g., Aulls, 1978; Dowhower, 1991; Frase & Schwartz, 1979; LeVasseur et al., 2008; O’Shea & Sindelar, 1983; Rasinski, 1990), the phrased text lesson provides direct instruction in improving reading with meaningful phrases. This two-day lesson (Rasinski, Yildirim, & Nageldinger, 2011; Rasinski, 1994; Rasinski & Hoffman, 2003) takes just 10 to 15 minutes per day.

How Do I Do It? Day 1 Find a relatively short passage (100–400 words) that lends itself to expressive reading. Poems or other texts with “voice” work well for this exercise. Then with a pencil make slash marks at where you believe the phrase boundaries should be. Use a single slash ( / ) for a short pause and two slashes ( // ) for a longer pause such as end punctuation. Although phrase markings may vary slightly according to the teacher, research has found a surprising degree of consistency among proficient readers (Rasinski, 1989) (see Figure 8.1).

1

Provide each student with a copy of the marked text and explain the importance of proper phrasing and the significance of the slash marks. Model a flat reading of the first two sentences contrasted with an expressive rendition of the next two sentences to illustrate the difference. Then read the text as marked to the students while they follow along silently. When you are finished, discuss how you were able to convey the meaning of the passage with the use of your voice. Draw attention to the appropriate pauses indicated by the phrase boundaries in your speech.

2 Next, read the passage chorally with your students, again placing emphasis on phrased reading and expression.



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PHRASING STRATEGIES Informational Passage: From Exploring the Polar Regions (1997) by Jen Green and David Antram. The sun’s rays are weakest / in the polar regions, / making them / among the coldest places / on earth. // For most of the year, / the seas are ice covered / and the land lies under sea and ice. // Story: From The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (1972) by Barbara Robinson. The Herdmans were absolutely / the worst kids / in the history of the world. // They lied and stole / and smoked cigars / (even the girls) / and talked dirty / and took the name of the lord in vain / and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s / old broken-down tool house. // Poem: From The Cremation of Sam McGee (1953) by Robert Service. There are strange things done/ in the midnight sun/ By the men / who moil for gold; // The Arctic trails / have their secret tales / That would make / your blood run cold. // The Northern Lights / have seen queer sights / But the queerest / they ever did see/ Was that night on the marge / of Lake Lebarge / I cremated / Sam McGee. //

FIGURE 8.1.  Examples of phrase-marked text.

3 Now the students get to practice reading individually in a mumble voice or using

a whisper or fluency phone, a simple auditory device that funnels the child’s voice directly from the mouth into his or her ear. They should have a chance to read the text all the way through at least once or twice. Alternatively, they could take turns reading it to a partner while the partner reads along, offering each other constructive feedback, then reversing their roles.

4

Finally, have the students perform for the class, individually, in pairs, or in small groups.

Day 2 Today provide each student with a copy of yesterday’s text without the markings. Using the same routine as the day before, model good expressive reading, read with the students, have them read once or twice to themselves or to a partner, and then perform for their peers. Without the assistance of explicit phrase boundaries, the students will have to apply what they learned the day before to a more conventional format (unmarked text). In doing so they will develop an awareness of how phrases carry meaning in text.

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Extensions and Modifications After you’ve modeled how to insert pauses and students become familiar with the idea of grouping words into meaningful phrases, pass the pencil over to them by having them mark the phrases boundaries. Begin by passing out an unmarked passage and have the whole class mark boundaries individually while you are doing the same thing. (Encourage them to mark pauses always lightly.) When they are finished, invite them to share their versions with each other, either by showing their paper or reading it aloud and comparing with their classmates’ efforts. A document camera, if available, would allow the individual students to share how they marked their text with the whole class while reading their rendition aloud. Invite comparisons between students. Include your own version in the class sharing. One such passage might be Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (see Figure 8.2). Although the vignette that follows comes from a second-­grade classroom, students of all ages who read without expression and struggle with comprehension can benefit from the phrased text lesson. And while the phrased text lesson is intended to be utilized by individual teachers in their own classrooms, there is no reason why whole grades could not participate. Say the holiday season is approaching. Why not use Clement Moore’s poem “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”? Students could The Gettysburg Address Four score / and seven years ago / our fathers brought forth / on this continent a new nation, / conceived in liberty, / and dedicated to the proposition / that all men are created equal. // Now / we are engaged in a great civil war, / testing whether that nation, / or any nation, / so conceived and so dedicated, / can long endure. // We are met / on a great battle-field / of that war. // We have come to dedicate / a portion of that field, / as a final resting place / for those who here gave their lives / that that nation might live. // It is altogether fitting / and proper / that we should do this. // But, / in a larger sense, / we can not dedicate, / we can not consecrate, / we can not hallow this ground. // The brave men, / living and dead, / who struggled here, / have consecrated it, / far above our poor power / to add or detract. // The world will little note, / nor long remember / what we say here, / but it can never forget / what they did here. // It is for us the living, / rather, / to be dedicated here / to the unfinished work / which they who fought here / have thus far / so nobly advanced. // It is rather for us / to be here dedicated / to the great task remaining before us— / that from these honored dead / we take increased devotion / to that casue / for which they gave / the last / full measure / of devotion— / that we here / highly resolve / that these dead / shall not have died in vain— / that this nation, / under God, / shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. //

FIGURE 8.2.  Example of marked text.



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be turned loose in pairs, groups, or as individuals to see who can come up with the most spirited rendition that best captures the essence of the poem, using what they’ve learned about phrasing. Bring the classes together for a gathering on a Friday afternoon after a week of short practices for a kind of speaker’s café in which students get to eat popcorn and school dignitaries and parents are invited. Imagine a school where weekly oral performances were given similar weight as other participatory events, such as sports or music. Famous speeches ranging from the Gettysburg Address to John Kennedy’s Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech to Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman could be marked for oral interpretation, practiced, and presented. Students may desire to read chorally, antiphonally, or convert the speech to a Readers’ Theatre script (see Chapter 11 which employs the same phrasing techniques). As students become more experienced with the concept, encourage them to drop the pencil and imagine where the pauses would be by what the sentence says. Remind them that this is what good readers do when they read silently. By putting the words into meaningful phrases the students are using higher level thinking processes to infer meaning. Another extension is to challenge them to come up with their own examples of how the same sentence could be said more than one way to mean different things. Start with playful examples like “Let’s eat Grandma” Let’s eat / Grandma (contrasted with making Grandma the entrée) and “They hit the man with the cane” (They hit the man / with the cane vs. They hit / the man with the cane). And of course the now famous “The panda eats shoots and leaves” (The panda / eats shoots and leaves vs. The panda / eats / shoots / and leaves). Let them read their examples aloud and post what they come up with. Make it an ongoing challenge to collect such sentences. In addition invite students to share from their own reading how they almost got the wrong idea but fixed it buy putting the pause in the right place. This kind of word play exercises inferential thinking and allows the students to consider different possibilities for finding meaning. It is a strategy that works equally well with narrative, informational text, and poetry. And as no small bonus, students find this activity a lot of fun to do.

Example: Phrased Text Lesson in Action Ms. Casey’s second-­grade class has just come in from lunch. It’s read-aloud time, and Ms. Casey takes advantage of current class interest in the ocean by providing them a passage from a story about a girl who lives on a tropical island with her scientist father. Reading from Nim’s Island by Wendy Orr and Kerry Millard (2008), she tells them, “Today I want you to pay special attention to my voice. Listen to how I read the story. Then tell me what you think.” The first few sentences she reads are projected onto the board so that the students can follow along. After reading in a flat word-for-word manner, she asks them how she did. She asks, “Did I get all the words right?”

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Students: Yes. Ms. Casey: Did I read not too fast, but not too slowly? Students report and nod in affirmation Ms. Casey: How did it sound? Sam: Not good! Takeesha: Bad. Nelson: It didn’t sound like real talk. M addy: You read like a robot! Ms. Casey: Let me try again. This time she reads with good expression and asks if that’s better. The students all agree it is. She asks why they think it was better. Ronald: It was like you were telling a story. Takeesha: You used your voice. Ms. Casey: Yes I did. But how was my voice different the second time? Daniel: (in the back, raising his hand) You sounded more like you were telling a story like an actor or something. Ms. Casey tells her students that one thing she did that made her sound more like an actor was that she put in pauses. She says, “I’m going to read this sentence again. Raise your hand if you hear me pause, even if it’s a little one.” Reading from her own marked script, she reads the sentence again. At the first pause, hands fly up as she continues reading to the end of the sentence. She asks the class to tell her where she made a little pause and goes back and marks it with a single slash between the two words. As she continues to read, the class detects a longer pause between the first two sentences. She marks it with two slashes. After reading the first two sentences, she asks the class to read the marked version with her. She repeats this process with another sentence and explains that this is also the way we talk. She adds that “there is music in how we speak and since everything that is written is written by a person, there is music in everything we read. And putting the slashes in the passages helps us hear the music.” She explains that often people who read out loud put these slashes in their speeches to help them sound more like people and less like robots. Then she passes out copies of the marked passage and has everyone follow along as she reads aloud the entire passage. Next she says, “Now let’s do it together.” Maintaining an appropriate pace, she leads them though the passage and compliments them on their expressive reading. She has the students then pair up and practice reading the marked text to each other. After several minutes, when all the students have practiced their passage, she solicits volunteers either individually or in groups to perform for the rest of class. Malika is first. She stands before the class

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and reads the passage with appropriate pauses. The students are used to performing in Ms. Casey’s room and look forward to this part of the day. Robert and Isaac ask if they can read together, and more students clamor for the opportunity for their chance to shine. The next day, she passes out the copies of the unmarked passage as she remarks how the good readings from the day before were. After reminding them of the importance of using phrases to read with good expression, she says, “Today, because you all did so well yesterday, we going to use what we learned and read this again just using our brains. You’ll notice that lines aren’t there, but the phrases still are. Everybody ready? Let’s read together.” The lesson structure of the day before is repeated as the students and the teacher read the passage aloud with expression. They eagerly break into pairs and practice for each other one or two times before coming together as a group again. As before, Ms. Casey asks for volunteers, and today Inez raises her hand. (Inez knows that as the first volunteer, if no one volunteers after her, she will get to get to draw from the random choice jar to pick the next person. But she also knows that when it comes to performing, it is usually not a problem getting people to volunteer.) After Inez reads, Ms. Casey compliments her and reminds the class that not everybody may make pauses in exactly the same place, but the important thing is that they are reading like “actors and not like robots.” Several hands go up as others, alone and in groups, take turns reading for the rest of the class.

Your Turn Increasing the prosodic and phrasing competencies of your students’ fluency though the phrased text lesson will not only improve fluency, it will help students develop the critical comprehension skill of inferring meaning. It will at the same time bolster their confidence in being able to read aloud in an engaging manner. It’s a win/win lesson that takes only a few minutes every day (see Figure 8.3) and will make a difference in students’ lives.

References Aulls, M. W. (1978). Developmental and remedial reading in the middle grades. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Chafe, W. (1988). Punctuation and the prosody of written language. Written Communication, 5, 395–426. Dowhower, S. L. (1991). Speaking of prosody: Fluency’s unattended bedfellow. Theory into Practice, 30(3), 165–175. Erekson, J. A. (2010). Prosody and interpretation. Reading Horizons, 50(2), 80–98. Frase, L. T., & Schwartz, B. J. (1979). Typographical cues that facilitate comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 197–206.

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Teaching Phrasing through the Phrased Text Lesson • Find passage. • Make a copy.

Prepare

Day 1

Day 2

• On the copy, mark phrase breaks. • Have colleague check work. • Make a copy for each student.

• Pass out marked text, explain. • Model, discuss. • Chorally read with students. • Students practice. • Students perform.

• Pass out copies of unmarked text. • Repeat Day 1 routine beginning with modeling.

FIGURE 8.3.  The phased text lesson.

Kentner, G. (2012). Linguistic rhythm guides parsing decisions in written sentence comprehension. Cognition, 123(1), 1–20. LeVasseur, V. M., Macaruso, P., & Shankweiler, D. (2008). Promoting gains in reading fluency: A comparison of three approaches. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 21, 205–230. O’Shea, L. J., & Sindelar, P. T. (1983). The effects of segmenting written discourse on the reading comprehension of low- and high-­performance readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 18, 458–465. Paige, D., Rasinski, T., & Magpuri-­Lavell, T. (2012). Is fluent, expressive reading important for high school readers? Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 56(1), 67–76. Rasinski, T. V. (1989). Adult readers’ sensitivity to phrase boundaries in texts. Journal of Experimental Education, 58(1), 29–40. Rasinski, T. V. (1990). The effects of cued phrase boundaries on reading performance: A review. Retrieved from www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=ED313689. Rasinski, T. V. (1994). Developing syntactic sensitivity in reading through phrase-­cued texts. Intervention in School and Clinic, 29(3), 165–168. Rasinski, T. V., & Hoffman, J. V. (2003). Theory and research into practice: Oral reading in the school literacy curriculum. Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 510–522.



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PHRASING STRATEGIES Rasinski, T., Rikli, A., & Johnston, S. (2009). Reading fluency: More than automaticity? More than a concern for the primary grades? Literacy Research and Instruction, 48, 350–361. Rasinski, T., Yildirim, K., & Nageldinger, J. (2011). Building fluency through the phrased text lesson. The Reading Teacher, 65, 252–255. Schreiber, P., & Read, C. (1980). Children’s use of phonetic cues in spelling, parsing, and— maybe—­reading. Bulletin of the Orton Society, 30, 209–224. Steinhauer, K. (2003). Electrophysiological correlates of prosody and punctuation. Brain and Language, 86(1), 142–164.

Literature Cited Green, J., & Antram, D. (1997). Exploring the polar regions. New York: Peter Bedrick Books. Morpurgo, M. (1999). Kensuke’s kingdom. New York: Scholastic. Orr, W., & Millard, K. (2008). Nim’s island. New York: Yearling. Robinson, B. (1972). The best Christmas pageant ever. New York: Harper & Row Junior Books. Service, R. (1953). The best of Robert Service. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.

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Part Four

Deep and Wide Reading Practice

9

Repeated Readings through Readers Theatre Chase J. Young

What Is It? Readers Theatre is a form of repeated readings (Samuels, 1979) with an authentic and engaging purpose. The purpose is to perform a text, normally a brief script, with accuracy, automaticity, appropriate pacing, and expression so that an audience will find meaning and satisfaction in the reading. Readers Theatre has been found to improve word recognition automaticity, prosody, and comprehension (Griffith & Rasinski, 2004; Martinez, Roser, & Strecker, 1998–1999; Young & Rasinski, 2009). Moreover, students who engage in Readers Theatre regularly gain confidence in their own ability as readers. Readers Theatre is a powerful tool for leveling the playing field for students who struggle in reading. Students have an opportunity to practice or rehearse before their performances. Even with more difficult parts, struggling readers can do well as long as they invest sufficient practice prior to the performance. I often share video footage of my students with teachers in surrounding districts, and I always ask the same question, “Can you tell which students have reading difficulties?” The answer is always no. All of the students have ample time to rehearse at school and at home. With the final performance in mind, students strive to pronounce words correctly and refine their thespian styles. In the end, students stand among their peers, heads held high, and entertain audiences with confidence and precision (Rinehart, 1999). When I invade classrooms to show teachers how to implement Readers Theatre I start by asking the kids one question: “Why do we read?” I hear responses like “to get smarter,” “to get better,” and even “to get free Six Flags tickets.” After

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I acknowledge all of their responses, I begin to write one word on the board, a response I hardly ever get. As I write the first letter, “F,” silence fills the room. In one case, a second-­grade student actually shouted, “Fluency!” While I am proud of the student’s vocabulary, I was also surprised a second grader is aware of such an educational buzzword. I finish the word on the board, F-U-N. Fun. I turn to look at their reactions—­some kids slap their foreheads as if they should have known; others clearly never view reading as fun. However, fun is another one of the equally desirable consequences of Readers Theatre. They stand before audiences and make texts come to life. Reading motivation is enhanced by successful and authentic reading experiences (Wigfield, Guthrie, Tonks, & Perencevich, 2004). Readers Theatre is a prime example of creating a context for success (Worthy & Prater, 2002). Participants get to see their reading progress in a short period of time. Moreover, they get to celebrate their reading through their performances for an audience. In his seminal study on repeated readings, Samuels (1979) demonstrated that after each reading of a text, rate and accuracy improve. His study, however, did not include an instructional component such as Readers Theatre. In Readers Theatre students receive support in their practice before, during, and after each reading by a variety of instructors. When students first receive their scripts, they encounter unknown words, difficult phrasing, and challenging ideas. With the aid of teachers, family members, and peers, students achieve success by the end of the Readers Theatre cycle: they can read fluently and they understand deeply what they have read. The various instructors identify unknown words and coach proper elocution. As groups read and reread (rehearsal), the meaning of the text becomes evident to them, especially when students read with appropriate prosody to match the meaning. Not only can students see their progress immediately, but they are provided weekly opportunities to flaunt their achievements during performance (Martinez et al., 1998–1999). That’s right kids! Ham it up!

How Do I Do It? Readers Theatre is relatively easy to implement, but there are definitely some things you need to think about before implementation. Locating scripts. Essentially, anything can become a script. You can choose between nonfiction, fiction, poetry, plays, scary stories, or even sections of a movie. That’s right, sections of a movie—I scripted the “flag pole scene” and the “shoot your eye out scene” from A Christmas Story for a humorous holiday performance. I also love to add narrators to humorous children’s poetry. See Figure 9.1 for more script resources. Group size. You can begin by using a script that has as many parts as students in your class. This whole-group approach will help them practice and you can model

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Repeated Readings through Readers Theatre www.timelessteacherstuff.com www.aaronshep.com/rt www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm www.readinglady.com www.readerstheatre.ecsd.net/collection.htm www.gigglepoetry.com www.thebestclass.org/rtscripts.html

FIGURE 9.1.  Resources for Readers Theatre scripts.

coaching behaviors. However, I like to narrow it down to much smaller groups as the year goes on, such as eight groups of three. Audience. The goal of Readers Theatre is to perform for an audience, so it is important to locate one. I like to partner with a teacher from a different grade level for weekly performances. In addition, I always include our performance time in the parent newsletter, and families have an open invitation to attend. If audiences are scarce, groups can perform for each other in class. I also like to film performances to show parents via e-mail or during open house. Lessons. Each day, explicated in the next section, should be a lesson in itself, so students know what is expected. I like to put kids in a “time-­machine” and go through the entire 5-day format. Also, peer coaching is an integral part of Readers Theatre, so students need to be taught the respectful discourse required when helping one another. Timing. Set aside 5 to 10 minutes every day for Readers Theatre rehearsal. Pick a time of day that is consistent throughout the week. For example, some teachers start the day with Readers Theatre. Students come in, get their scripts out, and begin practicing. Other teachers prefer students to practice right after recess. Of course, the timing is entirely up to you, but putting it on the schedule ensures that students engage in the task regularly. Although it is completely up to the teacher, I like to situate Readers Theatre in between instructional episodes that do not have a lot of movement—­it acts as an energizer.

Example: How Readers Theatre Looks in Action Although there are many different ways to implement Readers Theatre, this is how I use it in my classroom. Of course, the method should be altered for the best fit in your grade level and classroom. I like the 5-day format because students get to perform about 40 different scripts in a school year. Also, each of the 5 days has a different focus, and thus far this has been an adequate timeframe for mastery.

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Monday On Monday I read the scripts aloud for the week and provide relevant background to the scripts. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes total, varying in length because of the relative brevity of the scripts. I typically offer at least four scripts per week, resulting in approximately five to six students per group. However, sometimes I have a few as two groups because of the larger number of parts in each script. I encourage students to think about which script they like the best. Many times groups of friends will raise their hands simultaneously (weird, right?). As teachers, we are not naïve, but in this instance, I really do not care. If they want to be with their friends, so be it. Readers Theatre is supposed to be fun and motivating—­W hat is more fun than the opportunity to meet with your friends once a day for a rehearsal? I pass out the scripts and students go to their selected spots around the room and engage in a choral reading of the script. I do not assign parts on the first day, because I want them to be able to see the text as a whole, and it gives them a night to think about which part they desire. Once the choral reading is complete, the students put their scripts in their take-home folders and read them again at home.

Tuesday The second day is fun. This is the day that students choose their parts. The students return to their groups and begin the conversation of who will be assigned to each part. First, I should mention that Rock, Paper, Scissors solves everything. In the beginning of the school year the process of choosing parts resembles chaos. As the year progresses, the students realize that they won’t always get the part they want. However, there’s always next week, and they become more competent at the part selection process. I ask that students remain in their groups and raise their hands when they have decided on their parts. I withhold the highlighters until I make sure that everyone has a part, and that no one believes he or she has the same role as another student. Again, debates can be solved in many different ways, but I prefer the Rock, Paper, Scissors method, mostly because the procedure adds to the good time. Students highlight their parts and begin their first practice. The first practice focuses on word recognition. Essentially, I ask that students read their parts and use their peers to help identify difficult words. If the group is stumped, I am always available to assist them. Timing is always an issue, and usually results in the student cliché, “What do we do now?” Luckily, Readers Theatre is a form of repeated readings, so I simply respond with, “Read it again. This time add more expression.” Once all the groups have read through their scripts at least once, they place their scripts back in their take-home folders for their nightly practice.

Wednesday Now that students recognize most of the words, we focus more on “prosody,” or reading with expression that matches the meaning of the text. For example, students 

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should not use a sad, quiet voice to read, “You can do it, Superman! You’re just in a slump!” Students coach their peers, modeling the appropriate expression using phrases like, “Hey, try reading it like this” or “What if you read it like this?” Then, as always, students replace their scripts in their folder to read later. I do not simply send the scripts home and hope for the best. I walk the students through the process of practicing at home. The lesson is fun because we pretend to go home, and we rehearse how to “coerce” family members into participation. “Go home, find your aunt, uncle, mom, dad, sister, brother and enthusiastically present your case.” Of course, I acknowledge that not every student will have a human to help them practice, so we talk about how pets love to listen to Readers Theatre scripts. If they have no pets, inanimate objects often will enjoy a good story as well. One student claimed that he read his part to a watermelon—­kudos to him for thinking outside the box. Alternatively, in my experience with second graders, they still possess that egoistical quality that makes reading in the mirror equally as amusing. However they decide to practice, they bring their scripts back Thursday for the final practice before the performance.

Thursday On Thursday, students practice with their group one last time before we have a mock performance (dress rehearsal) in the classroom. Each group stands before the class and performs its Readers Theatre script. Feedback can come from the teacher or the audience. I prefer to offer the feedback myself, but other teachers invite their students to do so, in which case etiquette training is a must. The most common feedback is to speak louder, hold your script down, and read along to avoid that awkward silence when you do not know it is your turn. The students take the feedback and their scripts home for one last practice.

Friday It’s finally Friday. The students are super stoked for the performance; I am equally stoked because I am wearing jeans (you know what I’m talking about). We parade down to the fourth-­grade classroom that we have partnered with for a quaint morning of theater. My students alternate performances with the fourth graders. The fourth-­grade teacher and I listen carefully to our thespians and consider which groups and individuals will be awarded. We give performance awards to groups and voice awards to students that use the most expression. In addition to performance awards, we award the audience as well—­either to my class or hers. The best audience award is won for attentiveness and applause. We encourage our kids to cheer like crazy for every group. We cheer because it makes students feel good about their success, but also because it is really fun to yell. We take our bows, say good-bye, and move on with our instructional day. It’s not sad, because good-bye never means forever in Readers Theatre. We will continue the weekly process for the rest of the year.

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Extensions and Modifications Most struggling readers will be up for the challenge of practicing and performing scripts. If not, here is an effective strategy. First, I believe that including all students is a priority; therefore, I look to instruction for the answer. I have found that a hybrid of paired reading or the neurological impress method (NIM; Heckelman, 1969) and repeated readings (Samuels, 1979) is a powerful tool to help struggling students become successful in Readers Theatre. Using NIM, I expressively read aloud into the student’s dominant ear as they read along with me. In other words, I read slightly faster than the child as they “chase” me. Then I ask students to reread the portions that we read together. Remarkably, the student can usually reread with accuracy and with prosody that is similar to my own reading—­it is almost as if my expression has been etched into the child’s brain. I found great success with this method when I worked as a reading coach (Mohr, Dixon, & Young, 2012). In the study, I used the hybrid method (dubbed “Chase-Me-Show-Me”) to increase a third grader’s reading level from an end-of-first-grade level to a mid-third-grade level in less than 5 months of instruction. The method is difficult to implement when you have a classroom full of kids, but Readers Theatre rehearsal time provides a unique opportunity to work one-on-one with students experiencing difficulty. If the reading difficulty is severe, priming while on stage after daily doses of the hybrid method helps as well. For example, one student in the group whispers the first few words of the line into the student’s ear, and he or she is able to say the line. Of course, it is not a fool-proof system and you may have to invent other creative methods to support student success. Extending Readers Theatre is as easy as making a variety of scripts available to students. Although I do not believe in leveling scripts and forcing homogenous groups, I do believe in providing scripts that range in difficulty. For example, one script may be a short nursery rhyme broken into parts while another is an excerpt from a novel. However, text difficulty is not the only way to challenge students. I like to use tricky texts, not a higher level necessarily, but rich with literary devices such as alliteration, rhythm, or tongue twisters. Another way to extend Readers Theatre is to have students write their own scripts based on stories they have previously read in class, a method presented in Chapter 11 of this book.

Your Turn At the beginning of year, dedicate a 10-minute slot for Readers Theatre in your schedule. Explore the Internet for scripts that will accommodate every student on your roster (my own website, www.thebestclass.org/rtscripts, has the number of parts listed next to each link; plus, you can see what my class is up to!). Print the scripts to be used, making a few extra copies because some kids will lose their scripts throughout the week. A sample script you can use with your kids is presented in Form 9.1. Previously used scripts can be placed in the Readers Theatre workstation, 

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where they can be read over and over again. Next, secure some highlighters, and now you have all the materials necessary for Readers Theatre. Now it is time to plan your implementation. There is no reason not to start in the first week of school. Walk your kids through the entire process. This usually takes about 2 hours. You can break up the process throughout the day. Mondays are for choosing scripts; Tuesdays are for part choice and word recognition; Wednesdays are for expression training; Thursdays are for practice and descriptive feedback; Fridays are for the grand performance. Continue to practice the script using the 5-day format, or a format that works best for you and your class, and perform the first Friday of the school year. I promise that the parents will definitely enjoy joining their children during the first week of school for some classic entertainment; plus, the kids will already be looking forward to a fun year of successful reading.

References Griffith, L. W., & Rasinski, T. V. (2004). A focus on fluency: How one teacher incorporated fluency with her reading curriculum. The Reading Teacher, 58, 126–137. Heckelman, R. G. (1969). A neurological-­impress method of remedial reading instruction. Academic Therapy Quarterly, 4, 277–282. Martinez, M., Roser, N., & Strecker, S. (1998–1999). “I never thought I could be a star”: Readers’ Theatre ticket to fluency. The Reading Teacher, 52, 326–324. Mohr, K. A. J., Dixon, K., & Young, C. J. (2012) Effective and efficient: Maximizing literacy assessment and instruction. In E. T Ortlieb & E. H. Cheek Jr. (Eds.), Literacy research, practice, and evaluation (Vol. 1, pp. 293–324). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group. Rinehart, S. (1999). Don’t think for a minute that I’m getting up there: Opportunities for readers’ theater in a tutorial for children with reading problems. Journal of Reading Psychology, 20, 71–89. Samuels, S. J. (1979). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 32, 403–408. Wigfield, A., Guthrie, J. T., Tonks, S., & Perencevich, K. C. (2004). Children’s motivation for reading: Domain specificity and instructional influences. Journal of Educational Research, 97, 299–309. Worthy, J., & Prater, K. (2002). “I thought about it all night”: Readers theater for reading fluency and motivation. The Reading Teacher, 56, 294–297. Young, C., & Rasinski, T. (2009). Implementing readers theatre as an approach to classroom fluency instruction. The Reading Teacher, 63, 4–13.



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Form 9.1

Script for The Vinder Viper (retold by Chase Young) Parts: Narrators 1–11, Man, Viper Narrator 1: Years ago, a man inherited a house from his great uncle. Narrator 2: The house sat on a hill outside of town and rumors were told that it was haunted. Narrator 3: The man traveled to the town to inspect the house and found that it was a wonderful old mansion in great condition, but very, very old. Narrator 4: So, he decided to move in. Narrator 5: A couple weeks after he moved in, late at night, the phone rang. When he answered it, a voice said, Viper: “I am the Vinder Viper. I will be there in 2 weeks!” Narrator 6: and then it hung up before he could say anything. Narrator 7: This really shook the man. Narrator 8: The next day, he searched the Internet under “snakes” for “vinder viper” but found nothing. Narrator 9: A week passed with no calls, but late one night, the phone rang. Viper: “I am the Vinder Viper. I will be there in 1 week!”? Narrator 10: and hung up. Narrator 11: This made the man quite nervous, not knowing what a vinder viper was. Narrator 1: He asked around the town, and no one had ever heard of any such viper. Narrator 2: Four days later, late at night, the phone rang. Viper: “I am the Vinder Viper. I will be there in 2 days!” Narrator 3: The man is getting much more concerned now. Narrator 4: The next night, the phone rang. Viper: “I am the Vinder Viper. I will be there tomorrow!” Narrator 5: Needless to say, the man is just plain scared now. Narrator 6: The next evening, the phone rang. Viper: “I am the Vinder Viper. I will be there in 1 hour!” Narrator 7: The man tries to leave, but his car battery is dead. Narrator 8: Nearly an hour later, the phone rang. Viper: “I am the Vinder Viper. I will be there in 2 minutes!”? Narrator 9: The man runs around locking all the windows and doors and calls 911. Narrator 10: The police are on their way. Narrator 11: Soon, there was a knock at the door. The man opened the door a crack and asked, Man: “Are you the police?” Viper: “No, I am the vinder viper. I come every month to vash and vipe your vindows.” From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

10

Powerful Pairing Podcasting and Readers Theatre Sheri Vasinda and Julie McLeod

What Is It Students giggle while seated at their desks, quietly munching on snacks, and listening to one of last week’s Readers Theatre performances. Because they have a digital auditory recording, or podcast, of their performance, students have the opportunity to listen to themselves and their friends, taking note of how their voices sound and what might be improved for the new script to be rehearsed, performed, and recorded the next week. Pairing Readers Theatre with podcasting has extended the reach of the performance, widened the audience, and provided a record of the progress of this strategy (Vasinda & McLeod, 2011) that has proven powerful in improving both fluency and comprehension of all readers who participate (Martinez, Roser, & Strecker, 1999; Griffith & Rasinski, 2004; Vasinda & McLeod, 2011). In searching for authentic ways to integrate technology into our classroom, we look for a technology that, when paired strategically and thoughtfully with a research-­based instructional strategy, retains the integrity of the original strategy while strengthening its intended power and increasing its applicability. For example, in the case of Readers Theatre, we wanted to retain the powerful qualities of this strategy that make it unique, impactful, and workable within the rhythms of the classroom, particularly the performance as the authentic purpose for rereading, without the additional time and resource-­intensive nature of traditional live theater (Martinez et al., 1999). Although we believe in the benefits of traditional theater, it would not fit the everyday schedule or rhythm of a classroom literacy block the way Readers Theatre does because of the added time and resources necessary for acting,

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costumes, sets, and memorized lines. Indeed, the performance of Readers Theatre, which focuses on the expressive voice (prosody) rather than visual communication, offers just the right amount of anticipation and importance for students while still making it an easy fit into the time-­crunched rhythm of daily classroom life. Thus, as we work to incorporate technology with Readers Theatre, we must ensure that the selected tool maintains the integrity of the strategy, enhancing rather than detracting from its core aspects that make it powerful and effective. We call these matches “powerful purposeful pairings” and have found that when appropriately and skillfully constructed, they result in a synergy: more strength for the strategy and more student ownership of his or her learning (Vasinda & McLeod, 2011). Further, the daily 10 to 15 minutes of repeated practice, or “rehearsals” preparing for a performance, integrates easily with a variety of comprehensive literacy models such as Daily Five, Reader Writer Workshop, or Guided Reading groups, and even traditional basal-based programs.

