I love teaching all things reading... comprehension, phonics, fluency and vocabulary! ALL OF IT! I love to challenge students! I love boosting their confidence! I love that I can achieve all of these through repeated readings of challenging texts.
I created my own fluency exercises to incorporate all of the best parts of reading. Low readers have the chance to build fluency with an engaging text. High readers are challenged from the start. The units that I created are camping themed and the students just love that!
On Mondays the students gather around the "campfire" and listen to me read the text to them... we call this campfire story time. My little forest friends may get passed over to a friend who is being a good listener, keeping their fingers on the words, etc.
After the first reading of the story, students write 8 of their word wall words (or you can give them words) and highlight them throughout the text. I believe this helps make a seemingly difficult looking text more do-able for low readers.
The lines are numbered so that words per minute for timed readings can easily be counted and recorded. There is space for up to 3 readings can be recorded. I trained a class a couple of years ago to do these timed readings with each other, hoping that I can do that again because I can't fit it in every week. I will do 4-5 students each week so that each student will have one set of times per month.
On Tuesdays, I do an echo reading of the text. The daily activity is a fill in the blank vocabulary activity. This activity introduces the vocabulary and helps students feel comfortable using the words.
On Wednesdays students get to do flashlight partner readings! They really love this part. I made cards to differentiate students into two groups: flashlights and fishing poles. The "flashlights" get to read first. They read to their "fishing pole" partner for 1 minute. Then it is the "fishing pole" readers turn to read. They are allowed to help each other with difficult words. This is such fun to watch... they help each other, work together, and are truly partners in this.
The comprehension piece on Wednesdays challenge students to answer questions about the text using the vocabulary words. Each question is carefully written so that students can devise a response using vocabulary words from the text. They must refer back to the text to answer the questions.
On Thursdays another partner reading takes place and students write their own sentences using the vocabulary words.
On Fridays students can silently read the text and are challenged to make a connection in different ways to the text.
Click the pic below to try a free sample of the fluency camp units.
Well... that's my favorite subject! What is your favorite subject?
Love this idea! Especially love the flashlights and fishing poles.
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