Podcasting In our purposeful pairing, the auditory medium of podcasting made it a natural pair with Readers Theatre, an instructional activity that is auditory-­based. A “podcast” is an audio recording that is stored, retrieved, and heard from the Internet usually in an MP3 format. Because of the pervasiveness of iPods, to which the masses began downloading music, the term “podcast” was coined to combine the words iPod and broadcast. You don’t need an iPod to listen to (or create) a podcast. You can listen directly from the computer or download to any MP3 player or smart phone. We selected this technology because students and teachers would not be tempted to add any visual components to the performance when podcasting, as they would be lost to an audience. In other words, the main features of the Readers Theatre strategy that make it so powerful are perfectly matched with a technology that highlights those strengths. The previous chapter in this volume described the implementation of Readers Theatre, so this chapter will only briefly describe that process and offer more details on the podcasting of the performance.

How Do I Do It?: Podcasting the Readers Theatre Performance The essential nature of Readers Theatre, as described in the previous chapter, remains the same. For many teachers finding an appropriate audience for the performance of scripts can be difficult. Podcasting Readers Theatre scripts solves many of the problems associated with performing for an audience. Students record their Readers Theatre performances to be accessed at other times and in other places. In general, the recording process takes no more time than a performance for parents. Recording students’ reading can be done easily and inexpensively in a personal computer (PC) or Apple environment. For this chapter, we describe the process

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using an iDevice, such as an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. If you are in a PC environment, you may refer to our previous work (Vasinda & McLeod, 2011) for specific instructions using a classroom computer. That article describes the recording process using inexpensive microphones and free recording software on a PC. Once the recording is complete and the file is saved as an MP3, it no longer matters whether you use PC or Apple products. Before you begin recording using an iDevice, you will need to find an appropriate app. At the time of print, we use Pocket Wavepad HD by NCH Software (see Figure 10.1). There are many audio recording apps available through the App Store, but this app was selected for three specific reasons. First, it enables users to save the audio file as an MP3 file within the app itself. This frees you from having to convert the audio file from a proprietary format or other less supported format to the MP3 format using another resource outside the app. Second, the app enables users to quickly and easily transfer the file off of the device using a variety of means. Finally, this app is available free for the iPod Touch/iPhone as well as the iPad, and our schools use both types of devices. This provides teachers and students a preexisting level of familiarity with the app. Once you have Wavepad installed on the devices and your students are ready to record, tap the icon to open the app. You will notice a + sign in the top right corner, which you will tap to begin a new recording (see Figure 10.2). When you tap the record button to begin, a recording box will appear in the middle of the screen (see Figure 10.3). This recording box will give students feedback about the volume of their voices. Once your students have finished the recording, tap the stop button (see Figure 10.3). You will then see the recording as a series of audio waves on the screen. The app saves the files with generic names, so tap on File and then tap on Save As to name the file (see Figure 10.4). Name your recording and then be sure to tap on the MP3 button to save it in the appropriate file format for the Internet (see Figure 10.5). Finally, you will need to get the file off the device so it can be uploaded to the Internet. Tap the Send icon (see Figure 10.6) and then choose the method you would like to use to send the file. The easiest way to transfer the file is to simply e-mail it to yourself through the app. Other ways could include using the FTP option within the app or perhaps using iTunes.

FIGURE 10.1.  WavePad app icon. Reprinted by permission of NCH Software.



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FIGURE 10.2.  Begin a new recording on WavePad. Reprinted by permission of NCH Software.

FIGURE 10.3.  WavePad recording box. Reprinted by permission of NCH Software.

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FIGURE 10.4.  Saving the WavePad file. Reprinted by permission of NCH Software.

FIGURE 10.5. Naming and saving the audio file on WavePad. Reprinted by permission of NCH Software.

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FIGURE 10.6.  Send audio file on WavePad. Reprinted by permission of NCH Software.

After you have the performance saved as an MP3 file, you simply need to upload the file to your designated web space. Many school district-­sponsored websites have a place for podcasts. An Internet search for free podcast hosting sites will return many different options. We have used a blog as well. Most blogging sites offer the ability to upload audio files. They also offer the affordance of allowing others to comment on the performance, giving students feedback from their authentic audience. Be sure to play the podcast for students. This is a good listening exercise as well as a time for students to reflect and self-­assess. One student told us, “I feel good to listen to our work because it makes me feel good that we tried hard and our best to do what we had to do on Readers Theatre.” Finally, share the website or blog link with families so that they can listen to their child’s performances from any webbased device such as a smart phone, computer, or tablet. Families may even want to download the performances to an MP3 music device to save as a playlist and record of their child’s performance reading that school year. Parents have commented on how much they enjoy having their child’s voice captured as an artifact of that particular school year.

Recording Tips We recommend using first names only when the students introduce themselves as part of the beginning of the podcast. Some classes just use the script title or “Group 

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1.” This provides an opportunity to teach some Internet safety and, because no student images are associated with a podcast, it is a great entry point for cautious parents to give consent for the children to participate in this project. We’ve had 100% participation in all of our podcasting projects. We also recommend giving attribution to the author of the script or story such as “Please enjoy Three Silly Billies by Margie Palatini performed by Teloni, Francisco, Emma, Noah, and Jared.” When posting the production, you may also want to add where free scripts such as this one are found. So the podcast web description might look like this: Please enjoy Three Silly Billies by Margie Palatini. This free script and others by the same author can be found on her website: www.margiepalatini.com.

As soon as students show growing independence, let them begin taking over the production of the podcasts. In classrooms where teachers encourage students to begin independent productions, students experimented with adding “music” leading into and closing the podcast with their own a cappella versions of songs they have paired with their scripts. Music distributed under the Creative Commons license may also be used. To listen to a sampling and to see how the podcasts work set up on a free blog site, go to drvasinda.edublogs.org.

Example: Rhythms of the Classroom We prefer a 5-day schedule in which the students work in small heterogeneous groups of four to six depending on the number of parts in a script. On a 5-day schedule, students receive their scripts on Monday and do an independent or partner read to get the essence of the story while the teacher works with his or her regular small-group instruction. One teacher recommended “Allow extra time on Mondays to read the script to the class while modeling expressive reading.” On Tuesday, the teacher may work with a Readers Theatre group or two to do some modeled reading, especially for struggling students, as they participate in their small groups reading and rereading their scripts working toward conveying the right expression for their character or part. This practice continues for 10 to 15 minutes per day on Wednesday and Thursday while the teacher works with her regular small-group instruction. One teacher noted that she was “extremely surprised to see how much they [the students] had improved with only two days of practice. . . . The difference between my readers and nonreaders is barely noticeable.” Friday is recording day. The teacher of younger students assists each group with recording their Readers Theatre performance as a podcast. After a few weeks of teacher-­assisted recording, students as young as third graders often begin taking over the recording process as the teacher continues her small-group instruction. As contexts and schedules change, variations of this schedule are possible. We address them in the Extensions and Modifications section of this chapter.

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What You Can Expect from Podcasting Readers Theatre As we noted earlier, our purposeful pairing process is sensitive to the integrity and strength of the original strategy. Our original research in this pairing found all the same benefits of Readers Theatre, such as improved prosodic reading, a 1-year gain in comprehension with a 10-week intervention, and a smooth fit into the rhythms of the classroom (Vasinda & McLeod, 2011). Additionally, we investigated how the technology integration may change the experience since the performance was not intended for a live audience, but recorded for later listening. Through student interviews, we found technology enhanced the Readers Theatre experience in several ways.

Wide Audience  “Thousands and thousands of people could be watching.” Traditionally parents or classmates provide the audience for a live Readers Theatre performance, most often during the school day (Griffith & Rasinski, 2004; Martinez et al., 1999; Young & Rasinski, 2009). But some parents are unable to attend daytime performances. Even though there may be concern about parental access to technology, we found that even in Title I schools, parents have access to the Internet at work or in other places such as public libraries and are able to access their children’s Readers Theatre performances. An Internet-­based audience accessed through podcasting amplifies the authenticity of the audience to include not only those parents and classmates in attendance during a live performance but also friends and relatives across town, across the country, or even worldwide. Some teachers using a blog to host their podcasts include a ClustrMap, a free service that offers the HTML code to place a small map on the side of your blog that uses a red dot to indicate the location of all visitors. It is a very powerful and exciting way for students to see the extent to which their work is being appreciated. Students express their increased sense of authenticity and responsibility for this wider audience of a high-­quality Readers Theatre performance.

Permanency  “We could just go back to the computer because it’s still there.” Another benefit podcasting brings to Readers Theatre is permanency. Because of the nature of a traditionally performed Readers Theatre script, once the performance is completed, the reader has only his or her memory or perception of the performance to enjoy it or evaluate its quality. The podcasted performance and Internet access provides opportunities to listen to the performance repeatedly, and students naturally begin to evaluate their performances. This permanency offers continued opportunities for self-­evaluation and goal setting for following weeks’ performances as well as opportunities to compare last week’s performance with this week’s. In addition, we have found that students are intrigued and amused by the sounds of their own 

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voices, and parents appreciate preserving this aspect of their child’s growth that is not usually captured in school (McLeod & Vasinda, 2008).

Audio as a Visual Medium  “Oh, I want to watch it!” One peculiar and interesting finding when using podcasting with Readers Theatre is the way students talk about their podcasts. They used language such as “watched,” “looked,” and “show” when describing how they accessed their podcasted performance. Upon further reflection one student noted: “ . . . if you are like saying the story without having to sit there and just read and turn the pages and look at the pictures, you kind of get excited about like just saying it and kind of like acting it out in your brain and sound out the words and it helps you a lot. I know it helped me.” When recording, teachers notice how students attended to the computer or device screen displaying the sound waves that match their voice and flat lines when there is no sound. Thus we noted this visualizing aspect of podcasting Readers Theatre, a finding with many positive implications for comprehension. Our new wonder is whether the repeated reading via podcasting increases students’ ability to visualize while reading, or whether they are using visual vocabulary as a metaphor for this work.

Extensions and Modifications The weekly schedule for podcasting Readers Theatre can be modified to fit the needs of many diverse classrooms and schools. In many schools that are implementing intervention blocks in which small groups of struggling students receive additional reading and math instruction within the school day, we modify the schedule to fit a 3 days per week structure and record every other week. For example, if the intervention block for reading meets Monday through Wednesday, we adjust the weekly schedule so that new scripts are given to the students in Tier 2 and Tier 3 every other Monday. These are homogeneous groups of five to eight students who have been identified as strugglers, so scripts are chosen to fit the number of students in the group and more closely matched to their reading level. With the smaller groups, some students read more than one part. On the first Monday, the teacher reads aloud the whole script so that the students hear a prosodic reading of the story; have opportunities for discussion to clarify meaning, mood, and tone; and receive their assigned parts. Then the students practice for 10 to 15 minutes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and the following Monday with the support of the teacher, who coaches them by more prosodic reading modeling of individual parts and discussing the story plot and character development or content of nonfiction scripts. They record on the second Tuesday, then listen and critique their work on the second Wednesday. We have developed a Student Self-­Evaluation of Readers Theatre Podcast rubric (See Figure 10.7) so that the students can document their progress each week and set new

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4

3

2

1

Expression

I read my part with enthusiasm and good expression the whole way through. I changed my expression to match the mood or tone of my character and his/her situation all the way through.

I read my part with enthusiasm and good expression most of the time. I changed my expression to match the mood or tone of my character and his/her situation most of the time, but may have missed one or two changes.

I am beginning to use voice to make my part sound like natural talk in some places but not in others. I still have to stop and word-solve on some words.

My reading sounds like a robot and not like real talking. I still have to stop and word-solve on some words.

I read most of my parts smoothly and do not need a reminder to come in on time. Sometimes my reading is choppy, but most of my reading has the right expression.

It is hard to tell where my sentences end and begin. Sometimes I have to be reminded to read my part at the right time. My reading sounds bumpy in some places. Sometimes I forget to change my voice for question marks and exclamation points.

I stop and start a lot. My reading sounds like a robot. It is difficult to tell where my sentences begin and end. My reading sounds like one word at a time. Sometimes I read the same part over and over again.

Phrasing and I read my parts Smoothness smoothly and come in on time. I know which words to read together as a phrase, or chunk. I read the ending punctuation to guide my expression. I fix up any mistakes quickly and keep going.

Pacing

My reading is just the right speed for my character and the situation.

My reading is just right most of the time, but sometimes I read a part too fast or too slow.

My reading sounds a little too slow or a little too fast. I need to try to match it to my character’s situation.

My reading sounds way too slow.

Volume

I change my voice volume to match the situation in my script the whole way through and my voice is always easy to hear.

My voice volume is just right throughout the text, but I don’t always remember to change the volume for different situations.

My voice sounds too quiet or too loud. It does not always match the situation in the script.

Sometimes I read so quietly that it cannot be heard. Most of my reading is too quiet.

FIGURE 10.7.  Student self-evaluation of Readers Theatre podcast rubric.

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goals for the next recorded performance. The teacher can support these small groups more intensely and still get great results in terms of improvement in both fluency and comprehension of these more homogeneously grouped students with a gap from Wednesday to Monday in their practice schedule. During semesters that give only 2 days per week to literacy tutoring, we adjust the scripts to more poetry and short pieces so we can still keep the every-other-week recording schedule. We recommend that you have students evaluate their reading (individually and as a group) at the beginning and end of each podcasting cycle (see Figure 10.7). We find that the self-­evaluation rubric has been a powerful tool when students use the same rubric for a series of podcast cycles using a different color pen or marker to record their progress over several weeks. It can be quite affirming for students to see the progress they make in their oral reading expression (prosody) through meaningful rehearsal. A natural extension, which sometimes happened without any teacher direction, is to have students write their own scripts. We have had students write original scripts or create alternate endings to selected scripts. When students have created alternate endings, they typically have done so because they have embodied the script and the characters within it so much through the repeated readings that they feel the author’s ending did not do their character justice. By doing so, students demonstrate a strong connection with their character and the plot that only comes from deep comprehension of the script. Students then recorded their scripts with the alternate endings and posted that podcast along with the original.

Your Turn We hope the step-by-step illustrations are helpful in getting you started with this effective and fun repeated reading practice. With the purchase of an inexpensive external microphone or a free app on a tablet computer and readily available scripts, you will be ready to go. Free scripts are available online, in your social studies auxiliary materials, adapted from favorite stories, or written by the students themselves. By sharing and preserving this powerful pairing of Readers Theater and podcasting, you can support and validate all readers, but especially strugglers, with engaging practice in fluency and comprehension. Teachers notice that the Readers Theatre podcasts not only support their struggling readers, but, as one teacher said, “It has introduced my students to new authors and has allowed me to tie in Readers Theatre with whatever lessons we are learning in other subjects.” Some teachers find putting students together based on similar interests is far more powerful than groupings based on reading levels. It is another way to offer differentiated grouping. Teachers offer the following advice, “Don’t be afraid to do scripts that you think are too hard for your students; they will rise to your expectations.” Also, “Let the kids be creative on their own and come up with their own ideas.” Another teacher says, “Make two copies of the scripts for students so they can keep one at school and have one at home.”

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All our readers have found podcasting to be a positive experience. The social aspect of working together for a common and authentic goal forms strong, cooperative bonds between students. Fluent readers cheer on group members who may be struggling. For struggling students, the experience of creating a podcasted Readers Theatre performance piece that has the potential to be heard by anyone can be summed up with a comment from one of our second graders who said, “Before we did the Readers Theatre, I felt like a kitten because I was really scared that it [posting the podcasted Readers Theatre online] was going to everyone. And after it I felt like a tiger because I kept doing Readers Theatre more and more.”

References Griffith, L. W., & Rasinski, T. V. (2004). A focus on fluency: How one teacher incorporated fluency with her reading curriculum. The Reading Teacher, 58, 126–137. Martinez, M., Roser, N., & Strecker, S. (1999). “I never thought I could be a star!”: A Readers Theatre ticket to fluency. The Reading Teacher, 52, 326–334. McLeod, J., & Vasinda, S. (2008). Electronic portfolios: Perspectives of students, teachers and parents. Education and Information Technology, 14, 29–38. Vasinda, S., & McLeod, J. (2011). Extending Readers Theatre: A powerful and purposeful match with podcasting. The Reading Teacher, 64, 486–497. Young, C., & Rasinski, T. (2009). Implementing readers theatre as an approach to classroom fluency instruction. The Reading Teacher, 63, 4–13.

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11

Writing Readers Theatre Scripts Kristie Miner

What Is It? In the heart of every child is a performance. In previous chapters in this book you have learned how practicing and performing Readers Theatre scripts can lead to improved reading and a sense of accomplishment in children. Now imagine the children’s enthusiasm when the performance is from a script they wrote themselves! Writing Readers Theatre scripts connects students with high-­quality children’s literature, deepens comprehension, and improves fluency in both reading and writing. Teachers can enhance the fun and benefits of Readers Theatre by engaging students in scriptwriting. The scaffolded lessons in scriptwriting provide students with many opportunities for repeated readings and a purpose to deeply analyze the text. “Comprehension,” the ultimate goal of reading, is defined as “intentional thinking during which meaning is constructed through interactions between text and reader” (Durkin, 1993, pp. 4–5). The connection between repeated reading and improved fluency has been established in a wide body of research (Rasinski, Reutzel, Chard, & Linan-­Thompson, 2011; Samuels, 1979). Moreover, it has been well documented that fluent readers are also readers who more deeply comprehend what they have read (National Reading Panel, 2000). Writing a Readers Theatre script is an authentic way to engage children in interacting with a text. It requires students to reread the text, closely examining the parts that make up the whole as they create something new. The practice of creating a Readers Theatre script improves students’ reading fluency through repeated reading while deepening their comprehension through interaction with the text. It also provides students with practice emulating the work of published authors to improve the quality and fluency of their writing.

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How Do I Do It? Adapting a previously published text into a Readers Theatre script is a highly motivating, multistep process that engages students in an authentic genre of writing. During this experience, students can often be found dreaming and talking about creating their first movie script or Broadway play. Finding the right text to adapt is just the beginning. After this important step comes reading the text closely and creating the adaptation. I will elaborate on each step I took later in the chapter, but here’s a quick look at the steps you can take to move your students from reading the words on a page to performing them on a stage. Introduce Readers Theatre to students by providing them with a description of what it is and sharing actual performances so they can see what it looks like. A good resource I use is “Meet-the-­Author Movies” at www.teachingbooks.net where students can see published authors performing their original works. Student performances can be found at websites such as www.youtube.com and www. teachertube.com. Select quality children’s literature. Look for picture books and chapter books with interesting characters, engaging dialogue, and well-­constructed plots. Everyone loves a good story! Develop a plan to implement literature study. Students need time to become immersed in the text to develop a deep understanding of the story. A good resource for how to conduct literature study can be found in Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency (Fountas & Pinnell, 2006). Implement a scriptwriting unit of study. Begin by providing students with a selection of published scripts to examine. Make a chart of scriptwriting features based on students’ findings, and then map out three to five “big ideas” that you want to teach that will help students create their own scripts. Facilitate the scriptwriting process by conferring with students to develop and refine their scripts as they work in small groups. Plan time for students to rehearse, revise, and edit their scripts. Once scriptwriting is complete, students will need 1 to 2 weeks to polish their performances. Organize a final performance. The audience can include classmates, school personnel, friends, and family members.

Extensions The process that I describe in this chapter combines literature study, scriptwriting, and performing. There are many ways to adapt and extend this process based on time and student interests. Building student understandings of text through literature study is a key to scriptwriting success. However, if time and resources are limited, students can adapt a text they’ve already used in literature study, one you’ve 

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shared as a read-aloud, or one they’ve read and discussed in a guided reading lesson. Students can work in groups to write a script based on the shared text, adapting the same section or sections of their choice. The scriptwriting unit of study that I developed is based on intermediate and middle- level works of fiction. Picture books, biographies that feature historical figures, poetry, and nonfiction texts (informational, narrative nonfiction, biography) are also options to consider. In “Science Books + Readers Theatre,” Melissa Stewart (2008) notes that science-­themed books that include a variety of “characters” (e.g., animals) lend themselves well to scriptwriting. Once students have experienced this unit of study in scriptwriting, they are now prepared to write scripts independently. This could include adding dialogue and narration to build on original texts, or writing prequels or sequels to develop something brand new.

Example Writing a Readers Theatre script is something students of all ages can learn to do. Poems, short stories, or portions of books can all be adapted into a Readers Theatre script. Here’s how I implemented Readers Theatre scriptwriting in a fourth-­grade class using intermediate- and middle-­level works of fiction. Students began by identifying favorite authors and examining their books online and in our classroom and school library. Student choice of text was an important consideration because I wanted students immersed in literature that was both high in quality and personally engaging. The genres students explored included fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, and realistic fiction. The class created a list of their “top five” books that included Midnight Magic (Avi, 1999), The Tiger Rising (DiCamillo, 2001), Edward’s Eyes (MacLachlan, 2007), The Dreamer (Muñoz Ryan, 2010), and As Simple as It Seems (Weeks, 2010). From that list, students chose their personal “top three.” Considering the students’ identified preferences, I created literature study groups (of about four to five students each) and provided each group a calendar for the purpose of mapping out their reading over a 3-week period. As students read their texts, they met weekly with their literature study groups to share their thinking and talk about what they had read. After the books had been read and discussed, students worked with the same group members to begin the work of writing their own Readers Theatre scripts. To support students’ learning during the scriptwriting unit of study, I designed a series of mini-­lessons (see Figure 11.1). The mini-­lessons were presented to students in a whole-class setting over a period of 2 weeks. Each mini-­lesson included illustrative examples from touchstone texts. “Touchstone texts” are class texts that are used again and again by teachers and students as models for high-­quality writing. In the first few days of this writing unit, students learned strategies for choosing scenes for their scripts. They looked back in their texts to find selections that were

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DEEP AND WIDE READING PRACTICE Writing Unit of Study: Readers Theatre Scriptwriting Mini-Lesson Statements   1. Scriptwriters choose scenes that are filled with dialogue to communicate each character’s voice to the audience.   2. Scriptwriters choose scenes with humor and tension to increase the dramatic effect.   3. Scriptwriters make decisions about which characters and roles to include in their script so the audience understands the story.   4. Scriptwriters remove dialogue tags (e.g., “he said,” “she said”) to establish a dramatic rhythm.   5. Scriptwriters trim descriptive passages to focus on their dramatic core.   6. Scriptwriters combine text from different parts of the story to clearly convey meaning.   7. Scriptwriters add text to allow the audience to understand the scene more fully.   8. Scriptwriters divide long sections of text among several voices to increase the dramatic effect.   9. Scriptwriters add special effects to make the performance visually interesting to the audience. 10. Scriptwriters listen to the flow of the story and edit the text to improve the rhythm of the scene. 11. Scriptwriters publish their work using a consistent format to produce a script that can be easily read by the performers. 12. Scriptwriters share their writing with others to celebrate their published scripts.

FIGURE 11.1.  Suggested mini-lessons.

filled with dialogue in order to communicate the character’s voice to the audience. To increase the dramatic effect in their scriptwriting, the mini-­lessons helped them chose scenes from their texts that were filled with humor and tension. Once the scenes were chosen, students began making decisions about the number of performers that would be part of the script and which characters they would need to include to portray the scene clearly. They also had to decide if one or more narrators were needed to help tell the story. Students learned how to remove dialogue tags (e.g., “he said” and “she said”) in order for the conversation between characters to sound authentic. Some scenes the students chose were filled with descriptive text. As students developed the scenes, they trimmed lengthy descriptive passages to focus on the dramatic core of the text. Scenes that were chosen were often drawn from the middle of the book, so students learned to combine passages from different parts of the story to build necessary background information so the scene could be clearly conveyed. In some cases, students added their own text to allow the audience to more fully understand and visualize the scene. Students learned about the importance of writing a script that would be entertaining and engaging to a variety of audiences. They learned how to divide long sections of text, striving for a balance among performers’ voices. Students also learned 

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how to enrich their performances by incorporating a few timely special effects (e.g., sound of a car honking its horn, a clap of thunder ushering in a storm). As students began practicing for their performances, they listened to the flow of the story and edited their texts to improve the rhythm of their scenes. Students published their scripts using a standard typed format and bound them into books, selected their own parts, and spent 30 minutes a day for 2 weeks rehearsing for their performances. Because the goal of Readers Theatre is not to memorize scripts but to read them with fluency and comprehension, students focused their attention on the delivery. They coached each other to use appropriate phrasing and intonation effectively to develop their characters and make their stories come alive. The final performances were presented at our school’s Family Literacy Night in front of over 200 parents and other family members. Dressed in black, students proudly presented their scripts using their voices to share their stories. Writing workshop is the perfect setting for introducing and supporting the elements of scriptwriting. Each teacher may choose to focus on different lessons depending on the expertise and needs of the writers in his or her class. The following excerpts demonstrate two ways a teacher can provide instruction that scaffolds the scriptwriting process. Let’s start with an example of a teacher and her students engaged in a wholegroup scriptwriting mini-­lesson. Students are learning how to select scenes from their text to adapt into a Readers Theatre script. Ms. M.: Yesterday, you began thinking about choosing scenes from the books you read during literature study. You were looking for scenes that have a lot of dialogue because you learned that conversation between characters helps you get to know the characters, as you get involved in their story. There are other things to consider when choosing scenes for Readers Theatre. Today you’ll learn that scriptwriters choose scenes with humor and tension to increase the dramatic effect. Let’s start by talking about the meaning of humor and tension. What does the word humor mean to you? Tori: Something that’s funny. Ms. M.: Anything else? Jacob: It’s something that makes you laugh out loud. Ms. M.: Right, so humor is something that amuses us. How about tension? What do you think about when you hear that word? Aubrey: The feeling you get when something bad is about to happen. Tyler: Like when a chapter ends in the middle of a scary part. Brendan: And it makes you want to turn the page to see what happens. Ms. M.: Those are all good examples. Now that you have an idea of what humor and tension are, let’s take a look at some examples from a few books that we’ve read together. Here’s an excerpt from Oggie Cooder Party Animal by Sarah Weeks:

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DEEP AND WIDE READING PRACTICE “I want you to send an invitation to the Cooder boy across the street,” Mrs. Perfecto had announced one morning as Donnica sat at the table carefully addressing the envelopes for her party invitations. “You must be joking, Mother. Why would I do that?” asked Donnica. “He’s our neighbor, Cupcake.” “So what? He plays with cheese and makes that annoying sound with his tongue all the time. Plus he dresses like he’s from another planet. Yesterday he wore a bow tie to school. A bow tie, Mother.” (pp. 22–24)

Ms. M.: What emotion did that passage make you feel? Tori: It made me laugh when Donnica said that Oggie plays with cheese and makes an annoying sound with his mouth. Aubrey: Plus he dresses funny. That made me laugh, too. Ms. M: Right, so that scene is filled with humor. Now let’s look at a scene from The Fighting Ground by Avi. Jonathan is running from the Hessians, carrying the young boy he met earlier that day. He sees a fire in the distance, and as he gets closer, he hears low muffled voices. He stops, and nervously waits, trying not to be noticed. Jonathan gazed at the light and listened. He knew they could be other Hessians. “Americans,” he prayed, “make them Americans.” Still more cautiously, he moved forward, trying to feel his way without making any sound, trying to see through the dark. As he drew closer, he could make out at least six forms hunched around the fire. He crept forward. Soon he began to hear hushed words, and he strained to catch the language. German . . . or English? “Halt!” (pp. 111–112)

Ms. M.: What kind of feeling did you get when you read this passage? Tyler: It seems kind of scary. Ms. M.: What makes it seem scary? Tyler: Jonathan’s moving cautiously in the dark, so that must mean he’s afraid of something. Jacob: And it ends with someone saying, “Halt!” That made me wonder if he just got caught by the enemy. Ms. M.: So it seems like this scene is filled with tension. Let’s look at one more excerpt, this one from Paint the Wind by Pam Muñoz Ryan. In this scene, Maya’s grandmother suddenly slumps over at the table during breakfast. Valentina, the housekeeper, runs to the kitchen and uses the telephone to frantically call for help while Maya tries to awaken her grandmother. She ran to her and put both hands on her fallen shoulders. “Grandmother? Grandmother?” 

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Writing Readers Theatre Scripts Grandmother’s body drooped and her arms dangled at her sides, like weighted lines. Valentina appeared and gently pulled Maya away. “Help is coming. They are on the way.” Valentina wrung her hands. “I do not know. She needs a doctor.” Confusion and hysteria welled inside Maya. She yelled, “Grandmother! Wake up! Wake up right now!” In the distance, the whine of an ambulance escalated. (pp. 55–56)

Ms. M.: Why might this be a good scene to adapt into a Readers Theatre script? Emily: Well, something is wrong with Maya’s grandmother, and we don’t know if she’s going to be okay. There’s a lot of tension in that scene. Tori: The last sentence made it sound really serious. An ambulance is on the way, so it must be something pretty bad. At this point, students are instructed to go back and gather with their literature study group and asked to find scenes or chapters in their books that are filled with humor and/or tension. They’ll mark several places to indicate scenes where these elements are present. Here is another example, of a teacher working with a small group to support the selection of a scene for scriptwriting. The students are working in groups after engaging in a mini-­lesson on scene selection. Ms. M.: You’ve had about 10 minutes to look through your books to find a scene or two that would be suitable to use when you write your script. What have you found? Brendan: Our book is As Simple as It Seems by Sarah Weeks, and we decided that one of our scenes would be where Verbena and her mother are arguing. Ms. M.: What are they arguing about? Lily: Verbena has a lot going on in her life. She feels like her mom treats her like a baby, and her parents are a lot older than the parents of most kids her age, and all of this is really starting to bother her. Brittany: She’s at an age where she just wants to be left alone, and her mother won’t leave her alone. Cody: The scene we picked ends with an explosion between Verbena and her mother. Brendan: Verbena runs up the stairs to her bedroom and slams the door really hard. Ms. M.: Wow! You’ve done exactly what scriptwriters do. You chose a scene that is filled with lots of tension. I can wait to see how it unfolds! After about 25 minutes, students gather (as a whole class) to share examples of humor and/or tension that they found in the books they are reading.

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Your Turn An important step in getting Readers Theatre scriptwriting up and running in your classroom is to first read the books the students will be adapting into scripts. Knowledge of the texts and of the authors’ writing styles is going to be important once students delve into the scriptwriting process. In order for a scene to make sense, there has to be a complete understanding of the text, and prereading the books will help you facilitate group discussions and guide students’ decisions. Students will be much more likely to be engaged in their reading if they have a choice in what they read, so as much as possible allow for student choice in text selection. If you decide to present students with a set of book choices rather than having them select their own, consider the reading levels of your students as well as their interests. Encourage students to make their selection based on interest in the book rather than on friends who are in their group. If a book is at a level that is above the student’s independent reading level, you can make the text accessible through a digital download or by reading with a partner. When presenting mini-­lessons, use excerpts from touchstone texts to model the skill you are teaching. In her book Wondrous Words, Katie Wood Ray states, “With a roomful of authors to help us teach, teaching writing doesn’t have to be so lonely” (1999, p. 150). Touchstone texts provide us with a room full of authors and give us a common text from which to teach. Finally, start out by asking students to adapt one section from the book to keep the scriptwriting process manageable. Students will be able to give their complete attention to one scene, applying new skills they learn through mini-­lessons. You may want to model the process with students using a short section from a touchstone text. In time, students can work toward writing more complex scripts, combining scenes from different parts of the book into one performance. The creation and performance of Readers Theatre scripts is a highly motivating and effective way to engage students in authentic literacy instruction. Beyond the benefits it offers in both reading and writing is the sense of accomplishment that students feel when they perform their published scripts. One student summed it up best by saying, “In the end, we truly had a work of art, and that made me feel proud!”

References Durkin, D. (1993). Teaching them to read (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2006). Teaching for comprehending and fluency: Thinking, talking, and writing about reading, K–8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. National Reading Panel. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read. Report of the subgroups. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. Rasinski, T. V., Reutzel, C. R., Chard, D., & Linan-­T hompson, S. (2011). Reading fluency. In M. L. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, B. Moje, & P. Afflerbach (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 4, pp. 286–319). New York: Routledge. 

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Writing Readers Theatre Scripts Ray, K. W. (1999). Wondrous words. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Samuels, S. J. (1979). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 32, 403–408. Stewart, M. (2008). Science books + Readers Theatre. Science Books and Films. May–June, pp. 99–102.

Literature Cited Avi. (1984). The fighting ground. New York: HarperCollins. Avi. (1999). Midnight magic. New York: Scholastic. DiCamillo, K. (2001). The tiger rising. Somerville, MA: Candlewick. MacLachlan, P. (2007). Edward’s eyes. New York: Aladdin. Muñoz Ryan, P. (2007). Paint the wind. New York: Scholastic. Muñoz Ryan, P. (2010). The dreamer. New York: Scholastic. Weeks, S. (2009). Oggie Cooder party animal. New York: Scholastic. Weeks, S. (2010). As simple as it seems. New York: HarperCollins.



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12

Authentic Repeated Reading through Poetry and Song Lori Wilfong

What Is It? In many anthology and basal readers in use in today’s classrooms, the teacher’s manual often suggests repeated readings of the story of the week to help students work on comprehension and fluency. On Monday (or whatever the first day is for the story), the text is new and exciting and many students dive in, eager to read. By Wednesday and Thursday, the text read and reread becomes monotonous; to a struggling reader, it becomes a threat. Too long to be conquered in a single reading, the publisher’s original intent on helping students focus on repeated reading and the author’s original intent on a satisfying and meaningful reading experience becomes an endless slog through a story, more of a punishment than a purposeful practice (Moyer, 1982). In contrast, poetry and song present delightfully short texts that students feel they can read, reread, and conquer without strain (Faver, 2008; Homan, Klesius, & Hite, 1993; Moyer, 1982; Rasinski, 2000; Rasinski, Rupley, & Nichols, 2008; Wilfong, 2008). And while some may argue for the “meatier” text of a story to teach concepts, others point to poetry and other rhythmical texts to teach concepts across content areas (Borgia, Horack, & Owles, 2006; Dennis-Shaw, 2011). Rasinski (2000) recommends that a text selected for fluency practice be read three to five times; by its very nature, poetry is meant to be read multiple times (and eventually performed), allowing the reader to gain confidence, deepen understanding, appreciate the poet’s carefully chosen words, and notice the use of rhythm, rhyme, and other poetic devices. With older students, repeated reading needs a clearer motivation (Sample, 2005). No longer satisfied to simply reread a poem or text for the joy of mastery (or because a teacher tells them to do so), adolescents crave authenticity in rereading, whether it 

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be a performance or choice in reading material. Poetry involves all students in working on their fluency skills. Given the time constraint placed on teachers, any use of poetry and song in the classroom needs to be tightly focused. The Poetry Academy (Wilfong, 2008) was originally developed to take advantage of the short texts of poetry and songs to promote fluency and comprehension in younger students working one-on-one with school volunteers. In later iterations, the Poetry Academy was used to promote reciprocal teaching between older, struggling readers and their matched, elementary-­age reading partners. In each duplication of the Poetry Academy, however, the time spent was kept to a minimum.

How Do I Do It? The Poetry Academy was initially designed as an intervention for a small group of third-grade readers struggling with fluency, word recognition, and comprehension. It was named the “Poetry Academy” to add authenticity to the experience and give a bit of pride to students participating in the program; anyone can read poetry but only apprentices (the name given to the students selected to participate in the Academy) got to read poetry with a community volunteer. Although it can be used with an entire class, I will first describe it here as an intervention, appropriate for small groups of readers in first through fourth grade: Select students for intervention. Curriculum-­based measurements that assess fluency, word recognition ability, and comprehension (e.g., 3-Minute Fluency Assessment; Padak & Rasinski, 2005) will help you identify students in need of more intensive practice of these important skills. Recruit volunteers for the intervention. At many schools, parent volunteers are used for menial tasks like copying and putting up bulletin boards (Rasinski & Fredericks, 1991; Sanacore, 1997; Wilfong, 2008). Many appreciate the opportunity to work meaningfully with students, so long as clear directions and schedules are laid out and support is provided. I found that rich sources for volunteers lie in retired teachers wishing to keep in touch with a school district and preservice teachers looking for supported experiences in schools. Train your volunteers. A Poetry Academy cycle was developed for volunteers to know exactly what to do with their students (see Figure 12.1). Researched fluency strategies like listening-­while-­reading, assisted reading, and modeling were used to keep the meetings between volunteer and students interesting and fun. Volunteers were also shown how to keep anecdotal logs of their weekly meetings with students to alert the coordinator of the Poetry Academy (more on that below) to changes in the student’s reading performance. Select the poetry. To borrow the words of children’s author and poet Ashley Bryan, “the crude, the rude, and the funny” are great texts to get students laughing. Shel Silverstein, Ken Nesbitt, Bruce Lansky, Brod Bagert, David Harrison,

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DEEP AND WIDE READING PRACTICE 1 The volunteer reads a new poem to student, modeling excellent prosody. (modeling) 5 The student reads the poem the following week to the volunteer, proving mastery

4 The student reads the poem to people at home, gathering signatures as proof (repeated reading)

2 Sitting, side-by-side, the student reads the poem with the volunteer (listening while reading)

3 The student reads the poem to the volunteer (repeated reading)

FIGURE 12.1.  The weekly Poetry Academy cycle.

and Sara Holbrook are all examples of great authors who write poetry specifically for children. Set up the schedule. Each volunteer was assigned a set number of students for the duration of the intervention; the number depended on the amount of time they were able to give each week. They met with each student weekly for 5 to 10 minutes, each time working their way through the Poetry Academy cycle. The classroom teacher designated what time during instruction was appropriate to pull students; for some, it was during center time, for others it was during library. Set up a system for the volunteers and students. Weekly, the volunteers arrived, found their folder newly stuffed with poems for their specific students, and settled into the spot for the hour or so they worked with their students. Simple things like where these poetry folders would roost in the school (the mailroom is a popular choice), to the location of the volunteers’ work area with the students that was relatively distraction-­free (one school even cleared out a broom closet for this purpose!) had to be worked out to get the Poetry Academy running smoothly. Decide who will coordinate the Poetry Academy. At many schools a reading teacher, Title I instructor, or literacy specialist fills this role. This includes selecting poems for each week (and possibly the leveling the poems, if necessary), reading and occasionally responding to the logs kept by the volunteers, and organizing a closing celebration of the Poetry Academy. Performance! To close out the end of our Poetry Academy intervention (8 weeks 

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for the pilot of the strategy), a Poetry Café provided a perfect way for students to perform their new skills to parents and teachers. Students selected a favorite poem, pizza and soda were provided, and students took turns taking the stage to read aloud.

Extensions and Modifications The Poetry Academy can be modified to fit the needs of each classroom. Described below are ways to make the Poetry Academy work for you.

Whole‑Class Implementation No volunteers available for your classroom or grade level? The Poetry Academy can be done whole class in a few simple steps: Introduce a poem whole class on Monday by reading it aloud to the students, modeling good fluency. Distribute the poem to students and invite them to read the poem with you. Play “funny voices.” Have students suggest different voices in which to read the poem—­whisper voice, silly voice, etc. Let students read to each other. To begin the signature process, allow students to briefly read with a partner, signing each other’s poems to prove they have read with someone else. During the course of the week, remind students to read their poem to listeners at home and at school, garnering signatures. On Fridays, have a Poetry Café! Students can select the poem from the week (or a poem from a previous week) and perform individually or with a partner in front of the class. Don’t forget the snaps to acknowledge a great performance!

Using Older Students as the Volunteers One school district was interested in implementing the Poetry Academy but wanted to strengthen an intervention for older students, too. To satisfy both needs, we worked with ninth graders at the neighboring high school, who were selected for their own struggles with fluency and comprehension. Here are steps to set this up: Train the high school/older students in the Poetry Academy cycle. Know that the repeated reading they get when working with their younger counterparts will benefit them as much as the younger student. Emphasize appropriate interaction and timing. At the beginning, it is helpful to model the Poetry Academy cycle for the older students. The Poetry Academy coordinator can make a time to sit with each high

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school student and show him or her how to work appropriately with an elementary student, as well as observe a Poetry Academy cycle and give feedback. Proceed with the Poetry Academy as normal. The coordinator may want to be available during meeting times to assist and answer questions, as needed. Remember to pre- and postassess both sets of students! High school tutors who piloted this version of the Poetry Academy improved their fluency and word recognition equal to or greater than their elementary counterparts.

Changing the Text When looking beyond poetry, songs (and song lyrics in particular) are very motivating texts. Think of adolescent students, writing out their favorite song lyrics in a notebook. By using (appropriate!) song lyrics in place of poetry in the Poetry Academy, students are getting to explore favorite artists. At the Poetry Café, students can perform the song in poetry form, or, if you’re lucky, they will sing or rap!

Example: The Poetry Academy in Action An elementary school in North Olmsted, Ohio, currently uses the Poetry Academy as a Tier 2 intervention for students in second grade who are identified as struggling in the areas of fluency, word recognition, or comprehension by a curriculum-­based measurement. Jen Elliot is a literacy coach at the school who coordinates the program. She set up a basket in the main office to house the Poetry Academy folders. Each week, she goes through the folders, reading the weekly logs from the volunteers and selecting poetry for each student based on what she knows about each student’s reading level and interests. “The program took a bit of time to set up,” Jen reports, “but once it got going, it kind of runs itself.” On Tuesdays throughout the spring, Mrs. Fine came in to work with the seven students assigned to her. Mrs. Fine is a retired teacher from the district and was thrilled to find this low-­commitment way to stay connected to the school district and the students. Every school visit began with a stop in the office to get her folder, read briefly through the poems provided to her, and then make her way to Ms. Parikh’s class. Mrs. Fine and Ms. Parikh decided that center time was the best way for students to be pulled out without missing work. One by one, the students filed out the door to spend their 10 minutes with Mrs. Fine, who was set up at two desks in the hallway outside Ms. Parikh’s door. She usually spent the first minute or so following up on personal information the students had mentioned earlier—­siblings, favorite TV shows, etc. Then she had the student read the poem from the previous week to her, praising his or her expression and fluency. She checked the signatures from the people the student had read to at home and at school and awarded him or her a sticker. Next, she presented the new poem for the week, carefully following the Poetry Academy cycle. She sent the student on his or her way and waited patiently for her next student, filling out her log on the student’s progress (see end of chapter for blank log). 

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Results Through the use of volunteers, a simple repeated reading cycle, and poetry, big results can be gained. In my own research on the Poetry Academy, I found that students made significant gains in word recognition, automaticity, and word recognition accuracy when compared to students in a control group (Wilfong, 2008). Attitude toward academic reading also improved in students in the Poetry Academy group. What was perhaps more significant were the changes teachers, parents, and other school personnel noticed while the Poetry Academy was in place: One teacher commented on a shy student who was suddenly “transformed” into an actor: “Every time we did Readers’ Theatre early in the year, he would shrink to the back or beg to not take a part. All of a sudden, he’s a little actor!” The school librarian noticed a rise in poetry books being checked out from the library: “What is this poetry thing you are doing? I can’t keep poetry in the library.” A parent talked about the family time it promoted: “Nikki is reading her poems to her little sister every night, and they both love the attention. In fact, if Nikki misses a night, Taylor reminds her!” Most important, students noticed improvements in their own reading. Scott had a severe stutter but found the weeks reading privately with his volunteer were helping to alleviate his fears: “It helps the stuttering. The practice of the same poem makes it easy to smooth it out on some words.”

Your Turn Ready to start a Poetry Academy at your school? First, decide which type of Poetry Academy will fit best. Do you have school volunteers that could help run the program? Perhaps you have nearby high school students who could benefit from acting as tutors? Or would it be best to run a Poetry Academy within your own classroom? Whichever type you choose, pretest your students in fluency, word recognition, and comprehension so that you have data to show growth in your students as an outcome of the intervention. A volunteer log you can use in your own Poetry Academy is offered in Form 12.1. Definitely monitor your tutors, whether they are high school students or school volunteers from the community. A lesson learned from the original implementation of the Poetry Academy is that all the tutors wanted more training beyond the original cycle training. We came back together to talk about developing expression, working with unknown vocabulary words, and more! Finally, make sure to plan an appropriate culmination to the Poetry Academy, whether it be the regular Friday Poetry Café for whole-class implementation or the culminating poetry celebration for a Poetry Academy done with community volunteers. It is a great way to validate this intervention beyond the data gathered from the post assessment.

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Beyond Poetry Academy Of course, the Poetry Academy is just one way to bring poetry into the classroom to promote fluency:

Rhythm Walks Peebles (2007) noticed that the simple act of sitting still while practicing repeated reading with any text was tedious for her students. She began to incorporate simple movements in their rereadings and developed what she called Rhythm Walks: Finding a poem with natural stopping points. Allowing students to identify these stopping points, after they listen and practice the text themselves. Using these stopping points, writing the text out onto large strips of paper. Text should be large so that students can read it from the floor while standing. Arrange the strips around the classroom, in a linear fashion. Model “walking the poem” for students, reading one strip at a time and then walking to the next. Begin students on the process—a student reads and walks three strips before the next student starts. Peebles usually encourages her students to walk the poem three times, incorporating movement into poem reading!

Poetry Tours Faver (2008) relies on the brevity of poetry to make repeated reading a daily occurrence in her second-­grade classroom. Similar to the Poetry Academy cycle, Faver models the fluent reading of a poem in her classroom at the beginning of the week, involves the class through choral reading, and then partners students up daily to practice the poem, while she walks around, monitoring and cheerleading students through the poem. Where Faver takes the daily poetry routine to another level is with her poetry tours: weekly, students go from room to room and read a poem to other classes, making their repeated reading authentic and fun!

Poetry Races Pitcher (2009) takes reading poetry to others to reinforce repeated readings to a whole new level with Poetry Races. Initially introduced with primary-­age students, a teacher would introduce a poem to a class of students, modeling fluent reading and expression. Students would then get a copy of the poem and a log to record the number of times they read the poem aloud to someone, garnering signatures as proof, in a 2- or 3-day period, as designated by the teacher. The student who had the most 

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signatures received a small prize, like a book, and the cycle started again. Pitcher especially noted the enthusiasm in which parents in her inner-city Baltimore school district responded to the strategy, once she stressed the importance of repeated reading and the research that supports it in school newsletters. Poetry and fluency are a natural pair to bring humor, repeated reading, and confidence to students. With its natural rhythm, variety of topics, and brief texts, it inspires students to shine as they master poems to share with peers, family, and teachers. Enjoy making poetry a part of your fluency routine!

References Borgia, L., Horack, D., & Owles, C. (2006). Poetry is a multifaceted tool. Illinois Reading Council Journal, 34, 56–60. Dennis-Shaw, S. (2011). Multipurpose poetry: Introducing science concepts and increasing fluency. The Reading Teacher, 64, 556–558. Faver, S. (2008). Repeated reading of poetry can enhance reading fluency. The Reading Teacher, 62, 350–352. Homan, S. P., Klesius, J. P., & Hite, C. (1993). Effects of repeated readings and nonrepetitive strategies on students’ fluency and comprehension. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 94–100. Moyer, S. B. (1982). Repeated reading. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 15, 619–623. Padak, N., & Rasinski, T. V. (2005). Three-­Minute Reading Assessments: Word recognition, fluency, and comprehension: Grades 1–4. New York: Scholastic. Peebles, J. L. (2007). Incorporating movement with fluency instruction: A motivation for struggling readers. The Reading Teacher, 60, 578–581. Pitcher, S. M. (2009). The great poetry race. The Reading Teacher, 62, 613–616. Rasinski, T. V. (2000). Speed does matter in reading. The Reading Teacher, 54, 146–151. Rasinski, T. V., & Fredericks, A. (1991). The Akron paired reading project. The Reading Teacher, 44, 514–516. Rasinski, T., Rupley, W. H., & Nichols, W. D. (2008). Two essential ingredients: Phonics and fluency getting to know each other. The Reading Teacher, 62, 257–260. Sample, K. J. (2005). Promoting fluency in adolescents with reading difficulties. School Intervention in School and Clinic, 40, 243–246. Sanacore, J. (1997). Guidelines for successful reading leaders. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 41, 60–64. Wilfong, L. G. (2008). Building fluency, word recognition ability, and confidence in struggling readers: The Poetry Academy. The Reading Teacher, 62, 4–13.



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Form 12.1

Poetry Academy Volunteer Log Volunteer  Student Week of

Student name

Poem mastered from the week before? Progress notes Yes / No

Yes / No

Yes / No

Yes / No

Yes / No

Yes / No

Yes / No

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

13

Invoking Walter Cronkite Radio Reading and the Fluent Reader Allison L. Baer

What Is It? Turn on the radio, and you hear voices from around the world. Each voice tells a story about some interesting event or person, perhaps teaches or exposes a littleknown fact. Radio broadcasts are filled with information told in multiple voices, but they all have one thing in common: the voices you hear are fluent. While an interviewee may pause and stammer, the reporter rarely does. Such is the basis of Radio Reading, as the reader becomes the fluent reporter. Based in the foundation of “fluency,” defined as reading with accuracy, automaticity, and comprehension (Rasinski, 2011) as well as using appropriate phrasing and intonation (prosody) (Duffy, 2003), Radio Reading involves readers practicing a text, composing discussion questions, performing the text for an audience, and running a spirited discussion about the text. Repeated reading allows students multiple opportunities to read a text, thus reducing word recognition errors (Balajthy & Lipa-Wade, 2003) and allows them to comprehend the text without the burden of word decoding (Ivey, 2002). Once students have practiced reading and have a solid understanding of the text, they develop discussion questions to help others construct deep understanding of the text as well. Since open-ended discussion questions are difficult to write, students must understand the text thoroughly. This is accomplished, in part, through repeated readings. The teacher also takes on the job of instructing students how to write effective open-ended questions. As Allington (2001) asserts, question generating is one of the vital steps in attaining thoughtful literacy. As students question the author and the text, they achieve a deeper understanding. Ultimately, at the heart of Radio

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Reading is the notion of collaborative learning as students are involved in “true inquiry in small-group work by designing higher-order, student-centered, openended activities” (Daniels, 2002, p. 35). This collaboration is accomplished through small-group and whole-class discussion that starts with the fluent reading of a text.

How Do I Do It? For the listener, turning on the radio involves simply pushing a button, finding the right station, and listening; the reporter, however, knows just how much time, effort, and practice goes into making the broadcast seamless. Radio Reading takes that same practice and attention to detail. The steps for involving your students in Radio Reading are as follows:

1

Select a short text or texts that support the content you want to teach. One of the great things about Radio Reading is that you can use this strategy in any content area with any grade or age. Based on your teaching objective, choose a text from any genre, fiction to nonfiction, poetry to narrative. The length of the text depends on the number of students in a group who will share a reading, texts should be at least a few paragraphs long allowing at least one substantial paragraph per student.

2 Divide the class into small groups of approximately three to four students. By

doing this, each student will have the opportunity and time to practice or rehearse the reading, become an expert in the content of a chosen passage, and be engaged in active, collaborative learning.

3 Introduce the text. As with any reading, you will want to activate and build

prior knowledge of the text through some prereading activity such as a quick KWL (Know or think you know, Want to know, Learned) (Ogle, 1986) or brainstorming about the content. By doing this, you get the students thinking about the text and how they will approach it.

4 Divide the text into equal parts according to the number of readers. These

chunks of text should be made up of complete thoughts so the students can write thoughtful questions easily answered within the reading.

5 Individual students engage in repeated readings of their chosen or assigned

chunks of text. This may be accomplished in many different ways. For example, you should first read the text aloud to model fluent reading with appropriate prosody. Then each student becomes an expert in one section by reading the passage first a few times silently and then aloud to the rest of the group. Reading out loud to a small group is less stressful than reading to the whole class and this group reading encourages students to listen to each other as they read with expression and practice fluent reading and effective ways of interpreting the text (Vacca et al., 2011). Allow the students 10 to 20 minutes to rehearse.

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6 Discuss the content and structure of the text with students. Through discussion, students will create a better understanding of the text and build their confidence as skilled readers. Encourage open sharing and questioning as they discuss their thoughts and challenge each other about what the passage means. In addition, students should analyze the format of the text by noting the punctuation and grammatical structure. This is a good time to note why the author uses these things in the text and how they contribute to meaning. Remember, the ultimate goal of Radio Reading is comprehension as modeled through fluent reading, so this discussion is a step in that direction.

7

Each student writes at least two open-ended questions about his or her assigned section. These questions should be interesting and creative as they will be used to guide a whole-class discussion.

8

Perform the Radio Reading. Just like at a radio station, set up a table and chairs for the groups to use for their readings. Create or provide a real or faux microphone for students to use. After each group takes its place at the table, individual students perform their reading. Other students in the group and class listen while the radio performer reads. Next, students ask their questions and engage in a group discussion. The purpose of the discussion is to do a quick comprehension check: Was the audience listening and understanding the content? Did they engage in meaningful comprehension of the text? Was the reading fluent so as to support understanding of the text? If the answer is “yes” to these questions, the discussion should be lively and meaningful.

Extensions As noted above, Radio Reading can be used in any content area with any age or grade. It all depends on the objective. For example, in social studies, teachers can employ primary documents from World War II or the Civil War and have students read speeches, treaties, or declarations. Student-led discussions can involve comparisons between cities, countries, or cultures. In science when using primary documents, students can read Galileo’s or another scientist’s actual journals and lead discussions about how their discoveries changed the world as it was known. When working with young readers, teachers can choose a well-known picture book and divide it up for students. As they become fluent in the reading, they will build word recognition skills as well as a deep comprehension of the text. Even the youngest learners can ask intelligent, thoughtful questions. Radio Reading can also be expanded to include larger groups of students, as a class can practice an important passage and present it to a student assembly. This can be done in celebration of a holiday or some significant event in the school such as a pep rally for an upcoming game. Using newspaper articles about the event, a group of students can perform a Radio Reading of the article(s) and lead a wholegroup discussion of the content. As an extension to the follow-up discussion and

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in addition to having individual readers ask questions about their section of text, there could be a whole-class discussion about the entire text. This would be accomplished by discussing not only the readers’ prepared questions, but the audience asking spontaneous questions based on the reading as well.

Example: Ready, Set, Action! We used Radio Reading with a group of nine fourth- and fifth-grade students during the summer session of the Clubhouse Reading Center at the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio. Students’ reading skills varied from above grade level reading to a relatively new English language learner who had moved from Haiti 2 years earlier. Groups of three students worked with trained tutors 3 days per week over a 5-week period. We implemented the Radio Reading strategy in two 90-minute sessions. At the first session, in order to get the students thinking about the meaning of fluent reading, the adults modeled reading the poem “My Writing Is an Awful Mess” (Dakos, 1993) disfluently. Standing in front of the students, I took a deep breath and yelled the poem. When finished, I asked, “What was this poem about?” No one knew. I read the poem again but this time in a soft, monotone voice and asked the same question. This time one student said it was about writing. The tutors then each took a turn reading the poem disfluently. Aaron read it in a high-pitched voice with no pauses, Beth read using inappropriate pauses and choppiness, and Brittney read it in a whisper with her face buried in the paper. After the readings, students were asked the same question, and eventually they had a few more vague responses. They were then asked why they didn’t understand the poem. Their answers were telling. Pointing to Brittney, “We couldn’t hear you!” Looking at Beth, “It made no sense.” Turning toward Aaron, “Your voice was funny.” They then had a brief discussion about how the tutors and I could have read differently to help them understand the poem better. I then read the poem with proper expression, pausing, intonation, and phrasing and asked the students, “What was this poem about?” and “How was this reading different?” At this point, students gave more specific answers about the poem, noting that it was about a kid who doesn’t like to write so his writing is messy. They also discussed what made the individual readings good and bad. Tutors wrote their answers on a white board as a reminder of the difference between fluent and disfluent reading. After the discussion, I gave the students an overview of Radio Reading and how it would be implemented in the class. Tutors took their three students into different areas to work with the selected text, one of the first three pages of the short story Mongoose (Spinelli, 1997). In these small groups, students read and discussed the text in the following ways:

1 Students read individually and silently. 2 Tutors read the selection aloud to the small group. 3 One student read a sentence and the next paraphrased it. That student then 

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read a sentence and the next paraphrased that sentence. They continued reading and paraphrasing until the entire passage was read. By doing this, they collaborated in making meaning of the text.

4

Students then chose which section of the passage they would perform for the Radio Reading. They first read their section silently a few times and then sequentially read their passages aloud to their small group at least three times.

5 Students read their chosen sections of the passage aloud disfluently on purpose.

Tutors then led a discussion about disfluent reading and how it affected understanding the passage.

6 Tutors then noted the punctuation marks in the passage and asked, “What do

those mean when we read?” For example, Brittney asked them what a period means: “What do you do when you see a period?” Students’ answers included, “You gotta stop.” Students noticed that when the tutors read disfluently, they didn’t stop. She then asked what an exclamation point meant. One boy said, “You’re showing excitement, like you shout.” Aaron asked his group, “Do you put the punctuation in if you’re reading too fast?” As a group they responded, “No.” “What about if you’re reading too slowly?” They noted that sometimes, when they read too slowly, they put pauses in where there shouldn’t be any.

7

Tutors then led a discussion about the passage and collaborated with the students on its meaning. This included identifying many details of the text such as the exact kinds of candy Mongoose and Weasel stole from the store as well as discussion about the importance of fluent reading to support understanding.

8 Using the Question–Answer Relationships (QAR) strategy (Raphael, 1986),

tutors talked about the four different kinds of questions: (a) Think and Search (answers are in the text but not in the same sentence), (b) Right There (answers are in the text and sound much like the question), (c) Author and You (answers are not in the text as you need to take what the author says, think about it, and come up with your answer), and (d) On My Own (the text got you thinking but the answer is all from your own head). This structure was used to teach students how to write open-ended or Author and You and On My Own questions. Aaron modeled Author and You questions by asking, “What do you think they are going to do next?” To help them think about the story, Beth asked an On My Own question, “What do you guys want to know about the boys?” This spurred one boy to ask, “Did anybody know that they did this?” Students and tutors made lists of their discussion questions to use in the Radio Reading. The first session included all of the above: practicing reading the text repeatedly, discussing its meaning, and writing multiple open-ended questions. As they came together for the second session, the groups spent approximately 10 minutes reviewing the passage, reading it aloud a few more times, and noting the questions they wrote.

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A table with three chairs was set up at the back of the room. Using faux microphones, each group of three students read their chosen passages to the class. In general, the students read fluently using proper phrasing, pauses, intonation, and expression. There was time for discussion after each section as the readers asked their prepared open-ended questions to which the audience responded with answers and questions of their own. The questions included:

1 “Did anybody find out that Mongoose took a candy bar from the store?” 2 “What would happen if their moms found out? What would they do?” 3 “What size were their pockets?” 4 “Why did they only steal candy?” 5 “Why was the roof of the apartment building their favorite place?” 6 “Do you think anyone will catch them stealing?” 7 “What would happen if your parents found out you were stealing?” When they finished the Radio Reading strategy, students were asked how they liked it. Comments included:

1 “I thought I read really good because I didn’t sound like a robot.” 2 “I think it’s good because you can learn more about the story. It’s fun.” 3 “I thought that at first the story was read good. I can’t understand people yelling or whispering!”

Your Turn Radio Reading requires sufficient time for students to read a selected brief text many times until they can read it orally with some degree of fluency and meaning. Understanding that rereading is not a favorite pastime of many readers, often because students do not view themselves as fluent readers, teachers need to be encouraging and patient as they lead their students through the strategy. Depending on how long you have the students, set aside enough time so they become familiar enough with the text that they can read it fluently and write creative, thoughtful open-ended questions. It is important that the students feel comfortable with each other because Radio Reading involves reading aloud and discussing a passage, both of which can be stressful and challenging for many students. Working with multiple groups doing different readings and tasks can be daunting, so you may wish to use the organizational form (Form 13.1) at the end of the chapter. 

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Scaffold the students’ learning by beginning with short, relatively easy passages and moving on to more complex texts as time goes on. Modeling fluent and disfluent reading frequently will help them better grasp the concept of fluency. After you model, invite students to critique your reading by noting what made it hard or easy to understand. Let the students have fun showing disfluent reading. How crazy can they sound? Encourage them to read too loud, too soft, choppy, high- or low-pitched. Be sure to follow up with a discussion about disfluent reading and how it can get in the way of making meaning. Consider bringing in a radio and listening to the news or a talk show and critique the radio voices. What works for that reporter? Looking beyond the content, how did that sound? You might even want to use scripts from old radio shows that can be accessed from the Internet. If you are working with smaller reading groups, say of four to five children, Radio Reading can be quite useful. Following the same process, you can either have each child read a section to the small group and ask his or her prepared question, or you could have each reading group prepare an entire passage to present to the whole class, much like the example above. Radio Reading can be a successful and engaging strategy that will surely increase your students’ reading fluency. And who knows? You might just have another Walter Cronkite or Terry Gross sitting in your classroom!

References Allington, R. L. (2001). What really matters for struggling readers: Designing researchbased programs. New York: Longman. Balajthy, E., & Lipa-Wade, S. (2003). Struggling readers: Assessment and instruction in grades K–6. New York: Guilford Press. Dakos, K. (1993). Don’t read this book, whatever you do!: More poems about school. New York: Aladdin. Daniels, H. (2002). Literature circles: Voice and choice in book clubs and reading groups (2nd ed.). Portland, ME: Stenhouse. Duffy, G. G. (2003). Explaining reading: A resource for teaching concepts, skills, and strategies. New York: Guilford Press. Ivey, G. (2002). Building comprehension when they’re still learning to read the words. In C. C. Block & M. Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Researched-based best practices (pp. 234–246). New York: Guilford Press. Ogle, D. (1986). The K–W–L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher, 39, 564–570. Raphael, T. E. (1986). Question–answering strategies for children. The Reading Teacher, 36, 186–191. Rasinski, T. V. (2011). Teaching reading fluency. In T. V. Rasinski (Ed.), Rebuilding the foundation: Effective reading instruction for 21st century literacy (pp. 181–198). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. Spinelli, J. (1997). The library card. New York: Scholastic. Vacca, J. L., Vacca, R. T., Gove, M. K., Burkey, L. C., Lenhart, L. A., & McKeon, C. A. (2011). Reading and learning to read (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

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Form 13.1

Radio Reading Passage to Read:

Group Members and Assigned Section:

Repeated Readings (check when completed and note how many times done): I Read the Entire Passage Silently     Oral Rehearsal of Assigned Reading     I Performed Assigned Part Fluently for Group     Group Engaged in Discussion about Reading    

Notes from Discussion:

Questions to Ask Audience: From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

14

Increasing Reading Volume The Million‑Minute Reading Challenge Timothy R asinski and Nancy Padak

What Is It? In the first chapter we suggested that fluency in reading is largely developed through practice in reading. Reading practice can be deep as in repeated reading; practice can also be accomplished through wide reading. In this chapter we explore an approach to increasing students’ wide reading in the place where they spend most of their time: home! It is well recognized that the sheer volume of authentic, contextual reading that students engage in is related to their reading achievement (Morgan, Mraz, Padak, & Rasinski, 2008; Postlethwaite & Ross, 1992). In short, students who are voracious readers generally are more advanced readers while students who choose not to read much are more likely to struggle not only in reading fluency, but also in overall reading achievement. We certainly want to maximize the volume of students’ reading in school. However, we also need to consider ways to increase the amount of reading students engage in at home. Allington (2012) reports that that the average achieving fifth-grade student reads approximately 12 minutes per night at home. Good readers read quite a bit more than 12 minutes daily at home—­students reading at the 90th percentile engage in 40 minutes per day of home reading (Allington, 2012). Struggling readers, of course, read much less. Some, we venture to say, don’t read at all at home. Twenty minutes per day of reading at home seems like a reasonable amount to ask students to do at home each day. Moreover, 20 minutes of home reading lies somewhere between the 50th percentile and the 90th percentile—­in other words, well above average.

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So imagine if your school had an enrollment of 300 students. Imagine also if each of those students read 20 minutes every evening during a 180-day school year. By the end of the school year the students in your school would have read well over 1 million minutes. If your school had an enrollment of 600 or 900, the cumulative number of minutes spent reading would be 2 or 3 million. Moreover, because 20 minutes a night of independent reading is associated with high achievement levels in reading, it is well within the realm of possibility that you should expect substantial gains in students’ achievement as a result of their home reading. What we have just described is the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge. Can students in your school read a million minutes (or more) over the course of the school year? If they can, not only will they have achieved a noteworthy goal, they will have helped themselves become better readers.

How Do I Do It? The Million-­Minute Reading Challenge seems like a simple concept. However, as with many things in life, the devil is in the details. Here are the steps we see as being essential to getting the program off the ground. All teachers need to be on board with the project. Teachers are the ones who will be reminding students to read at home, recognizing high accomplishments, and coordinating with parents. If they do not see value in the project, they are unlikely to support it over the course of the school year. We need to convince teachers of the need for students to be reading at home at least 20 minutes per night. Develop a committee to administer the program. This committee can be made up of teachers, parents, school administrators, and even students. This committee will be in charge of organizing and monitoring the program. Among its tasks are the following: • Lay foundational principles and guidelines for the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge. These might include the actual goal for the school and allowing parents of kindergartners and first-­semester first graders to read to their children as part of the daily 20-minute reading goal. • Recruit parents and students to participate in the Million-­ Minute Reading Challenge. • Provide information and training to parents on how they can support the program. • Develop record forms for students to keep track of their home reading. • Track the cumulative amount of reading done by students, classrooms, grade levels, and the entire school over the course of the year. • Display in the school lobby or other commons area weekly results of students’ reading by classroom, grade level, and school. • Plan periodic pep rallies and recognitions to keep students’ interest in the program high. 

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• Plan a final rally to recognize the school for its accomplishments. • Evaluate the data to determine the relationship between home reading and student reading achievement. A finding of a significant relationship is cause to continue the program into coming years. • Plan for subsequent years of implementation based on what was learned from the previous year.

Example Schools across the country have implemented various forms of the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge. Here we describe how teachers in Denny Elementary implemented the program after hearing one of the authors speak at a beginning-­of-theyear professional development day. The speaker mentioned that 20 minutes a night reading at home was associated with above-­average reading performance. One of the teachers got out her calculator. Twenty minutes per night times 180 school days times the 312 students in the school came out to a little more than a million minutes. Mrs. Riley mentioned this to some of her colleagues and together they sketched out a framework for the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge for Denny Elementary. With the consent of the school principal, Mrs. Riley enlisted the support of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). The PTA chose to make the Million-­Minute Challenge their project for that school year. Every Monday morning students received a log sheet (see Form 14.1), designed by parents, to take home. It was placed on the refrigerator or other conspicuous spot in the home; students used it to record their reading throughout the week. The goal was for students to read at least 20 minutes per day, Monday through Friday, at home. One hundred minutes of weekly reading at home was expected of all students. Each Monday morning students returned the completed form (signed by parents as verification that the reading actually did take place) to their teacher. They then received a new form for the following week. Every Monday morning a group of parents would show up at the school, collect all the completed log forms, and tally up the number of minutes spent reading: by individual student, by classroom, by grade level, and by school. The updated and cumulative reading figures were put on display in the school lobby where each classroom and each grade level had its own sign displaying reading totals. The largest sign displayed the cumulative total of minutes read by the entire school. Small competitions began to crop up between classrooms and grade levels. Third grade made it a point to regularly challenge fourth grade. Whichever grade level won the weekly competition received some special recognition (e.g., being the first to go to lunch or being read to by the school principal or other dignitary). Although third grade won many of the early competitions, the fourth graders took up the challenge. By the end of the school year, they were regularly beating the third grade. Although the PTA ran the program, teachers played an important role in the Challenge. Teachers were essential in reminding students to read at home. Indeed,

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teachers were part of the classroom community and also were expected to read 20 minutes nightly. Many teachers began school with a short discussion of what class members had been reading the night before. Certainly no teacher wanted to have his or her class with the lowest total time read every week. So putting those cumulative reading totals on display in the lobby was an incentive for teachers and students to read more at home. The PTA planned a school rally once the school crossed the 500,000-minute threshold in January. A second rally in May celebrated the school achieving its goal of 1-million minutes of reading. Individual students and classrooms were recognized for exemplary performance in the program. Many children continued reading at home even after the school hit the million-­minute mark. The school ended with 1,226,000 minutes (the average time spent reading at home for each student was close to 22 minutes). In every subsequent year the school sets as its goal to beat the previous year’s mark. And every year it has. Interestingly, in the first year of implementation, the school’s reading achievement scores improved notably over the previous year. And, as the school has continued with the Million-Minute Reading Challenge reading scores have continued to creep up as well. Now it is impossible to attribute improvements in students’ reading scores solely to their increased reading at home. However, it seems quite reasonable to expect that some of the gains in reading are due to the Reading Challenge. Perhaps the greatest proof of the success of the Reading Challenge comes from the reaction of parents and children. Although many children eagerly began trying to achieve or surpass their 100-minute weekly reading goal, many students reported that they soon found that the act of reading for pleasure at home was itself an enjoyable and motivating experience. Some students became so involved in reading that they forgot to monitor the number of minutes they spent reading. Some even failed to report their reading on their log sheets. Parents were overwhelmingly supportive of the program. They found it easy to implement at home. It did not take an inordinate amount of time, and they could share the activity with their children. Here are some comments parents made at the end of the first year: “My child was very excited about the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge and the idea of such a big goal. She looks forward to doing it again next year. It is an excellent incentive to get children to read, rather than just telling them that they need to do required reading minutes.” “What an amazing motivational tool to continue to have the students at [the school] truly want to read!” “I am very blessed to have a child who enjoys reading. The marathon is a good tool to bring parents and children together to read. The children need the reinforcement at home. Nice job! Keep up the good work!” “The reading log is a great idea to motivate the kids to read more. You guys did a great job. Please continue with the program .” 

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“The reading marathon was the best thing. I did learn and enjoy reading with my daughter and now she loves to read. Thank you very much.” “We think it was awesome! It really got our child interested in reading. Jerry still reads every night.” “I loved the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge program! It was very helpful to have accountability!!” “The Million-­ Minute Reading Marathon is a great program that definitely improved Joseph’s reading skills.” “The Million-­Minute Reading Marathon encouraged us to go to the library more often.” We feel that the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge, or any program designed to increase students’ wide reading at home, will not only improve students’ reading proficiency, it will also help students develop the habit of becoming lifelong engaged readers.

Extensions and Modifications The program we describe in this chapter is intended as an entire school program. However, if not all teachers wish to participate in the program, it is possible to implement a similar program among multiple classrooms at one grade level, or even in one classroom. You would simply have to determine what cumulative number of minutes your students will read if they read 20 minutes (or some other figure) per night over the course of a month, 2 months, a semester, or the entire school year. For example, if you would like to pilot a program in your own classroom for the month of May, simply multiply the number of students in your room (say 25) by the number of minutes to spent reading each day (20) by the number of days in the month that are assigned for reading (if you want students to read Monday through Friday there may be about 23 days; if you have students read every single day of the month, the total number of days will be 31). So if you wanted your students to do 20 minutes each night for every single day of the month, your classroom goal would be 15,500 minutes (25 × 20 × 31). Although not a million, 15,500 is still an impressive number. Many students regress in their reading achievement over the summer months. The primary reason for this summer setback is that many students choose not to read during the summer months. A variation of the Million-­Minute Reading Challenge could be the framework for helping many reluctant readers continue reading over the summer. Modifications would have to be made to the reading goal and for ways of documenting students’ participation. Nevertheless, a summertime version of the Reading Challenge can inspire many students to read over the summer. Moreover, the simplicity of the program also makes it easy for a teacher to run it with a minimum of time or resources.

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Your Turn The easiest way to try out the Reading Challenge is to pilot it in your own classroom for a month. As mentioned earlier, simply determine the number of days and the number of minutes per day that you want your students to read. From this determine the month-long reading goal. Develop a log sheet on which students will record their home reading. Create a colorful display on which you share with students (and others) the number of minutes that students read at the end of each week. Introduce students to the importance of reading at home and describe the outline of the program. Plan some special event if your class is able to achieve its goal. This is a good motivator to get students off and running. Throughout your month of piloting it is important for you, the teacher, to be a coach and cheerleader for your students. Talk with your students daily about how they are doing in their home reading and share with them your own home reading experiences. Have plenty of books and other reading materials on display for students to choose from for reading at home. Try to enlist parents’ support. Parents need to ensure that time is provided every night for their children to read. At the end of the month evaluate the program. Did your class meet its goals? More importantly, how did the students respond to this program that encouraged home reading for pleasure? You can design a survey in which students share their thoughts or perhaps do two or three focus groups with your students. Not only get their feedback on the program itself, but also ask students for advice on how to make the program even more effective in the future (students can be quite insightful in their comments). If your results seem encouraging, you can continue implementing the program in your classroom in subsequent months (each month trying to beat the previous month) and have students do the actual legwork of calculating their cumulative minutes. You may wish also to use your pilot implementation as an impetus for implementation at the grade or school level. Although we want all students to be lifelong independent readers who love reading for its own sake, we all know that some students need a bit of an external motivator to get them going. The Million-­Minute Reading Challenge can be just that motivator for your students to improve their reading fluency, increase their overall reading achievement, and develop a lifetime love affair with the written word.

References Allington, R. L. (2012). What really matters for struggling readers (3rd ed.). New York: Allyn & Bacon. Morgan, D., Mraz, M., Padak, N., & Rasinski, T. (2008). Independent reading. New York: Guilford Press. Postlethwaite, T. N., & Ross, K. N. (1992). Effective schools in reading: Implications for policy planners. The Hague: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Rasinski, T. V., & Padak, N. (2011). Who wants to be a (reading) millionaire? The Reading Teacher, 64, 553–555. 

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Form 14.1

The Million-Minute Reading Challenge! Student Name:     Grade:     Teacher: Please complete this form through the week and return it to school on Monday. Title of book or other Number of Write a comment or two about material that you read. minutes read. what you read. Monday Date:

Tuesday Date:

Wednesday Date:

Thursday Date:

Friday Date:

Parent’s signature: From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Part Five

Integrated Fluency Models for Beginning and Struggling Students

15

Implementing the Fluency Development Lesson An Intervention Model for Struggling Readers belinda s. zimmeRman

What Is It? Learning to read and write had been difficult for Justin, a boy who just finished first grade. He was able to read only a handful of words on a preprimer reading list. His running record was level one, and at this stage he used the pictures to do his best “pretend” reading. His school recommended retention to give him another year to mature and develop the readiness skills they felt he needed to develop reading proficiency.

Does this scenario sound familiar? It’s typical of what we learn from parents each summer at the start of Kent State University’s Clinical Practicum in Corrective Reading. The clinic, known as Camp Read-A-Lot, typically serves struggling readers from grades 1 through 6 who have been recommended by their classroom teachers, interventionists, and parents. At the clinic increasingly we see students who have habituated inefficient and inappropriate responses to working through text difficulties. Who among us has not observed a child who overrelies on “sounding out” as the primary word-solving strategy or who engages in robotic word-by-word reading? Or the student who reads 

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so quickly that it is clear he or she is not processing the meaning of the text? And then there is the student who sounds like a good reader but demonstrates surprisingly minimal recall of the meaning of the passage? Other students have not developed the stamina to read independently for more than a few minutes. We have also seen a rise in students who exhibit reading apathy or an unwillingness to read at all. Not only are these students frustrated readers, they begin to view themselves as perpetually incapable readers. To address these concerns, we employ a key instructional practice at the clinic that is research-­based and effective in addressing various literacy needs of our grades 1 through 6 learners. This practice, the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL), originated as an intervention model for primary students experiencing difficulties with fluency and learning to read (Rasinski, Padak, Linek, & Sturtevant, 1994). The lesson has been recognized as an effective approach to fluency instruction by the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) since it incorporates fundamental teaching principles such as modeling fluent reading, assisted reading, repeated readings, word study, and home–­school connections. These and other components are situated within a focused instructional routine designed so that students have multiple opportunities to practice authentic reading (Padak & Rasinski, 2008). The ultimate goal of any successful literacy intervention is to establish a learning context that empowers students to acquire the skills and strategies requisite to becoming independent, thoughtful readers. An intervention model must be grounded in what is known about high-­quality literacy instruction. In our experience in the clinic, classrooms, and compensatory reading programs, when implemented with consistency and fidelity, the FDL is a powerful practice for effective intervention. This chapter provides teachers with specific procedures and extensions for implementing the FDL, a responsive intervention for accelerating reading progress in the elementary grades and beyond.

How Do I Do It? How can teachers provide effective oral reading instruction to advance fluency among those struggling with reading? I offer several considerations to keep in mind. First, it is important to acknowledge the research-­based evidence that clearly shows that fluency matters for kids (Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petsher, & Feller, 2011). For example, when teachers attend to fluency, students are able to: Build phonological awareness and phonics. Increase automatic word recognition and vocabulary acquisition. Develop both word accuracy and comprehension. Display expressive, prosodic reading. Increase reading rate and comprehension. 

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The FDL employs this encompassing view of effective intervention and, in addition, is a fun, motivating curricular engagement. In a nutshell, the key features of the FDL include: Teacher modeling Discussing the content of the text Students following along silently Choral reading Paired reading Group or partner practice Word work Rehearsal/performance Home practice The following provides a framework for implementing the FDL with your students:

The Fluency Development Lesson: Ten Easy Steps for Success Purpose This lesson combines several aspects of effective fluent reading instruction in a way that maximizes students’ reading in a relatively short period of time, about 10 to 20 minutes each day. This lesson is intended as a supplement to the regular reading curriculum for struggling readers.

Preparation Make copies of brief passages, usually poems of 50–150 words for each child. Fewer words may be used for younger or more emergent readers. You need a copy of the text to display (e.g., a transparency, chart paper, smart board, or visual presenter).

Procedures (May be used in whole-class, small-group, pairs, or individual instruction.)

1 Read and reread the text to the class, modeling best fluent, phrased, and

expressive reading. Engage students in a brief discussion of the content of the text as well as the quality of your reading.

2 Distribute copies of the text to each student. 3 As you reread the text, the students follow along silently with their own copies or with a chart-paper copy.

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4 As you continue to lead the repeated reading of the text, invite students to “whisper read” or “chime in” with you.

5 All students read the text chorally several times. Create variety by having

students read different verses or portions of the text in groups. For example, you might say, “All those whose favorite sport is football, please stand and read.” OR “All those with summer birthdays, please stand and read.”

6 The students work in pairs. The pair finds a quiet spot, and each student takes

turns reading the text to the partner three times. The partner’s job is to follow along in the text, provide help when needed, and give positive feedback to the reader. After the first three readings, the roles are switched. Or students may alternate reading roles until each partner has had three turns.

7 You and students choose two to five words from the text for closer examination

(e.g., rhyming words, words the students find interesting, challenging words, fun-tosay words). The student records each word on a separate index card. The word collections serve as word banks and are usually stored in individual baggies or recipe card boxes. Words can then be practiced and sorted. Word games work well here too.

8 Students regroup. Ask for volunteers to perform the text. Individuals, pairs,

and groups of up to four read for the class. The performing students are lavished with specific, positive feedback and praise to reinforce their fluency efforts (e.g., “I like how Emma read smoothly and in phrases. This sounds much more pleasant and interesting than word-by-word reading”).

9 Students take a copy of the text home and read it to their parents/caregivers.

Parents are asked to listen to their child read as many times as they would like and to praise their child’s efforts.

10 The following day, the students read the passage from the previous day to you, a peer, or another “lucky listener.” Students or student pairs also group and sort the word bank words from the previous day.

Extensions You can adapt and extend this process based on student need, interest, and grade level. I have included two favorites that incorporate elements of talking, drawing, and writing below. When language is the starting point of instruction, students have an important opportunity to rehearse thinking and speaking in advance of assigned writing. As teachers, we can teach our students to use talk as a strategy for selecting what they want to write and then problem-­solve through the process of actually writing it. Through conversations, you can assist students and students can support one another in making meaningful connections to text. In my experiences, students are 

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much less reluctant to draw and/or write when provided with the opportunity to “talk their way into” text (Horn & Giacobbe, 2007, p. 17). Drawing plays an important role in students’ literacy development. For all learners, particularly those who struggle, drawing can serve as a bridge to link reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and thinking. As students draw, they frequently tell stories during the process, adding occasional letters, labels, captions, and sentences to their pictures. In this way, drawing is writing that the students can “read.” This drawing process should not be reserved for use with primary children only. Older students and English language learners can benefit from the process too (Dorr, 2006).

Example: The FDL in Action I begin by following steps one through seven of the FDL. Then I bring the students together to discuss their connections to the story and to think about telling a true story based on a small moment, a memory, or an event from their past experiences. I ask the children to tell “real stories” because the quality of writing is best when children write about what they know (Calkins, 1994; Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001; Routman, 2005). At this point, I ask the children to regroup to further discuss text meaning and to make personal connections based on their life experiences at home, in class, or on visits and trips. The talk that ensues helps children to deepen understanding of the selected passage, organize their thinking, and prepare to draw and write. Students each create a page showcasing their text-to-self connections. As in the typical FDL procedures, the lesson draws to a close by having students practice the poem for performance. Additionally, they prepare to show off their drawings and “read” them to the class. The pages of all the students may be later assembled to create a class book for favorite FDL poems. Let’s look at an example of a teacher and her students engaged in this “talk, draw, write” process. Here, students have just completed the beginning steps of the FDL and are in the discussion phase of talking about text meaning and linking this to their own lives. The students are fourth graders and the text is a poem of 118 words entitled “Squished Squirrel Poem” by Ralph Fletcher (2011, p. 31). In the poem, a teacher urges his students to write a poem about “something noble to lift the human spirit” such as an “eagle or dolphin.” Tension develops when one student declares, “I want to write about a squished squirrel I saw on the side of the road near my house last night.” The following are selected excerpts from the discussion among the teacher and a group of struggling readers. Ms. R.: Let’s talk about what we notice about the poem. A hmed: It uses strong words like “squished” and “blood” and “guts.” Ms. R.: Those are indeed powerful words. Nice examples, Ahmed. What else did you notice?

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Grayson: It doesn’t rhyme and the poems I know usually rhyme. Ms. R.: That’s true that this poem doesn’t rhyme. Talk with an elbow buddy about whether you have a preference between rhyming and nonrhyming poems and be sure to say why. After the partner talk, students report their thoughts on the issue of rhyming and nonrhyming poems. Ms. R. then shifts the focus of the conversation to making connections. Ms. R.: Now, let’s share some of our connections with the poem. Dane: I have a connection. I saw something happen like that once. It was nasty. Cloressa: What was it? Dane: A squished animal. We had to call animal control. Erich: Yeah, that reminds me of when I was riding my bike and I saw a dead possum. I tried my best to ride around it. Students continue to share text-to-self connections related to the poem Ms. R.: So do you agree or disagree with the teacher in the poem? Is it okay for kids to write poems about the topic of a squished squirrel? Many opinions are shared, such as the ones by Madison and Jacob below. M adison: I don’t think this poem is good for little kids. Ms. R.: I see, you feel that perhaps it is not appropriate for . . . M adison: Anyone younger than fourth grade! Jacob: Well, I disagree. I think the teacher should let the kid write about whatever. It’s his story so the teacher needs to chill out and just let him write. Ms. R. directs the children to draw and write about their connections and/or opinions. Figure 15.1 is one resulting example from Miley. Many aspects of the previous conversation were incorporated into students’ drawings and written comments. In Miley’s case, she included some of the language from the Fletcher poem (e.g., “ . . . but what really got me is that. . . . ”) into her writing. The students used their small-group conversation about strong words and connections to text as “mentors” to extend their vocabulary and think more deeply about the poem.

A Further Extension In this variation of the FDL, the “talk, draw, write” process is employed once again but modified to include elements of the Language Experience Approach (LEA). For decades, educators have been using the LEA to integrate reading instruction with 

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FIGURE 15.1.  Miley’s drawing and writing example.

listening, speaking, and writing skills (Stauffer, 1969; Wake & Modla, 2010). LEA is based on the premise that students read fluently when the text resembles their own spoken language. In LEA lessons, students each dictate a story about their own experiences and the teacher records their stories. Once stories are recorded, students are able to read and reread their words. Students thrive when reading text that is constructed through the LEA because the language is their own. In the following example, a teacher was working with a small group of children. As part of the FDL process, they had just completed repeated readings of the poem “Little Puppy” (Rasinski & Griffith, 2005, p. 23). This poem also doubles as a song. Poems like “Little Puppy” tend to complement the FDL process and attract the interest of children as they often contain strong voice, humor, repetition, rhythm, and rhyme. These elements are often pathways to reading motivation and success for those who struggle (Rasinski & Padak, 2005). After the children finished sharing their connections to the poem, they dictated individual stories inspired by the “Little Puppy” poem. The teacher was able to quickly record each child’s dictated story. When not working directly with the teacher, the children were guided to continue the paired reading, word work, and rehearsal components of the FDL so that they were meaningfully engaged in reading and word study while the teacher took dictation. The children were invited to

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illustrate their stories, either before or after dictation. The passage below and Figure 15.2 offer examples of the LEA stories authored and illustrated by one of the students in the group: “Gabby the Great Dog” by Devin (Grade 2) My grandpa has a puppy and she is really cute. Her name is Gabby. She likes to lay on the heater to take a nap. I like to take her for a walk. Her color is back and white, but she is not a Dalmatian. She is big and has lots of straight hair. Once we saw another dog and the leash slipped out of my hand. She ran toward the other dog and the dogs started to fight, but nobody got hurt.

FIGURE 15.2. Devin’s illustration of his LEA story. 

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Devin used his own language in meaningful ways as he made connections and constructed stories. He also incorporated sight words (as well as words that were above his instructional level) into his story. Through repeated readings of his composition, he was able to successfully read these tricky words and to transfer this word knowledge to other reading and writing situations. In sum, pairing the use of the FDL with “talk, draw, write” procedures or the LEA approach may enhance the power inherent in all three research-­based methods. When approaches are integrated, instruction may provide struggling readers with alternative gateways to authentic language exploration, creative storytelling, and literacy skill and strategy acquisition in ways that are appealing and engaging to the students. Ultimately, children’s self-­concepts and self-­efficacy are enhanced as they come to understand that their personal connections and stories are important enough to be recorded, illustrated, displayed, rehearsed, and performed.

Your Turn In order to successfully implement the FDL in your classroom, an important first step is to select a time, 10 to 20 minutes, for the instructional routine to be implemented on a daily basis. It is an ideal way to launch the literacy block, so in most settings including classrooms, intervention groups like Title I or Camp Read-A-Lot, the morning begins with the new FDL poem-of-the-day. Once the students have the steps of the FDL routinized, you may opt to include more than one poem for each lesson. For example, you might select one FDL poem and ask students, in partners, to choose a second. The students responsible for the second poem selections may also serve as leaders and assist you in introducing the poem to the rest of the group. This way all students have several opportunities to select poems and lead poetry presentations throughout the school year. Choice and leadership are included because they are highly motivating and honor the students’ ideas and interests. All things considered, you will want to select poems that lend themselves to repeated practice and are meant to be read or performed orally for others. Good choices are usually relatively short so they can be practiced in short blocks of time, are highly engaging, encompass a variety of topics, have increasingly rich vocabulary, and include built-in opportunities for comprehension discussion and instruction. Fluency is integral to success in reading; too many students do not possess the fluency needed for appropriate reading progress. For these reasons, fluency can and should be taught to all children, especially struggling readers. To accomplish this simply, inexpensively, and in a relatively short period of time, you might include the FDL as part of your daily instruction with struggling readers. The FDL is as an easyto-use resource (see Form 15.1 for a handy bookmark to remind you of the steps) with well-­documented payoffs in terms of fostering fluency progress, overall reading development, and students’ self-­efficacy. As such, the FDL is a comprehensive and

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authentic practice to make fluency instruction effective and enjoyable for those who find learning to read difficult.

References Calkins, L. (1994). The art of teaching writing (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Dorr, R. E. (2006). Something old is new again: Revisiting language experience. The Reading Teacher, 60, 138–146. Fletcher, R. (2011). Mentor author, mentor texts: Short texts, craft notes, and practical classroom uses. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Fletcher, R., & Portalupi, J. (2001). Writing workshop: The essential guide. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Horn, M., & Giacobbe, M. E. (2007). Talking, drawing, writing: Lessons for our youngest writers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: An evidence-­based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Pub. No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Padak, N. D., & Rasinski, T. V. (2008). Evidence-­based instruction in reading: A professional development guide to fluency. Boston: Pearson. Rasinski, T. V., & Griffith, L. (2005). Texts for fluency practice: Grade 2. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing. Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Linek, W., & Sturtevant, E. (1994). The effects of fluency development instruction on urban second grade readers. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 158–164. Rasinski, T. V., & Padak, N. D. (2005). Fluency beyond the primary grades: Helping adolescent struggling readers. Voices in the Middle, 13(1), 34–40. Rasinski, T. V., Samuels, S. J., Hiebert, E., Petscher, Y., & Feller, K. (2011). The relationship between silent reading fluency instructional protocol on students’ reading comprehension and achievement in an urban school setting. Reading Psychology: An International Quarterly, 32, 75–97. Routman, R. (2005). Writing essentials: Raising expectations and results while simplifying teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Stauffer, R. G. (1969). Teaching reading as a thinking process. New York: Harper & Row. Wake, D. G., & Modla, V. B., (2010). Language experience stories gone digital: Using digital stories with the LEA approach. In F. Falk-Ross, M. M. Foote, M. B. Sampson, & S. Szabo (Eds.), The 31st yearbook: A double peer reviewed publication of the College Reading Association (pp. 253–269). Waite Park, MN: Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers.

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Form 15.1

Fluency Development Lesson Bookmarks

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

16

Boosting Fluency of English Language Learners with Music and Poetry Performance Activities Kristin Lems

What Is It? Before I was aware of and interested in the topic of reading fluency, I wrote articles and presented at conferences about ways to use songs and poetry when teaching English as a second language (e.g., Lems, 1996, 2001a, 2001b, 2002, 2005). Teaching English language learners (ELLs) in several settings, I noticed that students were highly motivated to practice and memorize songs and poems. Moreover, performing them always seemed to be a very positive experience (Lems, 2001a). At the time, I didn’t frame these activities as “fluency instruction,” but I do now. When students read the words of a text multiple times, attend to its meaning, pay attention to its expressive features, strive to increase their accuracy, and monitor their practice to achieve a successful performance, they are engaging in fluency activity. We all know by now about the benefits to reading comprehension resulting from fluency instruction (e.g., Chomsky, 1976; Samuels, 1979; Zimmerman & Rasinski, 2012). For ELLs, however, there are two big added advantages to fluency practice: (1) It’s a natural way to practice English pronunciation, and (2) it’s a way to build up self-­confidence with spoken language. When you’re working on learning the sounds and meanings of a new language, it’s easier to wrap your mind—and your mouth—­around words someone else wrote than to create sentences of your own. Just consider how many of us can rattle off the opening lines of “La Bamba,” or recite “Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” in a convincing way even though we couldn’t participate in any resulting conversations! 

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A key requirement for successful second language acquisition is a “low affective filter,” according to Krashen’s (1981) widely accepted affective filter hypothesis. When students are more relaxed in the classroom, they are more receptive to new language growth. Music can serve as a way of lowering the affective filter and can increase language learning success (Ray, 1997). Therefore, in this chapter, I’m going to describe a good way to use songs and poems for fluency practice with ELLs. Young people already listen to music quite a bit. A 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation study found that young people absorb more than 10 hours of media per day, 7 days a week, often employing several media at once (Rideout, Foehl, & Roberts, 2010). Songs and music are very important to students’ lives, and their inclusion in the curriculum often heightens attention, which positively affects learning (Asbury & Rich, 2008). There are other benefits to using music with ELLs, too. In addition to the high-­frequency vocabulary and idioms found in song lyrics (Murphey, 1992), songs model such features as English word order, which words can go together, what parts of words get stressed, and where phrases can and can’t be taken apart. Also, the rhythmic patterns of lyrics help language learners notice and practice the prosody, or patterns of stress and intonation, in a language (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2010). Suzanne Medina (2002) succinctly describes the cycle of success for using music in classrooms with ELLs: For most students, singing songs and listening to music are enjoyable experiences. The experience is so pleasurable that it is not uncommon for students to “pester” their teacher so that they can sing again and again. Also, as students repeatedly sing songs, their confidence level rises. Furthermore, by engaging in a pleasurable experience, learners are relaxed and their inhibitions about acquiring a second language are lessened. Yet, while they are more relaxed, they are also more attentive than usual, and therefore, more receptive to learning. (p. 1)

How Do I Do It? Launching a song-based fluency project is easy and fun. For a class of fourth-­grade ELLs I was teaching on a weekly basis, I created a set, or “playlist,” of 10 songs that they would learn to sing over the 10 weeks of my visits. Each week, I introduced one new song, culminating in a 10-song set by the last week. First I chose the songs, using a process I’ll describe in a bit. Once chosen, I prepared two things: a handout with all of the song lyrics, and a jump drive with recordings of the songs in the same order as the handout. The song activity started out each week’s class session. On the first week, I handed out the packet and explained the project briefly. Students would hear the songs, we’d look at a few vocabulary words in the lyrics, and then we’d sing the song several times, adding one song each week. Since it was a fluency focus, the songs were not used for comprehension activities, but mostly for the singing activity itself. When we listened to the first song, while reading along with the lyrics, I taught a few key vocabulary words to describe some of the musical features of the song—the names of

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some instruments (e.g., guitar, string section), the genre (e.g., ballad, show tune), and a few descriptors about the vocal performance (e.g., passionate, pleading, rousing). It’s important to respond to music as music—not just as a vehicle for words! Following that brief activity, I started up the song again, and we all sang it together while still reading the lyrics. I always sing the song in a strong, clear voice but keep the recording up high so that they are following it, not me. One more time through is just enough. That’s all we did the first couple of weeks until everyone became comfortable with the “pleasant inevitability” of morning singing time. Each week after the first one, we started by singing the songs from previous weeks, in order. The first week’s song quickly becomes louder and stronger! By the fourth week, I split the class into two halves to sing one of the first songs. Soon after that, I split the class into four groups—­one group to repeatedly sing the chorus of the song, and the other groups who were each responsible for one of the verses. The song that worked very well for this was “Que Sera Sera.” You can alternate having girls sing on the first and third verses and boys on the second, with everyone coming in for a lusty rendition of the chorus. Each week thereafter, we warm up with the previously learned songs, and then get introduced to the new song. The activity takes only about 20 minutes, although it gets longer, of course, as the weeks pass because there are more songs to sing. Over time, the singing sounds more full-­bodied and confident as students learn to use their voices as they feel greater mastery of the lyrics. One of the unexpected delights of this singing activity is that students memorize the first few songs easily by the fourth or fifth week, through sheer repetition. By the final week of the unit, these fourth-­grade students were able to perform some of the songs in a neighboring first-grade bilingual classroom. The first graders loved it, but not as much as the performers enjoyed performing them!

Example If you want to try this, you need to choose songs that are (1) easy to sing and set within the pitch range of the children, (2) age-­appropriate, (3) well known, and, when possible, (4) with repeating sections. The repetition is part of the power of the activity, so ballads and pop songs are natural favorites. In addition, I favor songs that could be considered to be socially positive, with upbeat themes about love, hope, community, and sharing. Oh, and an additional criterion is that you have to like each of the songs because you’re going to be hearing them a lot! Songs for the singing project can be chosen from classic American folk songs, topical songs for a social studies unit, or children’s songs for seasonal or multicultural celebrations. American folk songs expose immigrant children to American history and culture and help them feel comfortable in their new setting. The songs you choose might range from the goofy, such as “camp songs,” to memory aids, including alphabet and counting songs; they might be from old musicals or even TV shows. You can decide what works for your group. If your school has a music 

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teacher, by all means work with him or her to the fullest possible extent. Kids sometimes suggest songs they like, too. Before the digital revolution, teachers used to think they had to be able to play an instrument or lead the singing in order to sing songs in the classroom, but this is no longer the case. Now, using digital media, we can easily locate and access well-known songs that we would like to share with our students, at little or no cost and without being required to lead the singing. You can obtain recordings of the songs in a number of places, from CDs or online. A list of some good sources for folk songs can be found in Figure 16.1. Often, you can even find karaoke versions of favorite songs at YouTube. Smartboards and screens allow us to display lyrics clearly and legibly in the front of the room. However, I’d suggest you continue to use song sheets so that students can practice the songs at home and share them with their families. Also, you can lay out the lyric sheets you distribute with two pages for each song so that there is room for students to draw an illustration related to the song. I have successfully done this with Dave Mallett’s beloved “The Garden Song.” If the songs are not all available in a CD collection, you can purchase individual downloads. Support your local folksinger! Your song collection, once chosen, should  Folkways Records (www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/radio.aspx), America’s definitive folk music label, joined forces with our publically owned Smithsonian Institution, and now it’s possible to find thousands of American folk songs there. There is a free radio player at the site which plays the original recordings of thousands of songs. You will be dazzled by the options and will find many treasures for any social studies or history unit you might be planning. Browse around!  The Children’s Music Network has rich collections of educational musical resources, including environmental songs (www.cmnonline.org/environmental-resources.aspx) and peace songs (www.cmnonline.org/peace-resources.aspx). The site also lists books, organizational resources, articles about important school topics, and songs that can be played, purchased, or, in some cases, downloaded free, with the authors’ permission.  The Wee Sing song collections (www.weesing.com) look as if they are pitched mainly toward the early childhood years, but several of their collections are fine for middle and upper elementary level students. Their books and CDs are reasonably priced and contain sheet music with chords and lyrics, and when appropriate, even dance steps or rules to play party games. I find this publisher to have both variety and integrity.  Songs for Teaching (www.songsforteaching.com) is another great website with teacher resources for using music. Songs are grouped by topic, and there are helpful hints on how to use them in the classroom. If you subscribe (free) to the newsletter, they send you one free song download per month. The songs cover a range of curricular topics and are almost always easily singable.  The most user-friendly, comprehensive anthology of folk, pop, and contemporary American songs from the past 50 years is the book Rise Up Singing (Blood, Patterson, McWhorter, Seeger, 1994, 2005, Sing Out Magazine Press). The book includes guitar chords under the lyrics. You can also order CDs with all of the melodies. Most of the songs in Rise Up Singing are also demonstrated on YouTube, at Matthew Vaughn’s channel. A new volume of Rise up Singing is in production with many new easily singable songs expected.

FIGURE 16.1.  American music resources for the elementary classroom.

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be well organized and labeled. You might play the songs as background music during class, but beware: everyone might just drop their work and start singing! Use whatever technology you have available and you are comfortable using.

Extensions If the idea of singing songs with students still leaves you breathless, maybe using poetry will do the trick. Jessica Astrug, a 3/4 multi-age classroom teacher in Hanover Park, Illinois, uses very similar fluency techniques with poetry to the techniques that I use with songs in her class of mixed ELLs and native speakers. The poems she selects may be sung, chanted, memorized, and sometimes performed with a fake handheld microphone. Like the song performance project, Jessica adds a new poem each time the class gets together for the project, especially early in the school year, to create classroom community. Jessica creates a PowerPoint slide for each poem she teaches. She starts with shorter, more “fluid” poems and works up to more complex poems. She projects the slide of the poem on the smartboard when she reads it expressively for the first time, and students read along silently. Then they repeat the poem chorally or echo her performance line by line. Jessica says, “Reading poetry helps, big time!” The first few times, she said, students stumbled over the more difficult words, so she decided to start posting those words around the room for additional reinforcement. She also found that some of the language in the poems was hard for the ELLs, and the quick 5 minutes that she wanted to spend would turn into 15 minutes instead. To avoid this, she needed to plan ahead and pick out the poems for the project carefully. Jessica chose poems by Jack Prelutksy and Shel Silverstein because they are not only fun and funny for the students, she said, but contain a “depth of vocabulary” as well. Putting poetry on the smartboard helped students perform the choral reading and “track” the lines, increasing decoding skills. Once the students had been exposed to a poem a few times, Jessica would alternate girls reading one line and boys the next. Sometimes they went line by line and other times by stanzas. As with the song project, Jessica would repeat the older poems until students could read through some of the poems very well. Jessica mentions that the choral activity was especially helpful for struggling ELLs because they were able to listen to and mimic the rest of the class without calling attention to themselves. Jessica turned the poetry project into a “Poetry Café” on Friday mornings. She would project an image of a red curtain on the smartboard and pass out a new poem to students each week. After their morning assignments, they would grab a copy of the poem, find a partner or group, and practice reading it, using different voices and gestures. Finally the students would perform the poem in front of the whole class. The fake microphone helped strengthen students’ ability to stand up in front of a class and speak. “In the beginning,” Jessica reports, “only my ‘louder’ students would come up and speak, but by the end of the year, almost everyone was coming 

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up to read poems.” This is the same experience I had with the songs—kids are willing to take risks with language when they’re having fun and engaging with interesting materials, and songs and poetry serve as a great vehicle for that fun.

Your Turn The chart in Figure 16.2 will get you started with possible song playlists at three different proficiency levels. You should think of them as merely a starting point for your own artistic journey. Good luck with your explorations in harmonious fluency!

References Asbury, C., & Rich, B. (2008). Learning, arts, and the brain: The Dana Consortium report on arts and cognition. Washington, DC: Dana Press. Chomsky, C. (1976). After decoding, what? Language Arts, 53, 288–296. Krashen, S. D. (1981). Principles and practice in second language acquisition (English Language Teaching series). London: Prentice-­Hall International. Lems, K. (1996). For a song: Music across the ESL curriculum. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED396 524. Lems, K. (2001a). An American poetry project for low intermediate ESL Adults. English Teaching Forum, 39(4), 24–29. Lems, K. (2001b). Using music in the adult ESL classroom. ERIC Digest ED0-LE-01-03, National Council on ESL Literacy Education. Lems, K. (2002). Music hath charms for literacy . . . in the ESL classroom. Indiana Reading Journal, 34(3), 6–12. Lems, K. (2005). Music works: Music for adult English language learners. In R. Lawrence (Ed.), Artistic ways of knowing: Expanded opportunities for teaching and learning (pp. 13–22). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lewis, K., Miller, L. D., & Soro, T. M. (2010). Teaching reading to English language learners: Insights from linguistics. New York: Guilford Press. Medina, S. (2002). Using music to enhance second language acquisition: From theory to practice [electronic version]. In J. Lalas & S. Lee (Eds.), Language, literacy, and academic development for English Language Learners. New York: Pearson. Retrieved from www.forefrontpublishers.com/eslmusic/articles/238-using-music-to- ­enhance-­ second-­languageacquisition-­from-­theory-­to-­practice. Murphey, T. (1992). The discourse of pop songs. TESOL Quarterly, 26, 770–774. Ray, J. J. (1997). For the love of children: Using the power of music in English as a second language programs. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8–18 year olds. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved from www.kff.org/entmedia/ upload/8010.pdf. Samuels, S. J. (1979). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 32, 403–408. Zimmerman, B., & Rasinski, T. (2012). The fluency development lesson: A model of authentic and effective fluency instruction. In T. Rasinski, C. Z. Blachowicz, & K. Lems (Eds.), Fluency instruction: Research based best practices (2nd ed., pp. 172–184). New York: Guilford Press.

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Author I.  Low Proficiency (limited words)

 1. Shenandoah

Traditional

 2. This Land Is Your Land

Woody Guthrie

 3. On Top of Old Smokey

Traditional

 4. We Shall Overcome

Frank Hamilton and Pete Seeger

 5. 500 Miles

Hedy West

 6. What a Wonderful World

Bob Thiele and George Davis Rice

 7. Kumbaya

Traditional

 8. She’ll Be Comin ‘Round the Mountain

Traditional

 9. Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Pete Seeger

10. Que Sera, Sera

Jay Livingston and Ray Evans II.  Intermediate Proficiency

 1. B-I-N-G-O

Traditional

 2. The Garden Song

Dave Mallett

 3. The Green Grass Grew All Around

Traditional

 4. This Pretty Planet

Tom Chapin

 5. The Water Is Wide

Traditional

 6. In the Good Old Summertime

George Evans and James Blake

 7. Home on the Range

Brewster Higley

 8. The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)

Solomon Linda

 9. Oh Susanna!

Steven Foster

10. Blowin in the Wind

Bob Dylan III.  Advanced Proficiency

 1. I’ve Been Workin on the Railroad

Folk song

 2. Puff the Magic Dragon

Peter Yarrow

 3. The Marvelous Toy

Tom Paxton

 4. Waltzing with Bears

Poddany and Marxen, taken from Dr. Seuss

 5. Baby Beluga

Raffi

 6. Yankee Doodle

Richard Schuckburg

 7. Buffalo Gals

Traditional

 8. Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

Rodgers and Hammerstein, from the musical Oklahoma

 9. Old Settler’s Song (Acres of Clams)

Francis D. Henry

10. Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Jack Norworth and Albert Van Tilzer

FIGURE 16.2.  Song “playlists” good for fluency practice in grades 3–5. 

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17

Getting Children Off to a Fast Start in Reading Terry Kindervater

What Is It? The title Fast Start (Padak & Rasinski, 2005) embraces the gift that it is. The home (and school) literacy program provides a plan for families to engage in activities that develop young children’s literacy understandings and fluent reading, early on. The concepts and skills build a foundation for successful reading achievement through repeated experiences with the provided texts. The involvement of parents in literacy development cannot be overstated. Senechal’s (2006) meta-­analysis highlighted the importance of the role of parents in the literacy development of their children. She noted that training parents to teach their children a literacy skill is six times more effective than having parents read to them. Fast Start sets forth a specific routine for engaging children with fun poetry and nursery rhymes. The program provides the training for parents to direct the children in specific skill and concept development, just as Senechal suggested. I (Kindervater, 2012) documented the significant growth of seven preschool children who participated in tutoring sessions with their parents with the use of Fast Start poems, other nursery rhymes, and songs over a 15-week time period. As the parents and children interacted with the text of the poems, the children developed literacy understandings, such as the awareness of letter names, letter sounds, and rhyme. The children’s understandings of how text works increased as they worked with copies of the poetry. For example, as the parents engaged their children by pointing to the text, the children became grounded in directionality, and experienced finding upper- and lower-case letters and early sight words. In addition, my (2012) study noted the parents developed an ability to use academic language with their children as they used the Fast Start poetry. For instance,

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pointing out the names and meaning of punctuation marks in the weekly poems supported communication about the text. The parents developed language and understandings to guide their children. As a result, the experiences with Fast Start poetry supported significant growth in the children’s concepts of print.

How Do I Do It? Sue Crosby, an experienced teacher and reading interventionist in Louisiana, shared the positive results of the growth of the kindergarteners in their school after implementing Fast Start. She noted that the parents liked the routine and emphasized, “It is simple and easy to do.” Fast Start is divided into two procedural parts: the reading of the poem, and activities or extensions to focus on specific aspects of the text. The routine begins with the reading of a short child-­oriented poem to and with the child and ends with the child reading the poem independently. After the reading of the poem, the parent and child participate in one or two activities together. The activities involve the use of the poem to play with letters, sounds, and words, depending on the development of the child. The overall flow moves from the responsibility of the parent as the guide to the child taking over and moving toward mastery in the experience. The reading of the poem in the Fast Start routine encompasses the importance of reading to the child; reading with the child, and ultimately listening to the child read. I address each aspect of the routine in the following; the structure is the same for the practice of each poem.

Read to . . . The experience of being read to screams of comfort: comfortable seating and a comfortable feeling, as the child is free to listen to the fluent reader. The importance of the activity rests in the opportunity for the child to hear how reading should sound. It provides the model for the child to rely upon when he or she is asked later to perform independently. Therefore, the parent reads the Fast Start poem aloud to the child a number of times.

Read with . . . The experience of reading with is similar to having a hand to grab when walking alone during those first early steps. It offers needed support. Therefore, the parent reads the poem together with the child several times. A parent might hear errors as the child reads with him or her. Those mistakes emphasize how lucky the child is to have the support of a more experienced reader.

Listen to . . . The experience of listening to the child read provides the critical practice time anyone needs to become a fluent reader. The routine of reading and rereading is paramount 

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to achieving the level of confidence needed for reading to flow effortlessly. During this part of the routine, if a child gets stuck for more than a couple of seconds on a word, the parent supplies the word. In this way, the flow is not interrupted. When the flow is uninterrupted, thinking and meaning-­making are sustained. As the child becomes fluent through repeated readings, the opportunity for successful performance is created. In the end, the experiences of taking part with the adult in modeled reading, sharing the practice, and going it alone allow the child to master the reading of the poem. As children gain comfort with the poem, they become free to focus on its meaning. After the reading experiences are completed, the Fast Start routine shifts to activities with the poem. The activities that follow the reading of the poem support reading development and are fun and interactive. Sound and word activities flow naturally from the use of the Fast Start routine and develop necessary skills for fluency. For example, pointing to the text as you read develops early concepts of print, such as directionality and the concept that the words carry a message. The activity of counting how many times a capital or lower-case letter occurs in the poem is a fun way to learn letter names. Listening for a particular letter sound or for words that rhyme are activities that develop the young child’s ability to hear and focus upon sound. A more advanced activity is finding sight words, such as put or was, or writing decodable words from the poem on cards to use for sorting. Sorting activities are endless. Two examples are focusing on the beginning or the ending sounds or letters within words. Enjoyment is always of central importance in the activities following the reading because it leads to success. Success supports a positive self-­perception and is fundamental to developing the staying power for reading. Ultimately, a great feeling increases the child’s desire to read, a critical factor in literacy achievement. In addition, the activities build the child’s ability to process text more easily and support the goal of fluent reading.

Extensions and Modifications The daily routine of Fast Start is fundamental to meaningful extensions that meet varying needs of individuals or groups of children on their journey to becoming successful readers. The significant factor is ensuring that interaction with the text moves from dependence on the adult model of fluent reading to an independent, confident, fluent, and fun experience for the young reader. To arrive at this level of performance, repeated readings of the text are essential. A variation of the practice is to incorporate familiar songs or poems that relate to the interests of the students or to themes being developed in the classroom. For example, during a kindergarten unit on animals, my class incubated and hatched ducks. The children loved an upbeat song, “Duck Is a Word” (author unknown),

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featuring rapid-fire lyrics from an old informative clip. I modeled the reading of the poem and we visited it chorally each morning at the beginning of the day while they developed an understanding of webbed feet, feathers, and “talks with a quack.” The children followed the routine of reading the song at home daily to many listeners for family involvement. Over the introductory week at school, they read and reread it in pairs and independently before pasting it into their song books on Wednesday mornings. Every child could read or sing it fluently by the end of the week. In fact, the weakling of our brood didn’t make it and needed to be buried. One child asked if we could sing our duck song (at the funeral!). I cautioned the class by saying it was such a happy song that maybe we should pick another. A little boy announced, “We can use a church voice” and led the group spontaneously in a soulful rendition using the same lyrics. This experience led to a weekly performance time that year in my kindergarten of the weekly poem. It became a favorite ritual when I taught first and third grade also. Individual children or small groups read our Fast Start poem, other favorite poems, or the selected song of the week. As they read from the text, they highlighted their own interpretation. One Friday, a group of first-grade boys brought a keyboard and performed a rap of the poem “Drip Drop” (Padak & Rasinski, 2005, p. 78). They had practiced at one of their homes after school to surprise everyone during our Friday performance session. Needless to say, a rap-style developed in our community of young children as they reread that poem regularly. The children revisited and read that poem every dreary, rainy day in Cleveland. (On the bright side, that implies plentiful opportunities to reread, practice, and build fluency.) This supported fluency practice in a fun and natural way; the other benefits were increased comprehension and an understanding of perspective and voice. As I choose poems, I always address my students’ particular interests. In other words, what might grab and stick? For example, if the children are electric from the first snow, I’ll choose a winter favorite. A blustery day in March always leads to a selection from Maurice Sendak’s (1962) Chicken Soup with Rice. I always reflect upon the following questions with every poem: What broad concept, phonic element, phonemic piece, and sight words does the poem support? My planning is reflected in Figure 17.1. This organization supported the activities I chose for the whole group, small groups, or individual children, depending on their needs. It aided my differentiation of instruction and allowed for great focus for conferencing and assisting parents. This planning allowed me the ease of exposing the emergent reader to the rhythm and rhyme of an early poem, such as “Pat-a Cake,” while I checked a beginning reader for the sight word put. A few other examples are noted in Figure 17.2. In addition to the planning format above, I follow a daily routine with every poem and song. We engage in listening for rhyming words, emphasizing that they sound the same. We clap out a short word of one syllable and at least one longer choice. We stretch out a one-­syllable word or the component syllables of a longer word. Lastly, we box and highlight the sight word of focus on our chart on Monday and review it within the context of the poem each day for the rest of the week.

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Concept

Phonemic focus

Phonics focus

“Flu” by Health and -ing Review -ay family Terry Cooper healthy habits Clapping out syllables (sputtering, muttering)

Word Wall focus Other skills they

Review of contraction I’m

FIGURE 17.1.  Example of planning using specific words supported by Terry Cooper’s “Flu.”

Title

Concept

Phonemic focus

Phonics focus

Word Wall focus Other skills

Song: “I Can Sing a Rainbow”

Colors

Clapping out syllables Segmenting: can

-ing

Review: I Introduce: me, and

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

Night and day

–ink

Every syllable has little, above a vowel: twin/kle Blends: tw-, st-

Review color words

FIGURE 17.2.  Example of specific skills planning supported by using two familiar songs.

This routine takes about a minute a day. (Please note that we end every session with a choral reading of the poem, as a whole.) Each year, I watch the children enact the routine independently as they read the poems together during choice time. The routine creates a format for the repeated readings needed to support fluency development. The structure guides the children and their familiarity with the poem supports accurate independent reading.

Your Turn As noted earlier, Fast Start follows a sequence of experiences from modeled demonstration of the reading of the poem to independent practice and performance. Although the routine allows for wonderful personalized extensions and variations, the following guide for preparation and implementation focuses on the use of a text from the provided poems. The program is designed as a home literacy program, yet teachers can support its success by integrating the poems into their daily practice to develop fluency for their students. In addition, the Fast Start routine offers a wonderful structure for tutors who volunteer to work with individuals or small groups of young children.

Using Fast Start with Families The first step in implementing the program with families entails a formal introduction. Welcome the families during the day or an evening to observe a Fast Start demonstration. If children are not available, model with an adult volunteer. However,

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the opportunity to see teachers interact with children boosts the confidence of parents and promotes the belief that they can guide their children effectively in literacy learning. Having the opportunity to see a lesson modeled encourages questioning and open discussion. In my orientation for the parents, I stress three important points of the Fast Start routine. First, the daily practice has two parts: reading the poem and engaging in a short, follow-­up activity. Next, the routine is intended to take only 10 minutes each night. Lastly, I emphasize that the simple routine will improve their child’s reading significantly. In addition, it is helpful to prepare folders for each family that contain a copy of the following: a Dear Family letter offered in English or Spanish; instructions for doing Fast Start at home; and a log for tracking the daily use of the program. Invite the parents to share feedback with you on how the routine is going so that together you can move the daily reading forward.

Using Fast Start in the Classroom Demonstrate each aspect of the routine for the class: reading to, reading with, and listening to them read followed by an activity session. The modeling supports an understanding of the meaningful practice for the children. Plus, the teacher’s endorsement of the program supports the children’s engagement. Parents share that if a teacher tells the young child something is important, they take the message home. Revisit the Fast Start routine regularly with the children to highlight its value. Encourage them to return their logs each week. I make a habit of celebrating the return of the logs. (Sometimes, we graph the different Lucky Listeners on our logs, such as a Grandpa or an Auntie.) In addition, I remind parents of the importance of the routine in my weekly communication. In addition to planning for home implementation, Padak and Rasinski (2005, p. 15) suggest the following for the classroom routine: Display the poem for the group to view. It’s great to create charts of the poems for future reference. Choral read as a group activity or choose different groups to read. Be sure to track the print with your finger or a pointer. Have students partner-­read a number of times. Choose activities to focus on words or elements in the poem you deem important. Develop sight words from the poems and add them to your Word Wall. Beyond these recommendations, I incorporate a few other instructional nuances into the routine. I like to use two colors (or highlighters) when I print the poem, alternating them by line. The technique supports the children visually. Next, each child pastes the poem into his or her poetry book every Wednesday. By Friday, the poem is illustrated (often collectively) and the “Words I Like/Other Words” note is glued into the book on the poetry or illustration page (see Form 17.1).



Getting Children Off to a Fast Start in Reading

The children choose and copy at least two words they like onto the lines of the note. I lead the entire class, small groups, or individuals to fill out the “Other Words” section, depending on my decision concerning an appropriate developmental target. I might choose a few examples of a word family, or a sight word that we write together and they practice (three times only) independently. This practice supports the children as they reread and guides them to revisit elements within the poem independently. It helps parents focus on particular features of text when the children take their books home periodically. Another activity that supports word study is the reproducible “My Words” page (see Form 17.2). The “My Words” sheet provides a place for the children to record words they enjoy and find interesting from the poem. They draw a rectangular box around the word and decorate or illustrate it outside of the box. The goal is to complete one sheet of nine words every 2 weeks. They keep them in their reading folders, read the words regularly, and create My Words books at the end of the year. The words can be used for word sorts and as a means of focusing on word features appropriate for each child or group. One group of first graders chose to complete a sheet with all color words after completing the rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” As they copied from their crayons and other sources of print, they initiated learning to read their colors words. The same type of extension followed the poem “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe,” with the same group writing number word pages; this was independently spurred. From my own experience and the reports of other teachers, Fast Start provides a simple routine that builds a strong foundation for word recognition, fluency, and reading in general. It provides a framework to experience reading, not as a puzzle to decipher but as a whole picture to enjoy. The fun and ease support the invitation to read and reread. Ultimately, this approach structures and promotes success, especially for the most vulnerable children.

References Kindervater, T. (2012). A case study of teaching phonemic awareness to parents and children: Scaffolded preschool tutoring with kinesthetic motion for phonemes (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from OhioLink Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. (No. 1330954122) Padak, N., & Rasinski, T. (2005). Fast start for early readers. New York: Scholastic. Sendak, M. (1962). Chicken soup with rice: A book of months. Hicksville, NY: Harper & Row. Senechal, M. (2006). The effect of family literacy interventions on children’s acquisition of reading. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corp.



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Form 17.1

Words I Like/Other Words

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Form 17.2

My Words

Name From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

18

Fluency‑Oriented Reading Instruction Melanie R. Kuhn, Paula J. Schwanenflugel, K atherine A. Dougherty Stahl, Elizabeth B. Meisinger, and C arolyn Groff

What Is It? One of the most important things we can do for our students is to provide them with opportunities to read an extensive range of texts (Adams, 2010–2011; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998). Unfortunately, given the myriad things teachers are required to do, it can seem difficult, if not impossible, to work this objective into a tight curriculum. Luckily, there are two easy-to-­implement and highly successful approaches to shared reading that can help achieve this goal (Kuhn & Schwanenflugel, 2008). Fluency-­Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI) and Wide Fluency-­Oriented Reading Instruction (Wide FORI) are designed not only to assist learners as they become fluent readers but also to ensure that students have access to a wide range of texts. Further, since the instruction is built around the use of grade-level—or higher—­texts, it is likely that the material being used will be challenging for the majority of students; fortunately, the support built into the lesson also allows these learners to experience success with such selections. Reading levels vary widely in most classrooms. In fact, the majority of students in many schools read below grade level (e.g., The Nation’s Report Card, 2009; Otterman, 2010). Yet the vast majority of selections in literature anthologies, the primary source of shared reading texts in a large number of classrooms, are written at grade level or higher (e.g., Adams, 2009, 2010–2011; Gunning, 2012; Metametrics, 2010). Given this discrepancy, students often experience difficulty reading the material meant for whole-class instruction. FORI and Wide FORI were designed specifically to maximize students’ chances of success with these selections. Benefitting from 

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extensive amounts of support or scaffolding as part of the overall lesson plan, learners are able to read material that would otherwise be too difficult for them. Moreover, as students become capable of fluently reading more challenging material, they also have greater opportunities to accelerate their reading development. Since FORI and Wide FORI are designed to support students’ literacy learning in multiple ways, certain aspects of the lessons are particularly important. First, the texts being read must be at the low end of the class’s instructional level or the beginning of their frustration level (85–90% accuracy levels). Such texts provide all learners with a broader and more complex range of concepts and vocabulary than do simpler selections, something particularly important for striving readers and a central goal of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Further, learners simply would not need the levels of support that FORI and Wide FORI provide when reading texts at their independent level or the higher end of their instructional level. Since each classroom contains a range of ability levels, some students will necessarily find the texts more challenging than their peers, but the support provided as part of the week’s lesson helps ensure that all of the students have access to the readings. Next, the texts used need to be substantial in terms of length in order to provide students with sufficient practice. In practical terms, an ideal text length would take you about 20 minutes to read out loud to your students. Typical selections from a literature anthology or a trade book (fiction or nonfiction) are good choices, as are articles in magazines or on the Internet that are directed toward school-­age learners (e.g., National Geographic Kids and http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids or NASA’s student website: www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/index.html), whereas short passages, poems, and plays are generally not. Finally, although these lessons are easily implemented, without sufficient attention to text length, time-ontask, and purposeful implementation of the procedures, they can easily lose their effectiveness. On the other hand, when implemented with adequate attention to details, the programs have been shown to be extremely successful.

How Do I Do It? The general strategy behind both of the instructional approaches is to gradually move responsibility for reading the text from the teacher to the student. At the beginning of these multiple-­day plans the bulk of responsibility lies with the teacher, but by the end of the week the children should be able to carry out the readings independently.

Fluency‑Oriented Reading Instruction FORI is a 5-day lesson plan (see Form 18.1) designed to provide students with multiple opportunities for reading a given selection. The students tend to enjoy the regularity of the procedure, and teachers find that the structure reduces the stress that often occurs when trying to create entirely new lesson plans on a weekly basis.

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Day 1 You should introduce the week’s selection using normal prereading activities, such as preteaching vocabulary, making predictions, or developing background knowledge. You should then read the text aloud while students follow along in their own copy (each student must have a copy of the selection). It is important to circulate around the room to ensure that students are following along; further, some students may need to track the print in order to follow along actively with the reading. Following the reading, you and your students should discuss the selection. This can involve discussing character motivation, determining ways of extending the text, or making connections to students’ lives. At this point, it may also be useful to consider your rendition of the text and the elements of fluency that were incorporated (e.g., expression, pacing, parsing). This first day’s lesson emphasizes two important elements of literacy learning: the fluent rendering of a text and the construction of meaning.

Day 2 The second day involves an echo reading of that week’s selection. If learners are not familiar with the process of echo reading, you should start by reading only a sentence or two before asking them to echo back the text. As they become more comfortable with the procedure, the amount of material that you read should expand to a paragraph or two. Eventually, they may even be able to echo-read as much as a page at a time, depending on their comfort level and the amount of text on a single page. It is important to expand the amount of text as a way of preventing students from relying on their verbal memory to echo the text back to you. The goal here is for children to learn the words in the passage by reading them, not by merely retrieving them from working memory. It is also important for you to maintain a focus on meaning during this second reading. This can be done by asking questions at appropriate pause points throughout the reading, by having students summarize sections of texts, or by encouraging students to create their own questions. Lastly, your students should take the text home and practice reading the story aloud to a family member or friend for additional practice starting on the second day.

Day 3 Day 3 begins with a choral reading of the selection and involves the least amount of time for the shared reading. The process simply consists of your reading the text in unison with your students; however, you should pay particular attention to those students having difficulty keeping up with their peers. If this is the case for

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some students, it may be helpful for them to sit next to you or one of their more skilled classmates for this part of the lesson. Further, you will want to make sure they are tracking the text as it is being read aloud to ensure that they are following along. Importantly, if your students seem to need additional practice in order to read the selection fluently, they should bring it home and reread it for homework. If, on the other hand, they appear to be fairly comfortable with the text, they can select an alternative for their home reading.

Day 4 The final reading of the story takes place on the fourth day and involves a partner reading of the selection; it is important for you to circulate among pairs to make sure they are on-task. Partners should read alternate pages of text and, if time allows, they can switch pages and reread the material again. This second reading ensures that each partner has read the entire text at least once. As was the case for Day 3, students who are reading the primary text fluently should read a text of their own choosing for homework, whereas students who would benefit from additional practice should read the week’s selection one last time.

Day 5 The final day of the FORI lesson plan consists of extension activities designed to help your learners develop a richer understanding of the text, such as student-­led discussions or written responses to the text. Students can read a selection of their own choosing for homework. What we have found is that, over the course of the year, students become increasingly comfortable with the predictable lesson format. As a result, it becomes possible to use increasingly challenging books; this provides learners access to a broader vocabulary and a wider range of concepts than they may traditionally encounter. Further, since class time does not need to be expended on explaining the protocol for each day’s lesson, the teacher has more time to devote to promoting comprehension. Teachers who use FORI have found it aids in their classroom management both because there is a clear schedule or routine and because the students are challenged by the texts that are being used.

Wide Fluency‑Oriented Reading Instruction Wide FORI is also a 5-day procedure (see Form 18.2), but because it focuses on three texts rather than one, it incorporates far less repetition:



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Day 1 Day 1 parallels that of the FORI approach with normal prereading activities being used to introduce the selection. Next, you should read the text aloud while the students follow along in their own copy of the selection. The first day’s lesson should end with a discussion of the selection to emphasize comprehension. Finally, your students should be asked to read material of their own choosing for homework.

Day 2 The second day consists of an echo reading of the text with your students. Your goals should include developing students’ word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. The latter can be accomplished by integrating questions and other comprehension strategies into the rereading. The Wide FORI approach differs from the FORI approach at this point in that, if time is available, your students should partner-­read the text as well. The homework on Day 2 should consist of reading the text aloud to a family member or friend for additional practice.

Day 3 The Wide FORI approach continues to diverge from its FORI counterpart on Day 3. Rather than rereading the primary text, your focus should be on postreading activities. This parallels the final day of the FORI approach. Your students should read the primary selection for homework on Day 3 if you feel they could benefit from additional practice. Students who are already fairly fluent with the selection should choose another text instead.

Days 4 and 5 The fourth and fifth days involve your echo reading of a second and third shared reading selection. However, since you may read this material only once in its entirety, it is important that you incorporate a focus on comprehension as well. This can be done either through a structured activity, such as the Directed Reading–­T hinking Activity (DR-TA; Stauffer, 1969), or through informal questioning and discussion. For example, the DR-TA involves predicting what students think will happen in a story as well as answering implicit and explicit questions at several points throughout the selection. This can help students stay engaged with the text’s meaning rather than simply focusing on correctly reading the words. 

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If there is sufficient time, have your students read the texts a second time, either chorally or through a partner reading. To receive additional practice, you should also ask your students to read each of these texts aloud to a family member or friend for homework.

Extensions and Modifications Although FORI and Wide FORI are designed for the whole-class portion of the literacy curriculum, you can easily use them with smaller groups of learners (Kuhn, 2009); this is especially important when you have some children who do not need the amount of support involved in this type of instruction to become fluent and may lose focus as a result. In this case, group your students by reading levels and use a text several levels higher than the group’s independent level as the material for the lesson. For example, if students are reading at a guided reading level J, you could use books that are identified as guided reading level M. Since there is significant amounts of support embedded in these lessons, your students will likely experience success reading such material. However, if you find the students need easier or more challenging selections, you can simply choose different books. It is likely you will be able to find small sets of texts fairly easily. For example, you may find earlier versions of literature anthologies, guided reading sets, or magazines designed for young readers (e.g., My Weekly Reader) stored somewhere in your school. Alternatively, you can download articles from the Internet and copy them for your students. This small-group instruction can also be targeted exclusively to your striving readers as a Tier 2 intervention when the majority of your learners are making appropriate progress with the primary curriculum.

Example: FORI The snapshot below presents the interactions between one of the chapter’s authors (Kay Stahl) and her students during the second day of the FORI procedure; however, it could just as easily be an example of Days 2, 4, or 5 of the Wide FORI approach. In this lesson, Kay and the students have just finished echo reading a page of the fictional selection Big Old Bones: A Dinosaur Tale (Carrick & Carrick, 1989), which was part of their second-­grade literature analogy. This story tells of a 19th-­century professor’s efforts to construct a dinosaur from unidentified fossilized bones that are found during a train journey west. Having read a section of the text with the students, Kay engages them in a discussion of the material. K ay: How do you know that the story took place long ago? Tell me something that you see in the picture that indicates to you that this story took place long ago. A lana: Buffalos.

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INTEGRATED FLUENCY MODELS

K ay: You see some buffalo. What else do you see? Belinda: The train had to stop for water. K ay: Yes, today trains don’t need to stop for water. What else do you see? Charles: Riding horses. K ay: Right, you see people riding horses. These are all clues for you that the setting of this story is long ago. Okay, let’s echo-read the next page. Kay and her students then echo-read the following section: “The professor was taking a stroll with his family when their little dog found a bone. ‘Very old,’ said the professor examining the bone. ‘And very big. I’ve never seen one like it before.’ He decided to stay a few days and explore” (p. 4). K ay: Who can tell me what it means when it says that the professor was taking a stroll with his family? M att: That means, probably, that they wants [sic] to find a bone. K ay: Do you think they knew that there were bones there when they went off for their stroll? M att: No. K ay: No. So what is the stroll? They got off the train and they took a . . . Emily: Walk K ay: Yes, a stroll is a slow walk. You can see from this short excerpt how it is possible to integrate a comprehension discussion into the echo-­reading component of the lesson plan. By focusing on comprehension along with fluency development, it is possible to prevent the development of word callers, a trait that can occur when learners focus primarily on rate.

Your Turn We would suggest initially implementing FORI or Wide FORI during the shared reading portion of your literacy curriculum. Should it prove too easy for a large number of students, you may want to divide your class into smaller groups and use this as an alternative to a guided reading approach. This way each group of students can be matched with an appropriately challenging text. What you are likely to find is that no matter how you implement the approach, your students will gain confidence with their reading and that the gains they make in terms of word recognition, fluency, and comprehension will transfer to new texts. It is also likely that the structure will make them—and you—feel comfortable with the day-to-day curriculum and allow them to better focus on their learning. Overall, we believe that these approaches provide highly effective instruction that improves fluency and expands students’ conceptual and vocabulary knowledge by making challenging texts acces

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sible (e.g., Kuhn & Schwanenflugel, 2008; Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, Morris, Morrow, Woo, et al., 2006). With FORI and Wide FORI, you have the potential to begin closing the achievement gap while helping students meet the goals of the CCSS.

References Adams, M. J. (2009). The challenge of advanced texts: The interdependence of reading and learning. In E. H. Hiebert (Ed.), Reading more, reading better (pp. 163–189). New York: Guilford Press. Adams, M. J. (2010–2011). Advancing our students’ language and literacy: The challenge of complex texts. American Educator, 34(4), 3–11, 53. Carrick, C., & Carrick, D. (1989). Big old bones: A dinosaur tale. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1998). What reading does for the mind. American Educator, 22, 8–15. Gunning, T. G. (2012). Building literacy in secondary content area classrooms. Boston: Pearson. Kuhn, M. R. (2009). The hows and whys of fluency instruction. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Kuhn, M. R., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (Eds.). (2008). Fluency in the classroom. New York: Guilford Press. Kuhn, M. R., Schwanenflugel, P. J., Morris, R. D., Morrow, L. M., Woo, D., Meisinger, B., et al. (2006). Teaching children to become fluent and automatic readers. Journal of Literacy Research, 38, 357–387. Metametrics. (2010). Lexile-to-grade correspondence. Durham, NC: Author. Nation’s Report Card: The official site for results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2009). http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2009/district_g9.asp. Otterman, S. (2010). On reading test, mixed results under Bloomberg. New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/education/21scores.html?_r=0. Stauffer, R. G. (1969). Directing reading maturity as a cognitive process. New York: Harper & Row.



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Form 18.1

Sample Weekly Plan for FORI Monday Fluency-Oriented Teacher Reading introduces Instruction story. Basal lesson

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Students practice story.

Students practice story.

Students practice story.

Students do extension activities.

Teacher and Teacher and Teacher reads students echo- students story to class; read story. choral-read class discusses story. story.

Students partner-read story.

Option: Teacher develops graphic organizers.

These may include writing in response to story, etc. Option: Teacher does running records of children’s reading.

Option: Class does activities from basal.

Home Reading

Children read 15–30 minutes in a book of their choosing.

Students take story home and practice reading basal story aloud to someone.

Students who need more practice take home the basal story— others take book of their choosing.

Students who need more practice take home the basal story— others take book of their choosing.

Children read 15–30 minutes in a book of their choosing.

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Form 18.2

Sample Weekly Plan for Wide FORI Wide FluencyOriented Reading Instruction

Home Reading

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Teacher introduces story.

Students practice story.

Students do extension activities.

Teacher and students echoor choral-read trade book (Story 2).

Teacher and students echoor choral-read trade book (Story 3).

Option: Students partner-read Story 2.

Option: Students partner-read story 3.

Option: Students do extension activities (writing, etc.).

Option: Students do extension activities (writing, etc.).

Children read 15–30 minutes per day in a book of their choosing.

Children read 15–30 minutes per day in a book of their choosing.

Teacher and Teacher reads students echo- These may story to class; read Story 1. include writing class discusses in response to story. Option: story, etc. Students Option: do partner Option: Teacher reading. Teacher does develops running graphic records of organizers. children’s reading. Option: Class does activities from basal (Story 1). Children read 15–30 minutes per day in a book of their choosing.

Students take story home and practice reading basal story aloud to someone.

Children read 15–30 minutes per day in a book of their choosing.

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Part Six

Other Fluency Issues

19

Five‑Minute Fluency Active‑ities Brenda Rosler

What Is It? There is a rhythm to language; therefore, fluency and movement are naturally connected. Watch a group of children chorally reading a poem and you’ll see the evidence of rhythm. Before long someone’s toe starts tapping or a head starts bobbing from side to side. Rhythm compels bodies to move and encourages fluent reading. In this chapter I provide fluency activities that incorporate movement and offer a theoretical foundation that justifies physical activity during fluency instruction. Piaget believed that students learned first through and with their bodies; his sensorimotor stage was the foundation for all subsequent learning. Similarly, Dewey felt education started with action and experiences. Research compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) found nine studies [that] explored physical activity that occurred in classrooms apart from physical education classes and recess. . . . [E]ight of the nine studies found positive associations between classroom-­based physical activity and indicators of cognitive skills and attitudes, academic behavior, and academic achievement; none of the studies found negative associations. (p. 6)

Trudeau and Shephard (2010) acknowledge the difficulties of measuring the effects of physical activity on school-­based learning, primarily because of the many confounding variables. However, they argue that primary students would benefit from 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity per day without harming academic learning because their class time is more efficient after taking part in physically active lessons. Literacy instruction, specifically fluency practice, is a great time to incorporate small bursts of activity because of the rhythmic nature of language.

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How Do I Do It? Find ways to incorporate movement into your existing fluency activities in the classroom. Read songs chorally. Sit down during the verses and stand up during the chorus. Use the gym on the days when the physical education [PE] teacher is out of the building. Start each school day in the gym with active fluency centers instead of morning seatwork. In the schools I visit, the first physical education class doesn’t begin until half an hour after the morning bell. Perhaps the PE teacher will be willing to share the gym until his or her first group of students arrives. The PE teacher may be so encouraged to see a classroom teacher valuing physical education that he or she volunteers to help! Attendance and lunch count can be incorporated into one of the centers. It just might discourage tardiness if students know they will be starting their day with action rather than sedentary morning seatwork. The poems can remain mounted on gym walls, often without interfering with the other activities that take place in the gym throughout the day or week. An alternative is to have copies of poems available for students to pick up on the way in. The advantage to this second option is that it will allow you to pair students with poems that are written at their appropriate reading level. The activities I describe can be completed with volunteers or paraprofessionals, so recruit help. When the gym is in use, all of these activities can be adapted to fit in a hallway. Some can even work in a classroom.

Example: Active Fluency Ideas Poetry Day Every Friday in my fifth-grade classroom was poetry day. Early in the week the students selected a poem, they practiced it all week, and they read it to their classmates on Friday. I chose Friday because we didn’t have art, music, or gym that day and because it gave students four class days to practice their poems before performing. From start to finish our poetry readings took about 45 minutes for the entire classroom. During the year when I had Michael in my class it took a bit longer because he challenged himself to read the longest, most involved Shel Silverstein poem he could find, oftentimes trying to read it without taking a breath! Before long the other students began competing to find who could read the “hardest” poem with the most tongue-­twisting sounds and silliest passages. I smiled, knowing all the while they were improving their fluency and making their reading more engaging for the listeners.

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The students began improving the activity by finding partners and reading chorally. The girls turned the poems into chants accompanied by cheerleading moves that, at first, naturally erupted and then became more choreographed. I knew it was a successful activity during the first shortened week of the school year. There was no school that Friday and the students begged to have Poetry Day moved to Thursday. Several key elements made this a motivating activity: lots of engaging poems, a commitment to a 5-minute daily rereading practice, choice regarding working alone or with other students, and the freedom to add movement. All the students seemed to like watching the chanting and cheering, but only the female students ever added movement. Knowing that many of my male students were very physically active during recess and after school, I wanted to find a way for them to incorporate movement, too. Then I found a book of jump rope chants.

Jumping Rope with Chants Anyone who has ever jumped rope while repeating the lines: “Cinderella dressed in yella went upstairs to kiss a fella . . . ” knows that jump rope chants have a rhythm. This rhythm is effective for building fluency in the same way that songs and poems are. There is also a compulsion not to miss a jump before completing the entire chant. This compulsion adds a bit of playfulness and physical challenge to the fluency activity. Arrange jump rope chants or poems, written large on chart paper, throughout the gym. The chants should be secured to the wall at students’ eye level. You could start with chants the students already know, but if they are just repeating from memory it won’t improve fluency so be sure to introduce them to new chants. Any poem can serve as a jump rope chant, or the book Anna Banana: 101 Jump-Rope Rhymes (Cole, 1989) will provide you with enough new jump rope chants to last an entire school year. You can also incorporate writing by having students make up their own chants alone or with a group. By all means include content-­ area topics—­W hy not write a jump rope chant about photosynthesis? You’ll want to leave plenty of space between the chants so students’ voices and swinging ropes won’t interfere with a classmate. This isn’t an activity that can be adapted to fit in a classroom, however; use the gym when available. Before students arrive for the day, arrange poems and, if possible, leave them hanging on the walls until everybody has had a chance to read and reread them several times. When you are ready to try some new chants, turn the charts over and write on the other sides. My poems have been used again and again, requiring very little preparation once I’ve written them down. Upon entering the gym students should find an empty space, pick up a rope, and start jumping and reading. If students are paired with a partner you will need fewer ropes, they can chant chorally, and it will provide each partner a break from jumping. This works best with students who are old enough to have the coordination needed to jump rope effortlessly. It did not with work the first graders I tested it out on, but it may work with yours! Older students who still need fluency practice will have a lot of fun.



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Hand‑claps Batchelor and Bintz’s (2012) article reminds us of the fun that can be had doing hand-claps. Instead of just “Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake, Baker’s man . . . ” students, according to their article, wrote their own hand-claps using content-­area material. Poems or jump rope chants could function as hand-claps, but students will have to focus on making meaning if they are responsible for composing original hand-claps. Hand-claps can easily be done while remaining seated; no additional space or materials are needed. In order to improve fluency, students won’t just be repeating memorized chants, so they will need a bit of coordination to be able to read and connect their hands with their partner’s hands. This will be part of the fun. If students write their own hand-claps based on a recently read book, you can incorporate comprehension into the activity. Hand-claps are much more exciting than they were when I was a child. Now students even do hand-claps in a circle, accommodating as many friends as they want. With hands outstretched, they must clap the hand of the person on their right as the clap moves around the circle. Simply arrange the chant in the center of the circle or stretch the circle into a line near an interactive white board that is projecting the chant. Don’t be worried about this being a girls-only activity: as Batchelor and Bintz (2012, p. 341) report, “neighborhood boys watched in awe and envy as she and a friend practiced their fancy hand-arm movements, deftly slipping in fastpaced claps and snaps. Afterwards, boys pleaded to join in the fun.” There are at least three students in every classroom who are hand-clap experts, so allow them a chance to shine while they demonstrate unique hand motions and clapping patterns for their classmates. Matching particular movements to the meaning of the poem will incorporate meaning making, which is always the ultimate goal of any literacy activity. For example, see the motions in parentheses that accompany the following well-known poem: Teddy bear, teddy bear (two students clap each other’s alternating hands) Turn around (students spin around one time and clap when they return to face each other) Teddy bear, teddy bear (two students clap each other’s alternating hands) Touch the ground (students squat down and touch the ground) Also see Figure 19.1 for another jump rope chant that can be displayed for your class. Consider having your students make jump rope chants with their own names or even asking older students (perhaps those with literacy struggles) to write chants for younger students!

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Five-­Minute Fluency Active-ities Tess, Tess, jump forward and back

Tess, Tess, run once around the track Tess, Tess, march your feet Tess, Tess, clap the beat

Tess, Tess, call the name

of the next friend who will play the jumping game! Adaptations:  If students aren’t able to jump rope yet, simply stretch the rope flat on the ground and ask them to jump over it.  Adapt the movements to fit your students. If students want to run one lap around the gym for the second line they can, but you can define “track” any way you want to make the distance shorter.  Take out the name “Tess” and substitute your students’ names.  Remind them to pay attention to the meaning of the poem and match the words to their movements.

FIGURE 19.1.  Jump rope chant.

Snowball Fights Begin with a poem that students have read chorally. Then, starting with just the first line of the poem, write each word on a separate piece of paper. If students are watching as you model this, you can incorporate phonics instruction by connecting the sounds to letters or letter chunks as you spell each word. I also use this as an opportunity to practice sight words by asking the students, “Do you have a picture in your head of the word ‘are’? We use it frequently and we’ve seen it already today.” If you don’t have a lot of time for this activity then you can have the words already written down or prepare them the previous day. Have students crumple each piece of paper until there are several “snowballs.” Let the students throw the crumpled-­up papers and “have a snowball fight” for 30 seconds. I always explain, before the action begins, that when I say “stop” they must gather the snowballs and return to the starting location immediately. If they do not do this, we will have no more snowball fights. Upon return to the starting area students must flatten the crumpled papers and put the line of the poem back together, thus incorporating comprehension as students attend to making meaning. Continue with subsequent lines of the poem until you run out of time. I’ve done this successfully in a classroom, but if you have the luxury of an empty gym, students can work in centers on different lines (or stanzas) of the poem. Use different colored paper for each line so students can retrieve the correct words for their segment of the poem, and always use the back side of paper from the recycle bin. I’ve also successfully adapted this activity using paper airplanes rather than snowballs. I’ve yet to see anyone get hurt by either a paper snowball or airplane but, as with any activity, you must monitor students to ensure that they are being safe.

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Fluency Walks (Peebles, 2007) Write a poem on chart paper and cut each line apart, spreading the lines out and taping them along a long wall. Put as much distance as you like between each line because, after reading the title, the students will walk “like a giant” to the next line, read, and repeat the locomotor movement until they reach the end of the poem. Repeat the reading while incorporating different movements, for example: skipping, walking on tip toes, walking like a duck, doing a crab walk, and so on. In order to include comprehension you can ask the students to select a method of movement that matches the subject or meaning of the poem. If the poem is fast, students may choose to run to each subsequent line. If the poem is slow, students may choose to crawl. Before incorporating the physical activity, students can read their own copy of the poem and demonstrate their comprehension by writing their choice of an appropriate movement on an index card along with the justification for why the movement makes sense for the poem. These cards should be placed in a hat and selected when you are ready to begin the Fluency Walk. The students may be willing to reread the same poem multiple times because of the playfulness of the activity, and you can use the index cards for a comprehension check. Fluency Walks are great in the gym, but a long hallway can also be used if you keep the locomotion movement slower and appropriate to the space.

Sign Language Sign Language can be incorporated into elementary classrooms in many ways. My former first-grade students learned the Sign Language alphabet and used it when we sang the “Alphabet Song” each morning. They used it to spell sight words and practice spelling their names, giving them a kinesthetic memory of the words and a chance to move. With fifth-grade students, we learned to sing our class song, “We are Family,” in English and Sign Language. Two benefits of including Sign Language in your fluency lessons are (1) that students will be learning diversity, and (2) comprehension is built in; since tone can’t be detected while speaking with your hands, you must demonstrate the tone with your facial expressions. Teach your students a few signs to accompany a poem that you will project on an interactive white board. Then ask the students to read the poem silently to determine the author’s tone. When students reread the poem chorally, incorporating their new signs when the words are read, make sure they consider comprehension with their expressions. Sign Language images are readily available online at www.aslpro. com, and Sign Language books are available at most libraries.

Morning Yoga Even with a very limited knowledge of yoga procured from a quick Internet search, you can find enough stretches to invigorate students’ fluency lessons. Find a poem or short text to accompany any of the following poses: downward dog, sunrise/sunset, tree, butterfly, camel, fish, cat, and child. If you don’t have a poem to match the 

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name of a pose, change the pose’s name. The tree pose can easily become a mountain pose, for example. Many poses can be undertaken while standing at a desk and don’t require much floor space. Students can stand to read the text chorally, complete the pose, and then repeat with a new text. This could become your morning routine or a calming activity after lunch recess. Since imagination is required for comprehension to occur, having students find ways to use their bodies to symbolize a part of a passage can be a valuable use of class time.

Bathroom Reading Allington (2001) inspires us to analyze our schools and classrooms for wasted time and then find a better way to use that time for educative purposes. A necessary part of each school day is at least two class trips to the bathroom. Rather than have students stand in silent, straight lines waiting for their classmates, line the walls with poems that they can read chorally with a partner. If you need a quiet hallway, whisper reading will still help students build fluency.

Extensions and Modifications Many after-­school reading programs are voluntary and, when students see that tutoring looks a lot like the same thing they’ve done all day in school, they may begin volunteering to attend less and less as the year wanes. Older struggling students especially may be reluctant to spend any more time at school than they absolutely have to. Offering physically active after-­school tutoring may provide the motivation to entice such students to learn. You can be duplicitous by calling it a Jump Rope Club and sneaking in the literacy instruction. Be sure to give students visual access to the texts they are learning so that they have to read. Adults complain a lot about students sitting at video games for hours on end. Let’s provide them with a safe active alternative that can concurrently improve literacy. Then don’t stop there; make learning in math class more active too.

Your Turn Before you commit a specific time each week in your lesson plans for physically active lessons, just write one activity on a sticky note and stick it on your plans for the week. When you find a few extra minutes, try it! If you like your students’ reaction, you may want to reserve a bit of time each day for physical activity or incorporate it when your students need to be energized. Start small (small motor skills and small time commitment) by having students tap the beat of a poem they read chorally using rhythm sticks. If you don’t have rhythm sticks, use two pencils or have students tap their palm on the desk. Gradually increase movement to include more gross motor skills.

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Don’t do morning seatwork, do morning active work. Students who need help waking up will be energized for the day’s work, and very active students may burn some extra energy before being asked to sit still for instruction.

Conclusion The teachers I’ve worked with who began incorporating more physical activity into their classrooms tell me they can’t believe they didn’t try it sooner. Students of all ages were motivated and smiling while learning. The children I’ve worked with in small physically active literacy groups learned about moving their bodies, teamwork, and literacy! Because the students were wild and wiggly, they were highly motivated to keep moving; therefore, their behavior was excellent during physical activity. I have also worked with children who struggled to move because they had sedentary lifestyles or were overweight and, while the struggle was difficult to witness, watching all children improve and grow stronger was so moving (pun intended!).

References Allington, R. (2001). What really matters for struggling readers: Designing research-­based programs. New York: Longman. Batchelor, K. E., & Bintz, W. P. (2012). Hand-clap songs across the curriculum. The Reading Teacher, 65, 341–345. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2010, July). The association between school-­ based physical activity, including physical education, and academic performance. Available online at www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/health_and_academics/pdf/pa-pe_ paper.pdf. Cole, J. (1989). Anna Banana: 101 jump-rope chants. New York: Beach Tree. Peebles, J. L. (2007). Incorporating movement with fluency instruction: A motivation for struggling readers. The Reading Teacher, 60, 578–81. Trudeau, F., & Shephard, R. J. (2010). Relationships of physical activity to brain health and the academic performance of schoolchildren. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 4, 138–150.

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20

Word Study The Foundation for Fluency Timothy R asinski and Nancy Padak

What Is It? In the first chapter of this book we defined “reading fluency” as the critical bridge from word recognition accuracy to proficient reading comprehension. In our model, then, word recognition is not considered a part of fluency. However, our fluency model suggests that word recognition is a precondition for fluency. That is, before students can develop their automaticity and prosody, they need to have some degree of proficiency in their ability to recognize or decode words. Thus, the study of words lays the foundation for fluency, and as such, deserves exploration in a book on how to teach reading fluency. Words are all around us. Sometimes they are so thoroughly present in our lives we don’t completely notice that we seem to be in constant contact with words. For example, are you like our families? Whenever our families get together, we will often find ourselves playing board games for an hour or two. We were stunned when we began to enumerate all the games our families had played over the past month— most of the games were word games! We had played Scrabble, Boggle, Balderdash, Password, Buzzword, Taboo, Quiddler, Banana grams, Scrabble Slam, and several others. When you travel do you or anyone in your family play word games found in most newspapers such as the daily crossword puzzle or the word jumble? Isn’t it interesting that as adults we take such great satisfaction in the opportunity to explore and manipulate words, yet in so many schools children find word study boring and unsatisfying. We think the reason for our students’ apathy is the way that the study of words is presented to students. Often rote memorization of spelling and

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definitions, endless worksheets, and constant testing is how word study is defined in schools. We think that word study can and should be fun, engaging, and effective. Certainly so many of us love to play word games. And, of course, we know how students have come to love playing electronic and online games. Why not make word study feel like a game? In this chapter we would like to whet your appetite for word study through gaming by sharing a few of our own favorite word games that can easily be integrated into any word study program. The games we share are based on the concept of “constructivism,” the notion that learning is most productive when we actively engage in developing knowledge. Students learn science by doing science. Students learn about government by participating in the governance of their classroom. Students learn math by applying mathematical principles and ideas in their own lives. Constructivism applies to word learning through guided word building, the notion that students are more likely to discover how words work when their teacher guides them in building words from letters and word parts. Research into various forms of guided word building has shown great promise in improving students’ spelling, word decoding, vocabularies, and overall reading achievement (Cunningham, 2006, 2007; McCandliss, Beck, Sandak, & Perfetti, 2003).

How Do I Do It?: Guided Word Building Do you recall as a child playing a word game in school in which the teacher wrote a word on the chalkboard and then asked the students to make as many words as they could from those letters? If you were a good reader you were able to come up with plenty of words. If, however, you struggled in reading, you probably found this activity frustrating. Students were on their own in this activity. And if you were a struggling reader, on your own, you didn’t do well. Pat and Jim Cunningham flipped this activity around in their Making Words (Cunningham & Cunningham, 1992) word study approach. In Making Words, students are given a set of individual letters and are guided by their teacher to arrange and rearrange the letters to make a series of words, beginning with short words and ending eventually with a word that uses all the letters. In Making Words students are not left on their own. Throughout the activity as students make words, the teacher guides them, elaborates on the meaning of the words that the children make, and helps students see various letter patterns and other word features that can be generalized to other English words. Not only do students love “playing” Making Words, many do not realize that at the same time they are making marked improvement in their ability to decode, spell (encode), and understand the meaning of words. These words then become the foundation for fluency development as sight words. Here is an example of a Making Words Lesson we developed. All of our students will have the following set of letter cards place in front of them—­vowels: a, e, i ; consonants: d, g, n, r. We may wish to distinguish vowels and consonants using 

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different colors for the letter cards. Now from these letters we will direct our students to make the following words: and

grand

end

ear

near

gear

dear

dare

read

The final word that we will make uses all the letters and is something that you are doing right this instant: reading! As students build their words we help them notice the meaning of the words they make, vowel and consonant sounds in various positions of words, word families (rimes), r-controlled vowels, silent letters, and other sound, symbol, and meaning features of the words they made. Through the tactile manipulation of the letters to build words, students discover how words work and how letters are used to build (encode) and solve (decode) words. Unlike Making Words, Word Ladders (Rasinski & Padak, 2008), another form of word building, does not involve a limited set of letters— all letters and sounds are eligible for use. Again, guided by the teacher students begin with a given word and then make a series of new words by adding letters to the previous word, subtracting letters from the previous word, or rearranging the letters from the previous word. Since each new word is based somewhat on the previous word and students are asked to manipulate one or two letters at a time, they are not overwhelmed with dealing with 26 different letters and 44 different sounds. And as with Making Words, the teacher guides students with clues about each new word to be made and again points out important meaning and orthographic features of the words. In some versions of Word Ladders the fi rst and last words that students make are related in some meaningful way. Here is an example of a Word Ladder that begins with the word learn. learn

Subtract one letter to make a word that means to rest against something, usually while standing.

lean

Change one letter to make something that we eat that is the seed of some plants.

bean

Change one letter to make a word that describes what you might do with a drum.

beat

Change one letter to make an animal that growls.

bear

Change one letter to make an animal that has antlers.

dear

Rearrange the letters to make a word that describes a way that we can learn.

read !

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Although word ladders only take a few minutes, they are minutes well spent. Students are learning the spelling, sound, and meaning to a set of words in a way that is fun and engaging. Making Words and Word Ladders are the type of constructivist word-­building activities that will lay the foundation for students to develop as fluent readers.

Extensions Making Words and Word Ladders are core word-­building activities that can lead to a variety of extensions. Here are just a few ways that you can extend these word-­ building lessons. Add the words your students built to your classroom word wall (a sheet of chart paper with words listed and displayed). Review the words with students and encourage them to use the words in their own oral and written language. Have students keep the words in their own word journals. Identify key word families from the words built and guide students to make new words from the word families using different letters. This is called “transferring” the word families or word patterns to make new words (e.g., are in dare can be transferred into care, fare, bare, hare, mare, share, stare, rare, ware, etc.) Have students sort their words in a variety of ways—by number of syllables, particular vowel sound, presence or absence of a consonant blend, presence or absence of silent letters, etc. Turn Making Words into a multisensory experience (Rasinski, 1999) by having the student write the words after they have made them with letter tiles (see Forms 20.1 and 20.2). Create cloze sentences in which students need to use one of the words they made to fill in the blank and complete a sentence. The words that students make can be used in other word games such as word bingo, otherwise known as WORDO!

Example Mrs. Terry, a second year second-­grade teacher was not satisfied with the commercial word study (spelling and phonics) program that her school used. She decided to make word study a bit more engaging by spending 10 minutes at the beginning of each day doing a word-­building activity. She alternates between Making Words and Word Ladders. We caught up with her in January, after she had been doing word building with her students for 4 months.

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Word Study

“I never realized how much my students would look forward to doing these activities. They are games! But more important they are tools for helping me teach my students words. I started the year using some of the commercial versions of Making Words and Word Ladders, but I have found that they are fairly simple to develop on my own. In fact, I have students who have developed their own Making Words and Word Ladder lessons. That’s when I allow them to be the teacher. You really know they are excited about words when they start to take over my job!” Here’s the Making Words lesson that she did on the Monday before Thanksgiving. From the letters of gratitude she guided her students to make eat, treat, great, grate, ate, date, tater, attire, guitar, and of course gratitude. Then she had her students sort the words into those words that might refer to Thanksgiving in some way (e.g., treat, eat, ate, tater, attire). She was also able to demonstrate to students that the grat- (and also grac-) in gratitude is a word pattern that means “thanks.” She demonstrated to her students other English words that contain that pattern and also refer to thanks in some way (gratuity, ingrate, grace, gracious, congratulate). One of Mrs. Terry’s students also noticed that the Spanish word gracias also means “thanks.” “To be honest we had a ball playing with these words. We had so much fun the lesson went longer than I had planned!” On Tuesday Mrs. Terry did two Thanksgiving Word Ladders with her students. One of her students also came in with a Word Ladder he had made up and shared with the class. Here’s the student’s Word Ladder: turkey

Take away three letters to make something you need to unlock a door.

key

Change a letter to make the name of Barbie’s boyfriend.

Ken

Change a letter to answer this math problem: 6 + 4 =

ten

Change a letter to make something golfers use when they first hit their ball.

tee

Change a letter to make something men wear around their neck when they dress up.

tie

Change a letter to make something you eat on Thanksgiving after the turkey.

pie!

This Word Ladder motivated students to make a list of all the foods that they might have on Thanksgiving Day. The class then conducted a survey to determine their favorite foods. Not surprisingly, apple and pumpkin pies topped their list.

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Your Turn Chances are, you already have a word study program that you are expected to use in your classroom. The beauty of guided word-­building activities is that they do not need to supplant an existing program. You can easily supplement the program you have now with some word-­building activities that you do on a regular basis. They only take minutes to do and can lead students to become more excited about the study of words throughout the school curriculum. As you consider adding word-­ building activities to your word study curriculum, here are some things you may wish to consider: Which activities will I use: Making Words, Making and Writing Words, Word Ladders, or even some other word building activity that I can develop on my own. How do I fit guided word building into my schedule? Should I do it at the beginning of each day, as Mrs. Terry does it, or do I have a time of the day better suited for word building? Am I capable to developing my lessons, or do I need support from one of the commercial versions of Making Words and Word Ladders? We must add that teachers and students find it more engaging when the lessons can be personally connected to something that the students are learning, a current event, or a special time of the year. If you wish to go in this direction you will likely have to develop your own lessons. They are not difficult to develop. How will I note growth in my students’ word knowledge and word awareness? Should I test the students on their knowledge of the words we will make? Or perhaps should I simply observe how they react to guided word building or ask them to tell me how they feel about doing word-­building games in the classroom. Word study is important. It lays the foundation for fluency, which itself is the foundation for reading success. Our challenge as teachers is not only to make word study a part of our literacy curriculum, but also to make it an engaging part of that curriculum. Guided word building is a proven way to make that happen. If you don’t believe us, just think about this chapter next time you play Words with Friends or Scrabble with your family!

References Cunningham, P. M. (2006). High-­poverty schools that beat the odds. The Reading Teacher, 60, 382–385. Cunningham, P. M. (2007). Six successful high poverty schools: How they beat the odds. In D. W. Rowe, R. T. Jimenez, D. L. Compton, D. K. Dickinson, Y. Kim, K. M. Leander, et al. (Eds.), 56th yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 191–203). Milwaukee, WI: National Reading Conference.

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Word Study Cunningham, P. M., & Cunningham, J. W. (1992). Making Words: Enhancing the invented spelling– ­decoding connection. The Reading Teacher, 46, 106–115. McCandliss, B., Beck, I., Sandak, R., & Perfetti, C. (2003). Focusing attention on decoding for children with poor reading skills: Design and preliminary tests of the word building intervention. Scientific Studies in Reading, 7, 75–104. Rasinski, T. V. (1999). Making and writing words. Reading online. Retrieved March 12, 2013, from http://readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/words/ rasinski_index.html. Rasinski, T. V., & Padak, N. (2008). From phonics to fluency: Effective teaching of decoding and reading fluency in the elementary school (2nd ed.). New York: Addison, Wesley, Longman.



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193 

Form 20.1

Making and Writing Words (Grades K–2) Vowels

Consonants

1

5

2

6

3

7

4

8

Transfer T-1

T-2

T-3

T-4

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Form 20.2

Making and Writing Words (Grades 3+) Vowels

Consonants

 1

 6

11

 2

 7

12

 3

 8

13

 4

 9

14

 5

10

15

Transfer T-1

T-2

T-3 

T-4

T-5

T-6

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

21

Assessing the Fluency of Automaticity Theresa Duncko

What Is It? Do you remember the first time you learned how to ride a two-wheel bike? How scary it was trying to remember how to pedal, steer, and balance while trying to negotiate your way around sidewalk cracks and other obstacles, all the while trying not to fall? I watched my nephew take his first ride on his two-­wheeler. Pedaling as fast as he could and concentrating on not falling over occupied his entire mind. He could barely think about (had no cognitive resources left for) steering, so anything or anyone in his path was subject to being run over. Now, of course, today he can ride his bike without giving the task another thought. What is it that allows him to do this? The key is automaticity. The skills necessary to ride his bike have been committed to memory and automatic processing. Because he does not have to think about pedaling, steering, and balance, his brain is now free to engage in other tasks such as feeling the breeze on his face as he rides, carrying on a conversation with someone riding beside him, or focusing on a bike competition. Automaticity is what allows a person to carry on daily tasks with ease. Reading requires the same automatic responses. Students must be able to quickly, with little effort, recognize 95% or more of the words they read in order to allow their minds to focus on the task of comprehension. Until a student has reached a level of automatic word recognition, his or her mind will struggle to meet the demands of reading the words and understanding their meaning (Samuels & Flor, 1997), thus reducing fluency and, more important, comprehension.

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Assessing the Fluency of Automaticity

The components of automaticity are twofold: accurate word decoding and effortlessness or speed in word decoding. The rate of accurate word reading (words correct per minute, or WCPM) is an indicator of automatic, fluent reading and provides insight into student comprehension. Students who can read words quickly do not struggle with sounding out each word and can therefore focus their attention on making meaning from the written words. When teachers assess students’ automaticity over the course of the school year, they have an opportunity to measure growth as well as determine areas of needed instruction. Rasinski (2004) stresses the importance of assessing and instructing all components of reading fluency. Although reading rate does provide an indication of automaticity, a focus on reading rate alone may lead students to believe that good reading is fast reading, with little or no adherence to comprehension. Well-­rounded fluency instruction will increase fluency, reading rate, and comprehension of gradelevel materials.

How Do I Do It? Because ongoing assessment is a vital component of effective instructional practice and successful student outcomes, finding a quick and easy way to measure student automaticity is essential. One method can be found in the One-­M inute Reading Probe. This approach, first developed by Deno (1985), is referred to as curriculum-­based measurement and is designed to evaluate this aspect of fluency in reading. Because this assessment is simple and quick, teachers can use several samples of a students’ reading, if necessary, to evaluate those students who appear to be struggling without taking undue time away from instruction. Also, teachers can evaluate students over the course of the school year to demonstrate progress over time. Below are simple steps for implementing the One-­Minute Reading Probe to assess the rate of automaticity of reading fluency.

1

Locate a passage of approximately 250 words, written at the student’s grade placement. Submit the passage to a text readability formula to estimate grade appropriateness. Several options are listed below: Teachers can type the passage into Microsoft Word and locate the readability statistics using the Review tab and Spelling and Grammar options. The following website can also help determine the readability of the passage: www.interventioncentral.org/tools/reading-­fluency-­passage-­generator.

2 Ask the student to read the passage for 1 minute and audio-­record the reading. Emphasize that the text should be read aloud in a normal voice and at a normal speed.



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OTHER FLUENCY ISSUES

3 Mark any uncorrected errors the student makes. Errors include mispronuncia-

tions, substitutions, reversals, omissions or words pronounced by the examiner after a wait of 2 to 3 seconds without an attempt or response from the student. Mark the point in the text the student has come to after 1 minute.

4 Determine accuracy by dividing the number of words read correctly per minute

(WCPM) by the total number of words read (WCPM + any uncorrected errors). This number will be a percentage. For example, a third-grade student who correctly read 91 words in 1 minute and made six errors while reading a third-grade passage would have an accuracy percentage of 93.8% (91/97). Referring to the norms below, we determine that the student is at an instructional level in word decoding accuracy for reading material at his or her grade level. 97–100% accuracy: Independent reading level 90–96% accuracy: Instructional reading level < 90% accuracy: Frustration level

5 Establish the rate by calculating the total number of WCPM and comparing the student’s performance against the target grade-level norms below.

6 If further assessment is warranted, repeat the first two steps with two different passages, using the median or middle score for analysis.

If the third-grade student described above read 91 words correct per minute in the fall, we would determine that his or her word decoding rate was well within the targeted rates for fall of third grade (see Table 21.1). By periodically using the One-­ Minute Reading Probe, students can be assessed throughout the school year and their progress tracked over time (see Form 21.1).

Extensions While it is important to assess students’ reading of grade-level passages to determine their ability to grasp content from resources used in class, a teacher can also include passages written above or below the student’s grade level to establish the actual TABLE 21.1.  Target Reading Rates by Grade Level: Words Correct per Minute Grade

Fall

Winter

Spring

Grade

Fall

Winter

Spring

1

0–10

10–50

30–90

5

 80–130

 90–140

100–150

2

30–80

 50–100

 70–130

6

 90–140

100–150

110–160

3

 50–110

 70–120

 80–140

7

100–150

110–160

120–170

4

 70–120

 80–130

 90–140

8

110–160

120–170

130–180

Note. Data from Rasinski, 2010.

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Assessing the Fluency of Automaticity

instructional and independent reading levels of the learner. Students need work written at their independent reading level to be able to work at home without the aid of the teacher or parent. Reading material provided at the independent level also allows the student to increase speed and word recognition (automaticity), thus improving fluency and comprehension (Rasinski, 2004). Ongoing assessment communicates student progress, helping to determine if the instructional plan in place is working or needs to be adapted. It informs the teacher of students’ strengths and weaknesses and provides a framework for where instruction should begin. By using the One-­Minute Reading Probe, teachers can quickly assess their students every 6 to 8 weeks and track student development over the course of the school year to ensure that students are making adequate progress. Form 21.1 allows teachers to track student progress of word recognition and speed. The Fry Instant Word Lists (found online; see www.cantonschools.org/content/ pdf_files/la_frylist.pdf) can be used to determine if students are automatically recognizing the most frequently used sight words for their grade level. By the end of first grade, students should have mastered the first 100 words to the point of automatic recognition; by the end of second grade the next 100 words; and by the end of third grade all 300 words. The Fry Instant Word Lists extends to grade 10. If students can read the words accurately but not instantly, then they have not yet achieved automaticity on those words and more practice and instruction is needed. According to Rasinski (2012), automaticity “is developed through wide and deep reading practice” (p. 17).

Example As a third-grade teacher, I was interested in learning more about my students’ word recognition and automaticity levels. Because class size was a factor, I used the One-­M inute Reading Probe to quickly identify students reading on grade level and those in need of additional help. In class, Susan often struggled with reading third-grade material and required extra support with assignments. Using a third-grade passage of approximately 250 words, I recorded Susan reading for 1 minute, asking her to read in a normal voice and at a normal speed. I marked any mispronunciations, omissions, substitutions, reversals, or words I pronounced and indicated how far she read after 1 minute. I also administered reading passages from first- and second-­grade levels to better determine Susan’s word recognition and automaticity abilities. On the third-grade passage, Susan’s reading rate was 84 WCPM, she had 14 errors per minute, and her total words per minute (TWPM) was 98. The formula for determining percentage accuracy is: 84/98 = 85.7% (round to 86%). A score of 86%, based on the chart above, indicates that third-grade material is at a frustration level for Susan. The same procedure was used with the first- and second-­grade passages. Susan’s instructional level is at the second-­grade level and her independent level is first-grade reading materials. Below is a chart indicating all three levels.

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OTHER FLUENCY ISSUES Grade 1 passage

Grade 2 passage

Grade 3 passage

WCPM: 120 TWPM: 120 Errors per minute: 0 Percentage accuracy: 100% Independent level

WCPM: 102 TWPM: 110 Errors per minute: 8 Percentage accuracy: 93% Instructional level

WCPM: 84 TWPM: 98 Errors per minute: 14 Percentage accuracy: 86% Frustration level

The initial One-Minute Reading Probe indicated that her WCPM was 84 and she made 14 errors in her reading. Although her WCPM falls within the range for her grade level, her total words per minute was not as strong as it should be. Further analysis of her errors revealed that she struggled with words that did not have specific vowel and consonant patterns. Activities such as word sorts and paired reading increased her word knowledge and speed, thus increasing her overall reading score. Over the course of the school year, I administered the third-grade reading passage two more times to see what kind of growth Susan was making. Her scores below show that she made good progress in her reading as a result of the intervention. September

January

June

WCPM: 84 TWPM: 98 Errors per minute: 14 Percentage accuracy: 86% Frustration level

WCPM: 103 TWPM: 113 Errors per minute: 10 Percentage accuracy: 91% Instructional level

WCPM: 128 TWPM: 130 Errors per minute: 2 Percentage accuracy: 98% Independent level

Your turn Reading passages for assessing automaticity can be found right in your classroom by using stories from your grade-level reader, classroom magazines, or other material that the students have not yet read. Rasinski and Padak (2005) recommend using material from the student’s assigned grade level because that is the level being used in your classroom, and it is essential that you know how your students will perform on class work. Further assessment can be done if the student struggles with gradelevel passages. Some teachers use the 3-Minute Reading Assessments (Rasinski & Padak, 2005) for a quick and easy reference. Each book (grades 1–4 and 5–8; assessments for grades 9–12 are located at http://ohioliteracyalliance.org/fluency/fluency.htm) contains four student and four teacher passages per grade level, along with easy-tofollow instructions, grade-level charts, fluency scales, and much more. Readability and grade level have been done for each of the passages, making this a quick and effective classroom resource.

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Assessing the Fluency of Automaticity

Prior to using the One-­Minute Reading Probe, tell your students that you will be having each of them read a passage or two so you can learn more about their reading. Form 21.1 is a class record sheet that can be used for the entire school year as a means of recording student reading progress. When deciding to use the One-­Minute Reading Probes, consider first those students who appear to be struggling. To begin, find a quiet place to assess your students, away from distractions and things that might affect the outcome of the assessment. Often times, students who struggle with reading have attention issues and need an environment free from interruptions. Be sure to have all resources readily available: student and teacher reading passages, scoring protocols, recorder, and timer. While students work independently, call one student at a time to a back table to administer the One-­Minute Reading Probe. Ask students to read in their best voice and in a normal way, not too fast or too slow. Make sure you indicate on the recording which student you are assessing, and on the scoring protocol mark omissions, substitutions, mispronunciations, etc. Note how far the student has read and indicate words per minute. Use the chart to determine the reading rate for the corresponding grade level, and then calculate the percentage to establish an instructional, independent, or frustration reading level. Each time you assess the students, use an unfamiliar passage. Students can be assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year as a means of showing growth in reading; however, students who struggle should be assessed every 6 to 8 weeks so appropriate instructional interventions can be put into place. Assessing the automaticity of student word recognition accuracy and rate using the One-­Minute Reading Probe is an efficient way to gain insight into an important part of a student’s reading process. It provides valuable information for creating effective instructional practices and for providing appropriate-­level resources for student success.

References Deno, S. L. (1985). Curriculum-­based measurement: The emerging alternative. Exceptional Children, 52, 219–232. Rasinski, T. V. (2004). Assessing reading fluency. Honolulu, HI: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. Retrieved from www.prel.org/products/re_/assessing-­fluency. htm. Rasinski, T. V. (2012). Why reading fluency should be hot! The Reading Teacher, 65, 516– 522. Rasinski, T. V., & Padak, N. (2005). 3-minute reading assessments: Word recognition, fluency and comprehension. New York: Scholastic. Samuels, S. J., & Flor, R. F. (1997). The importance of automaticity for developing expertise in reading. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 13, 2.



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Form 21.1

One-Minute Reading Probe: Word Recognition and Automaticity Teacher: Grade Level: Fluency / Automaticity (WCPM) Student

Date:

Date:

Date:

Word Recognition Accuracy (% words read correctly) Date:

Date:

Date:

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

22

Assessing Prosody Nancy Padak and Timothy R asinski

What Is It? Think for a moment about two groups playing the same song: your local symphony and the beginning band at an elementary school. What differences would you expect? Probably a difference in accuracy in the performance. The children will make mistakes; the adults most likely would not. Beyond accuracy, however, are likely differences in expression, emphasis, phrasing or flow, volume, pace, and perhaps other characteristics. In short, the adult symphony’s music is more fluent than the children’s. Fluency is more than the ability to read accurately and automatically. As with symphony renditions, appropriate phrasing and expression are also important for fluency in reading. Linguists call these melodic qualities of fluent reading prosody. This is the point where fluency connects directly to comprehension. When readers read with expression, they are reading with meaning. Embedding appropriate volume, tone, emphasis, phrasing, and other elements in oral expression shows active interpretation or construction of text meaning. Think about it: How could a reader decide on expression without understanding the author’s message? Assessing a reader’s fluency must include attention to prosody. Unlike words correct per minute, prosody is difficult to quantify. Instead, rubrics are used. In this chapter we describe two rubrics for assessing fluency.

How Do I Do It? An easy way to assess prosody is simply to listen to students’ reading and judge the prosodic quality of their reading. Take periodic samples of students’ oral reading of authentic reading from trade books or textbooks (Rasinski, 2004; Rasinski

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OTHER FLUENCY ISSUES

& Padak, 2013). This approach, called curriculum-­based assessment (Deno, 1985; Deno, Mirkin, & Chiang, 1982; Salvia & Hughes, 1990), is valid, effective, and efficient. Before beginning prosody assessment, you will want to select the rubric you will use to evaluate students’ reading. Figures 22.1 and 22.2 provide options. Figure 22.1, which is adapted from the scale used to assess fourth graders’ reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Pinnell et al., 1995), is a simple 4-point scale in which all aspects of prosody are considered holistically. Scores of 3 or 4 on this scale indicate appropriate prosody. The Four-Point Fluency Scale is useful for whole-class screening or other times when a quick assessment is your goal. The Multidimensional Fluency Scale (Figure 22.2) offers more detailed information about four aspects of prosody—­expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness, and rate. Within each aspect, scores of 1 (weak) through 4 (strong) are possible. Thus scores range from 4 to 16, with a midpoint of 10. You can score each aspect (3 or 4 represents a good score), or you can score the entire scale (a score of 10 and above is adequate). This scale is useful when you need diagnostic information about particular students. Results from this scale may also help you establish instructional goals. Whichever rubric you use, you will need several grade-level passages from textbooks or trade books for students to read. Two- to three-­hundred word selections work well. You may want a selection of fiction passages and informational passages, since fluent readings of these text types may differ. You may also want some easier passages. Students who struggle with grade-level texts may well be able to read easier texts more fluently. You will also want to think about whether to encourage students to practice before they read for you. Practice enables students to comprehend the text before reading aloud to you. Your standards for particular ratings will be different with and without practice, of course. Moreover, you need to be consistent in your decision to allow

4 Reads primarily in larger, meaningful phrases. Miscues do not detract from the overall structure of the text. Author’s syntax is preserved. Reads with expression. Rate is appropriate. 3 The majority of phrasing seems appropriate and preserves the author’s syntax. Sometimes reads with expression. Generally reads at an appropriate rate. 2 Reads primarily in two-word phrase groups. Three- and four-word groupings and some word-by-word reading may be present. Word groupings may seem awkward and unrelated to the larger context of the sentence or passage. Little of the text is read with expression. Reads significant sections of the text excessively slowly or fast. 1 Reads primarily word-by-word. Two- or three-word phrases are infrequent and they tend not to preserve meaningful syntax. Lacks expression. Reads text either excessively slowly or too quickly, ignoring punctuation and other phrase boundaries. Reads with little or no expression.

FIGURE 22.1.  Four-Point Fluency Scale. Adapted from Pinnell et al. (1995). 

204 



Assessing Prosody Score

Expression and Volume

Phrasing

Smoothness

Pace

1

Reads as if simply to get words out. Little sense of trying to make text sound like natural language. Tends to read in a quiet voice.

Reads in monotone with little sense of phrase boundaries; frequently reads wordby-word.

Makes frequent extended pauses, hesitations, false starts, sound-outs, repetitions, and/or multiple attempts.

Reads slowly and laboriously.

2

Sometimes uses voice to make text sound like natural language. Focus remains largely on pronouncing words. Still reads in a quiet voice.

Frequently reads in two- and three-word phrases, giving the impression of choppy reading; improper stress and intonation; fails to mark ends of sentences and clauses.

Experiences several “rough spots” in text where extended pauses or hesitations are more frequent and disruptive.

Reads moderately slowly.

3

Makes text sound like natural language throughout much of the passage. Occasionally slips into expressionless reading. Voice volume is generally appropriate.

Reads with a mixture of run-ons, midsentence pauses for breath, and some choppiness; reasonable stress and intonation.

Occasionally breaks smooth rhythm because of difficulties with specific words and/or structures.

Reads with an uneven mixture of fast and slow pace.

4

Reads with good expression and enthusiasm throughout the text. Varies expression and volume to match his or her interpretation of the passage.

Generally reads with good phrasing, mostly in clause and sentence units, with adequate attention to expression.

Generally reads smoothly with some breaks, but resolves word and structure difficulties quickly, usually through selfcorrection.

Consistently reads at appropriate rate.

FIGURE 22.2.  Multidimensional Fluency Scale. Based in part on Zutell and Rasinski (1991).

students to practice prior to reading. If you allow them to practice at the beginning of the year, you should allow them to practice in advance of all subsequent assessments. Finally, ask individual students to read one passage aloud in their best voices and at their normal reading rates. The listening period can be short; you can make reliable and valid measurements in as few as 60 seconds. At the end of the listening period, consult the rubric and assign the score that most closely aligns with the student’s reading. If the student struggled mightily with the grade-level passage, ask him or her to read another passage that is closer to the student’s instructional level. This will help you determine if the student has general fluency problems or if he or she can read fluently at a lower level. You can assess students at the beginning of the school year to get baseline data. Monthly or quarterly assessments can help you determine if students are responding well to your instruction and are making progress over the course of the school year.

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Extensions Information about your students’ prosody as readers is useful for instruction. To begin with, you may want to ensure that students understand the various aspects of prosody. Good readers attend to issues like volume, pacing, phrasing, and other aspects of expressive reading almost without conscious thought. But you may need to isolate aspects of prosody in mini-­lessons to help students understand what a particular aspect is and why it’s so important to fluent reading. Modeling and coaching will assist you in this regard. You may want to use a summary scoring sheet like the one shown in Form 22.1. This will help you see students’ progress over time. Assessment data regularly recorded on a summary form provides an easy and understandable way to track progress over time. The forms are useful for conferences with students and parents as well. Analyzing the summary form can help you identify students who share needs. Then you can develop small-group instruction around those needs. Who needs to work on phrasing, for example? Other chapters in this volume provide lots of good teaching ideas for addressing your students’ fluency needs. Finally, students can use a scaled-­down version of the assessment rubric to evaluate their own (or a partner’s) reading. We have had success with the rubric shown in Figure 22.3 with students as young as second grade. Evaluating their own prosody helps students think consciously about these aspects of fluent reading.

The reading was not too soft.

The reading was not too loud.

The reading sounded smooth.

The reading was not too slow.

The reading was not too fast.

The reading sounded like talking.

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



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













































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FIGURE 22.3.  Example of a student evaluation sheet. 

206 



Assessing Prosody

Fifth-grade teacher Alexander Bellas adapted the Multidimensional Fluency Scale for students to use in evaluating their own fluency (see Form 22.2). A large version of the chart is on display in this classroom so that students have a visual reminder of the importance to read with good expression. Use modeling to teach students how to use the rubric. Read something aloud using an obviously weak representation of some aspect of prosody. For example, mess up the phrasing on purpose, or read like a robot. Then show the rubric, and ask students to evaluate your reading (and to explain the reasons for their decisions). Follow this with another reading, this time an excellent representation of the aspect (e.g., great phrasing, reading that sounds like conversation). Again, ask students to evaluate your reading and to explain their reasons. Quick sessions like these will help students learn to use their rubric as they think about their own reading or as they provide feedback for peers.

Example Lane is a third-grade teacher in a school with high student turnover. “I have a 25–50% turnover in my class each year,” she says. “Some students leave, and others join us. So aside from the need to get to know all my students at the beginning of a school year, I need quick assessments to learn about children who join us during the school year.” For all aspects of reading, Lane uses curriculum-­based assessments. She has gathered a couple of dozen passages, some fiction and some informational, that represent both grade-level difficulty and easier texts. She uses these only for assessment. Quarterly and when new students join the class, she uses the Four-Point Fluency Scale (Figure 22.1). “My years of experience have taught me about what third graders’ reading should ‘sound like,’ so this is a quick process for me.” All students read grade-level passages, and those who struggle also read easier ones. She also uses the Multidimensional Fluency Scale (Figure 22.2) with struggling readers. She finds that the extra information about struggling readers helps her pinpoint issues deserving instructional focus. “Of course I look at reading as a whole,” she says, “but it’s not unusual for students to be pretty good decoders with fluency difficulties. These tend to go hand-in-hand with comprehension weaknesses. Feels like a chicken-­and-egg situation to me, so I approach fluency and comprehension simultaneously.” Lane uses a summary sheet to record students’ scores. “I share these with students and also with their parents during conferences. With the children, these give me a good chance to chat about prosody. Parents appreciate the information, too; most find the focus on fluency somewhat surprising. They haven’t thought about reading in this way and often thank me for the insight.”



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OTHER FLUENCY ISSUES

Your Turn To begin assessing prosody, you need to Decide on which rubric(s) to use. Find several text passages, both fiction and informational and both at and below grade level. Think about whether you want to assess prosody separately or in combination with other aspects of reading. Try assessing students you know in advance as good, average, and struggling readers. Do your prosody ratings match students’ achievement levels? What does that have to say about the importance of prosody in reading? Ask a colleague or two to assess the same students. Are your ratings consistent? (Generally we find that since teachers listen to students read regularly, they are excellent raters of prosody.) In the hands of knowledgeable teachers, fluency (prosody) rubrics provide valid and reliable information on students’ development and on their progress in interpretive reading or prosody. Results can provide valuable instructional guidance and offer students insight into ways to enhance their own personal fluency development and reading comprehension. We believe that the assessment of prosody is essential and that fluency rubrics are excellent additions to teachers’ assessment tool box.

References Deno, S. L. (1985). Curriculum-­based measurement: The emerging alternative. Exceptional Children, 52, 219–232. Deno, S. L., Mirkin, P., & Chiang, B. (1982). Identifying valid measures of reading. Exceptional Children, 49, 36–45. Pinnell, G. S., Pikulski, J., Wixon, K., Campbell, J., Gough, P., & Beatty, S. (1995). Listening to children read aloud: Data from NAEP’s integrated reading performance record at grade 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Rasinski, T. V. (2004). Assessing reading fluency. Honolulu, HI: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. Retrieved from www.prel.org/products/re_/assessing-­fluency. htm. Rasinski, T., & Padak, N. (2013). From phonics to fluency (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. Salvia, J., & Hughes, C. (1990). Curriculum-­based assessment: Testing what is taught. New York: Macmillan. Zutell, J. B., & Rasinski, T. V. (1991). Training teachers to attend to their students’ oral reading fluency. Theory into Practice, 30, 211–217.

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Form 22.1

Summary Sheet Scores (1–4) Name

Date

Expression and Volume

Phrasing

Smoothness Pace

Total

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Form 22.2

Multidimensional Fluency Scale: Student Edition: Peer Assessment 1 Expression and Volume

Reads in a quiet voice as if to get words out. The reading does not sound natural like talking to a friend. Too Quiet, No Expression

Phrasing

Reads wordby-word in a monotone voice. Word-by-Word

2

3

4

Score

Reads in a Reads with Reads with varied quiet voice. The volume and volume and reading sounds expression. expression. The natural in part of However, reader sounds the text, but the sometimes the like they are reader does not reader slips into talking to a friend always sound like expressionless with their voice they are talking reading and does matching the to a friend. not sound like interpretation of they are talking the passage. Less Quiet, to a friend. Some Just the Right Expression Volume Volume, Very Generally Good, Expressive Adequate Expression Reads in twoor three-word phrases, not adhering to punctuation, stress, and intonation. Two- to ThreeWord Phrases

Reads with a Reads with good mixture of run- phrasing; adheres ons, midsentence to punctuation, pauses for stress, and breath, and some intonation. choppiness. There is reasonable Excellent stress and Phrasing intonation. Generally Good Phrasing (continued

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Multidimensional Fluency Scale: Student Edition: Peer Assessment  (page 2 of 2)

Smoothness

1

2

3

4

Frequently hesitates while reading, sounds out words, and repeats words or phrases. The reader makes multiple attempts to read the same passage.

Reads with extended pauses or hesitations. The reader has several “rough spots.”

Reads with occasional breaks in rhythm. The reader has difficulty with specific words and/or sentence structures.

Reads smoothly with some breaks, but selfcorrects with difficult words and/or sentence structures.

Choppy

Score

Very Smooth Generally Smooth

Sounds Very Choppy Pace

Reads slowly and Reads moderately laboriously. slowly. Very Slow (or Very Fast)

Reads fast and slow throughout reading.

Slower or Faster than Normal Generally Good Pacing

Reads at a conversational pace throughout the reading. Just Right Pacing TOTAL

23

Conclusion Creating Time for Fluency in Your Reading Program Nancy Padak and Timothy R asinski

S

o, are you convinced? Do you view reading fluency as crucial to successful comprehension? Do you see that fluency is more than reading speed and that authentic fluency instruction can be fun and engaging? Are you ready to assess your current fluency instruction and, if necessary, make plans for change? We hope that this final chapter will serve both as a summary of the book and a framework to support your instructional plans.

What Have We Learned? We began the book by outlining several principles related to fluency instruction: Research reviews over the past dozen years have consistently recognized reading fluency as a key element of reading and of effective reading instruction. Fluency—­both automaticity and prosody—­is integral to real reading. Fluency can be considered a bridge from word recognition accuracy to text comprehension. For these reasons, elementary reading curricula should include attention to fluency. Older struggling readers will also benefit from attention to fluency. If you accept these premises, you probably found lots of good ideas in the chapters of this book. You read about teachers and scholars whose fluency instruction is

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Conclusion

authentic, effective, and engaging. Now the questions become which instructional ideas will work best for my students? How do I integrate these into my current curriculum?

A Few Ideas about Curriculum Planning The curriculum planning process involves careful consideration of both “what” and “how.” The “what” in curriculum planning describes what students should know and be able to do. Obviously, in our case, this is how to read fluently. Not so obviously, however, may be the definition of fluency that underlies your instructional materials. Check your materials to make sure that students have the opportunity to develop both automaticity and prosody. If one or the other does not receive enough emphasis, this is a place for revision. Curriculum documents can also provide guidance. Check your district curriculum documents for attention to fluency. You might also want to read the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for your grade level. These are K–12 statements about student learning developed by the National Governors’ Association and the Council of State School Officers. Drafts of the CCSS were refined through successive rounds of feedback. They represent a synthesis of research- and evidence-­based knowledge about students’ learning. In the CCSS, attention to fluency, including its contribution to comprehension, begins in kindergarten. The CCSS identifies fluency as a “Foundational” skill—that is, fluency lays the groundwork for higher levels of literacy processing. One goal for children is to be able to read emergent-­reader texts with purpose and understanding. Beginning in grade 1, fluency goals are for students to “read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension,” to “read with purpose and understanding,” and to “read with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression” (See www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf.) The next stage in the curriculum planning process involves selecting or developing instructional routines, determining the “how” of your curriculum. A “routine” is a regular block of time during which students engage in a predictable set of instructional activities related to a particular goal or set of goals. Routines are helpful in curriculum planning because you can think in terms of “chunks” of time. Routines also help students behave independently— because routines follow the same general framework from day to day students know what to expect. Most of the chapters in this book describe fluency routines; adopting one or more of these will provide routine-­based instruction. Effective routines for promoting fluency are generally based on several important principles (Rasinski & Padak, 2013): Base routines on what children need. Planning needs-based instruction begins with determining needs. The assessment chapters in this book offer good ideas here. Talking to students can also offer useful insights. We frequently ask children, 

214 

Conclusion

“What do good readers do and what does good reading sound like?” Children’s answers, especially when considered along with samples of their oral reading, often provide on-­target direction for instruction. Maximize time on task. Students need plentiful and daily opportunities to read and listen to texts read aloud. Make it authentic, engaging, varied, and fun. Many of the effective fluency activities described in this book are fun for students and involve real reading. This is purposeful. Children learn best when they can identify with the task at hand and are successful and enjoy what they are doing. Develop home–­school connections. Research is clear about the uniformly positive effects of promoting home–­school partnerships (Fawcett, Padak, & Rasinski, 2013). Find ways to foster fluency practice at home. Remember the overall goal: Grow readers. The final principle for establishing fluency routines reminds us to maintain perspective, not to lose the forest for the trees. Fluency is only worthwhile when it leads to good comprehension. These principles offer a frame for your entire reading program, not just the fluency component. Next we consider the instructional activities described in this book.

Which Instructional Strategies to Use Throughout this book you have read about many instructional strategies. Some, like the Fluency Development Lesson, Readers Theatre, or Fluency-­Oriented Reading Instruction, are core strategies that incorporate many aspects of effective fluency instruction. Others, such as teaching metacognitive awareness or using phrased texts, offer focused instruction about single aspects of fluency. Still others, such as the “active-­ities,” are good and fun practice. Another way to sort the strategies in this book is by age or reading level. Choral reading, for example, is ordinarily associated with beginning readers. Radio reading, on the other hand, may be most useful with older, more accomplished readers. Finally, you may want to think about the strategies in terms of who leads them and where the activities might take place. Both paired reading and Fast Start, for example, are great at-home choices that also work well in tutoring situations. The Million Minute Reading Challenge is coordinated at school, but the reading takes place at home. Choral and audio-­assisted reading adapt easily to tutoring situations. If these strategies and activities are new to you, the chapters in which they are presented describe them thoroughly. However, you may need to consider additional issues to revise your fluency curriculum. For example, you may be wondering about how to coordinate instruction to reflect principles of response to intervention (RTI; Fuchs, Fuchs, & Vaughn, 2008), a formalized instructional routine that aims to ensure that all students’ instructional needs are met. In brief, RTI instruction has three coordinated levels or tiers:

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215 

Conclusion

Tier 1 instruction is the core curriculum provided to all students, which should allow most students (e.g., 80%) to make good progress. Regular assessments allow teachers to determine who is progressing well and who is not. Tier 2 instruction is for students (e.g., 10–15%) who need additional targeted instruction that supplements but does not supplant Tier 1. Tier 3 adds another layer of instruction and instructional intensity for those students who are not making sufficient progress in Tier 2. Special education personnel are ordinarily involved in Tier 3 instruction. It sounds complicated, doesn’t it? We hope that Table 23.1 will assist you. On it is an alphabetical list of the instructional strategies (chapter numbers included). Then we list possible grade levels for implementation; whether each strategy could be considered core for fluency instruction; whether the strategy supports growth in automaticity, prosody, or both; comments about RTI use; and whether the strategy can be used in learning centers, with tutors, or in homes. Much of the table is filled with our opinions. You may not always agree with our characterizations. Still, the particular aspects we use to describe these strategies may help you think about how to use them in your classroom.

Example Gracie teaches third graders. She assesses students early in the year by asking them to read several grade-level passages, using Three-­Minute Reading Assessment procedures (Rasinski & Padak, 2005). From these brief assessments, she learns about students’ word recognition and comprehension abilities. More important for our purposes, she also learns about her students’ fluency, both automaticity and prosody. She records assessment information, both words correct per minute (WCPM) and results of the Multidimensional Fluency Assessment, on a chart like the one shown in Form 23.1. She also makes notes about instructional decisions, including RTI level. As a result of the assessment and her analyses of the data obtained, Gracie and her students spend about 20 minutes each day working on the Fluency Development Lesson and Readers Theatre. These two routines form the core of her fluency instruction. Still, she notices that about a quarter of her students appear to have more significant difficulties in fluency. Some have automaticity difficulties, some struggle with prosody, and some have problems in both areas. These students are placed in Tier 2 intervention in addition to the fluency curriculum she offers to all students. In her Tier 2 instruction, children receive 15 additional instructional minutes each day. Volunteer tutors (parents, some high school students who are interested in teaching, and some senior citizens) work with children using assisted and paired reading activities. In addition, Gracie’s home-­involvement program asks parents to do Fast Start nightly for 10 to 15 minutes.

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Conclusion

TABLE 23.1.  Summary and Synthesis of Fluency Strategies Core fluency lesson?

Automaticity, prosody, or both?

RTI tiers

Other uses (centers, tutors, home)

Name (chapter)

Grade level

Active-ities (Chapter 19)

Any elementary

No; reinforcement

Both

Any

Tutors, some for home

Audio-assisted reading (Chapter 6)

Any elementary (also good for ELLs)

No

Both

Probably best for Tiers 2 and 3

Centers, tutors, home

Choral reading (Chapter 4)

Primary (also good for ELLs)

No

Both, but especially prosody

Tier 1

Tutors

Fast Start (Chapter 17)

Primary

No

Both

Any

Tutors, home

Fluency Development Lesson (Chapter 17)

Any

Yes

Both

Any

Tutors

Fluency-oriented Reading Instruction (Chapter 18)

Grades 2 and up

Yes

Both

Tier 1

None

Metacognitive awareness development (Chapter 3)

Grades 2 and up

No

Both, but especially prosody

Any

Tutors

Million Minutes (Chapter 14)

Any

No

Both (indirectly)

Any

Home

Paired reading (Chapter 5)

Any (also good for ELLs)

No

Both

Tiers 2 and 3

Tutors, home

Phrased Text Lesson (Chapter 8)

Grades 2 and up

No

Prosody

Tiers 2 and 3

Tutors

Radio Reading (Chapter 13)

Grades 3 or 4 and up

No

Both (indirectly)

Tier 1

None

Readers Theatre (Chapters 9, 10, and 11)

Grade 1 and up

Yes

Both

Tier 1

Centers (for writing or recording/ listening to podcasts)

Teacher modeling (Chapter 2)

Any

No

Both

Any

Tutors, home

Using poetry and song (Chapters 12 and 16)

Any (also good for ELLs)

Yes

Both

Any

Tutors, home



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Conclusion

Every 4 to 6 weeks, Gracie reassesses students and adjusts instruction as needed. Each year one or two students need Tier 3 support, but she notes: “Almost everyone achieves our goals. I think RTI is good for the children and me. My curriculum planning is easy because we all focus on the same goals. Students who need more instructional intensity and especially more time to achieve the goals have this opportunity.”

Your Turn If you are ready to revise your fluency curriculum, use these questions to help you plan. Look at your district’s curriculum and instructional materials. • Is fluency appropriately emphasized? • What definition of fluency underlies the curriculum and instructional materials? • Are materials appropriate for all RTI tiers? For English language learners? Analyze your current instructional practices. • What assessments do you use? • How do you use assessment results to guide instruction? • How do you monitor your students’ progress in fluency to ensure that your instruction is achieving your goals for students? • How much time do you devote to fluency each day? Is this too much, not enough, or just the right amount of time? How do you know? • What routine(s) is the core of your fluency instruction? Does it focus appropriately on both automaticity and prosody? • What additional opportunities do you provide for students in the classroom? • How do you coordinate with other teachers (e.g., Title I, ELL teachers, tutors)? • How does your at-home reading program address fluency? • How will you communicate your results to parents, colleagues, school administrators, and others? Make plans for change. List the major changes you wish to make. • Do you need additional materials or time to make these changes? If so, how can you get what you need? • How will you evaluate the success of these changes? Good Luck! Making changes to strengthen your fluency instruction will benefit your students. They will become more competent, confident readers.

References Fawcett, G., Padak, N., & Rasinski, T. (2013). Evidence-­based instruction in reading: A professional development guide to family involvement. New York: Pearson.

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218 

Conclusion Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., & Vaughn, S. (2008). Response to intervention: A framework for reading educators. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. National Governors Association & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common core state standards. Available at www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20 Standards.pdf. Rasinski, T., & Padak, N. (2013). From phonics to fluency (3rd ed.). New York: Pearson. Rasinski, T., & Padak, N. (2005). Three-­minute reading assessments. New York: Scholastic.



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219 

Form 23.1

Fluency Assessment and Instruction Summary Sheet Date Assessment Name

WCPM

Multidimensional Fluency Scale

Instruction Notes

RTI Level

Notes

From From Fluency to Comprehension: Powerful Instruction through Authentic Reading edited by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak. Copyright 2013 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this form is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details). Purchasers can download additional copies of this form from www.guilford.com/rasinski2-forms.

Index

Note. Page numbers in italics indicate figures and tables. Accuracy percentage, computing, 198 Active fluency activities, 180–185 Affective filter hypothesis, 151 After-school reading programs, 185 Ambling Books, 49 Assessing automaticity, 197–201, 202 prosody, 203–208, 209, 210–211 See also Curriculum-based assessment Assisted reading strategies described, 31 paired reading, 40–44, 45–46, 47 See also Audio-assisted reading; Choral reading Audience for Readers Theatre, 85, 98 Audio-assisted reading described, 48–49 extensions and modifications, 55 implementing, 49, 51–52, 55–56, 59 instructional example, 52–55 monitoring, 52, 58 technology inventory, 49, 50 Audio files. See Podcasting approaches Authenticity in repeated reading. See Poetry Academy Automaticity assessing, 197–201, 202 components of, 197 described, 196 target reading rates by grade level, 198 in word decoding, 2–4, 197



B Bathroom reading, 185 Blogs for audio files, 96, 98 Bus Songs, 49

C CCSS (Common Core State Standards), 214 Choral reading (WCCR) after reading, 34 described, 31–32 extensions, 36–37 in Fluency Development Lessons, 142 in FORI, 168–169 implementing, 37 instructional example, 34–36 before reading, 33 during reading, 33 of scripts for Readers Theatre, 86 Student Self-Check for Whole-Class Choral Reading, 39 text selection, 32–33 variations on, 22 Chunking words, 67 ClustrMap service, 98 Cognitive energy, 2–3 Collaboration in Radio Reading, 122 Common Core State Standards (CCSS), 214



221 

Index Comprehension automaticity and, 2–3, 196 defined, 103 fluency and, 12, 13, 18, 72–73 prosody and, 4, 5 Content areas and Radio Reading, 123 Curriculum-based assessment extensions, 206, 206–207 implementing, 203–205, 204, 205, 208 instructional example, 207 Curriculum planning process, 214–215, 218

D Dance party, high-frequency, 66 Deep and wide reading practice Million-Minute Reading Challenge, 130– 134, 135 Radio Reading, 121–127 Readers Theatre, 83–89, 90 See also Podcasting approaches; Poetry Academy; Scriptwriting; Wide reading Deep reading, 3–4, 5. See also Deep and wide reading practice Directed Reading–Thinking Activity (DR-TA), 170 Drawing and literacy development, 143, 153

E Echo reading, 168, 170 English language learners (ELLs) audio-assisted reading for, 49 music and poetry performance activities for, 150–155, 156 Explicit teaching following read-alouds, 14–15, 17

F Fast reading, 1, 5 Fast Start described, 157–158 extensions and modifications, 159–161, 161 implementing, 158–159, 161–163, 164, 165 FDLs. See Fluency Development Lessons (FDLs) Fix-up strategies for fluency problems, 23, 24, 25 Fluency in Common Core State Standards, 214 comprehension and, 12, 13, 18, 72–73 defined, 121

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222 

metaphor for, 2 movement and, 179 punctuation and, 67, 72, 125 See also Automaticity; Fluency instruction; Integrated fluency models; Metafluency awareness; Movement and fluency; Prosody Fluency Development Lessons (FDLs) described, 140 extensions, 142–143 implementing, 140–142, 147–148, 149 instructional example, 143–147, 145, 146 Fluency instruction advice for, 18–19 authentic and effective, 5–6 curriculum planning process, 214–215, 218 example, 216, 218, 220 oral reading and, 1–2 overview of, 213 reading speed and, 1 strategy selection, 215–216, 217 time set apart for, 2 Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI) described, 166–167 extensions and modifications, 171 implementing, 167–169, 172–173 instructional example, 171–172 Sample Weekly Plan, 174–175 Fluency phones, 74 Fluency walks, 184 Folger Shakespeare Library, 49 FORI. See Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI) Forms Audio-Assisted Reading Log and SelfEvaluation, 58 First 100 Instant Words Sample Puzzle, 69 Fluency Assessment and Instruction Summary Sheet, 220 Fluency Development Lesson Bookmarks, 149 How to Do Paired Reading at School and Home, 45–46 Looking at Read-Aloud Phrasing, 17 Making and Writing Words (Grades K–2), 194 Making and Writing Words (Grades 3+), 195 Metafluency Instruction Lesson Plan Template, 27–28 The Million-Minute Reading Challenge!, 135 Mother Goose Is Missing Words!, 70–71 Multidimensional Fluency Scale: Student Edition: Peer Assessment, 210–211 My Words, 165 One-Minute Reading Probe: Word Recognition and Automaticity, 202 Paired Reading Contract, 47 Poetry Academy Volunteer Log, 120

Index Radio Reading, 128 Sample Letter to Parents, 59 Sample Weekly Plan for FORI, 174–175 Script for The Vinder Viper, 90 Student Self-Check for Whole-Class Choral Reading, 39 Summary Sheet (for prosody assessment), 209 Words I Like/Other Words, 164 Four-Point Fluency Scale, 204, 204, 207 Fry Instant Word Lists, 63, 64, 66, 199

G Genres and read-alouds, 13 Gradual-release-of-responsibility strategy for choral reading, 34 Groups audio-assisted reading in, 51 for FORI and Wide FORI, 171 for Poetry Academy, 113 for Radio Reading, 122, 126, 128 for Readers Theatre, 84–85 scriptwriting in, 109 Guess My Word or Phrase game, 66

H Hand-claps, 182 High-frequency phrase reading described, 63–64 extensions, 65–66 implementing, 64–65 instructional example, 66–67, 69, 70–71 for lower elementary learners, 65–66 prosody and, 67–68 for upper elementary learners, 66 Home reading, increasing volume of, 129–134, 135 Home–school partnerships, 215

I Inkless Tales, 49 Integrated fluency models Fast Start, 157–163 music and poetry performance activities, 150–155 See also Fluency Development Lessons (FDLs); Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI); Wide FluencyOriented Reading Instruction (Wide FORI) Intervention blocks and Readers Theatre schedules, 99–101



J Jumping rope with chants, 181, 183

L Language Experience Approach (LEA), 144–147 Lit 2 Go, 49 Literacy workstations with audio texts, 52 for Readers Theatre, 88–89

M Magic Keys, 51 Making Words game, 188–189, 190, 192 Marking phrases, 73–76 Meaning phrases and, 72 reading for, 12 Meet-the-Author Movies, 104 Metafluency awareness described, 18–19 developing, 19–20 extensions, 23–24 instructional example, 20–23 Lesson Plan Template, 27–28 poster for, 20 preparing for and implementing instruction in, 24–26, 27–28 Million-Minute Reading Challenge extensions and modifications, 133 implementing, 130–131, 134 instructional example, 131–133, 135 Modeling disfluent reading, 124 fluent reading with read-alouds, 12 home reading, 131 prosody, 207 Monitoring audio-assisted reading, 52, 58 Million-Minute Reading Challenge, 131, 135 reading fluency monitoring rubric, 22, 23 self-monitoring prosody, 206 volunteer tutors, 117, 120 Morning yoga, 184–185 Movement and fluency benefits of physical activity, 179 extensions and modifications, 185 implementing, 180, 185–186 instructional examples, 180–185 Multidimensional Fluency Scale, 204, 205, 207



223 

Index Music for ELLs, 150–154, 156 in Fast Start, 159–160 for podcasts, 97 resources for, 153 song lyrics, 116

N Neurological impress method (NIM), 88 Nursery rhymes, high-frequency words in, 66–67, 70–71

O One-Minute Reading Probe extensions, 198–199 implementing, 197–198, 200–201 instructional example, 199–200 tracking progress, 199, 202 Oral reading and fluency instruction, 1–2. See also Read-alouds

P Paired reading (PR) contract for, 47 described, 40–41 developing program of, 43–44 extensions, 42–43 in Fluency Development Lessons, 142 implementing, 41–42, 45–46 instructional example, 43 Parents audio-assisted reading and, 49, 52, 59 Fast Start and, 158–162 Million-Minute Reading Challenge and, 130, 131, 132–133, 134 podcasts for, 96, 99 role in literacy development, 157–158 as volunteers, 113 See also Paired reading (PR) Partner reading in Fluency Development Lessons, 142 in FORI, 169 PBS website for kids, 51 Performances ELLs and, 150–155, 156 in Fast Start, 160 in Fluency Development Lessons, 142 poetry, 118 Poetry Café, 114–115, 117 Radio Reading, 123 See also Podcasting approaches; Readers Theatre 

224 

Phrased text lessons described, 72–73 extensions and modifications, 75–76 implementing, 73–74, 78, 79 instructional example, 76–78 Phrasing strategies. See High-frequency phrase reading; Phrased text lessons Physical activity and school-based learning, 179. See also Movement and fluency Playlists of high-frequency words, 65 Pocket Wavepad HD app, 93–96 Podcasting approaches benefits of, 98–99 described, 91–92 extensions and modifications, 99–101 implementing, 92–96, 101–102 instructional example, 97 recording tips, 96–97 Student Self-Evaluation of Readers Theatre Podcast rubric, 99–101 Poetry in Fast Start, 157–163 in Fluency Development Lessons, 141, 143–144, 145–146, 147 for fluency practice with ELLs, 154–155 for promoting fluency, 6 Rhythm Walks, 118 See also Poetry Academy; Poetry Café Poetry Academy described, 112–113 extensions and modifications, 115–116 implementing, 113–115, 117 instructional example, 116–117 Volunteer Log, 120 Poetry Café, 114, 115, 117, 154 Poetry day, 180–181 Poetry Races, 118–119 PR. See Paired reading (PR) Prosody assessing, 203–208, 209, 210–211 defined, 4, 203 development of, 4–5 music and, 151 Readers Theatre and, 86–87 reading rate and, 67–68 Punctuation, role of in fluency, 67, 72, 125 Purposeful pairing process, 92, 98

Q Question–Answer Relationships (QAR) strategy, 125 Questions, generating for Radio Reading, 121, 123, 125

Index R Radio Reading described, 121–122 extensions, 123–124 implementing, 122–123, 126–127, 128 instructional example, 124–126 Rate the Experts activity, 23–24 Read-alouds described, 11–12 explicit lessons following, 14–15, 17 implementing, 13–14 inaccurate, 21–22 Looking at Read-Aloud Phrasing form, 17 for metafluency awareness, 19 modeling fluent reading, 12 preparing for, 12–13, 15–16 Readers Theatre described, 83–84 extensions and modifications, 88 implementing, 84–85, 88–89 instructional example, 85–87 pairing with podcasting, 91–92 Script for The Vinder Viper, 90 See also Scriptwriting Reading fluency monitoring rubric, 22, 23 Reading Is Fundamental, 51 Reading rate, 67 Reading speed and fluency, 1, 5 Recordings classroom-made, 52 permanency of, 98–99 podcasts, 93–97 Repeated-reading implementation of choral reading, 32 Repeated readings. See Poetry Academy; Radio Reading; Readers Theatre Response to intervention (RTI), 215–216, 217 Rhythm Walks, 118 Routines, instructional, 214–215

Sign language, 184 Snowball fights, 183 Song lyrics, 116 Storyline Online, 51 Storynory, 51 Struggling readers, examples of, 139–140 Students as volunteers, 115–116 Summer setback in reading achievement, 133

T Talk, draw, write process, 143–147 Talking about read-alouds, 13 “Talking way into” text, 142–143 Technology, pairing with reading strategies, 91–92 Technology inventory for audio texts, 49, 50 Text selection choral reading, 32–33 ELLs, 152–153, 155 Fast Start, 160 Fluency Development Lessons, 141, 147 fluency practice, 112 FORI and Wide FORI, 167 One-Minute Reading Probe, 197, 200 phrased text lessons, 75–76 Poetry Academy, 113–114 prosody assessment, 204 Readers Theatre, 84, 85, 88 scriptwriting, 104, 110 whole-class instruction, 166 Think-alouds for rating reading fluency, 22–23 3-Minute Reading Assessments (Rasinski & Padak), 200 Touchstone texts, 105, 110 Transferring word families, 190 Tutoring, after-school, 185

V S Scripts for Readers Theatre resources for, 84, 85, 88 Script for The Vinder Viper, 90 written by students, 101 Scriptwriting described, 103 extensions, 104–105 implementing, 104, 110 instructional example, 105–109 mini-lessons, 105–106, 107–109, 110 Second language acquisition, requirement for, 151 Self-monitoring prosody, 206 Sensorimotor stage of development, 179



Visual aspect of podcasting, 99 Visual cues for phrasing, 73–76 in poetry, 162 Voice, role of in reading, 11–12 Voice Thread application, 52, 67 Volume of reading, increasing, 129–134, 135 Volunteers and Poetry Academy, 113–114, 115–116, 120

W WCCR. See Choral reading (WCCR) WCPM (words correct per minute), 197, 198, 198 

225 

Index Whisper phones, 74 Whole-class choral reading. See Choral reading Wide Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (Wide FORI) described, 166–167 extensions and modifications, 171 implementing, 169–171, 172–173 Wide reading choral reading and, 32–33 defined, 3–4 increasing, 129–134, 135 prosody and, 5 See also Deep and wide reading practice Wired for Books, 51 Word, Word, Bird game, 65 Word decoding, automaticity in, 2–4, 197 Word dice, 65–66 Word Ladders game, 189–190, 192 Word prints in sand, 66 Word puzzles, 66, 69 Word recognition, 187. See also Word study



226 

Words correct per minute (WCPM), 197, 198, 198 Word study engagement in, 187–188 extensions, 190 implementing, 192, 194, 195 instructional example, 190–191 Making Words, 188–189, 190 Word Ladders, 189–190 Word walls, 190 Workstations with audio texts, 52 for Readers Theatre, 88–89 Writing and read-alouds, 13–14 Writing scripts. See Scriptwriting Writing workshop, 107

Y Yoga, 184–185