Fluency Reading Plan



Running head: FLUENCY READING PLAN

Fluency Reading Plan

Corey L. Davis

Grand Canyon University

EED 525 - Curriculum, Assessment and Methods: Literacy

February 23, 2011

Fluency Reading Plan

Introduction

This author chose to develop his 5-day unit of study around a text written by Stephen Krensky entitled Dangerous Crossing: The Revolutionary Voyage of John Quincy Adams. This author was introduced to the story by a local teacher during a practicum visit. The text is classified as a historical fiction piece. Dangerous Crossing revolves around the time of the American Revolution. Future United States President, John Adams is sent on a secret mission to France to ask for help in fighting the English. John takes his son, John Quincy Adams (also future President of the United States) with him on his journey. John Q. is only ten at the time of the story. The story is told by him in the third person. While the story is fiction, it does contain actual journal entries from John Adams’ personal diaries during this same time. The story stresses the many sacrifices and dangers that our forefather’s endured to help defeat England and build this great nation. Through the careful research of the Krensky text and the study of fluency reading plans, this author attempted to create a 5-day mini unit of study for a fifth grade class.

Overview

The unit of study begins on a Monday with the focus on oral communication and vocabulary words. The text is to be read out loud during class, with each student taking turns reading. The teacher will periodically pause to reflect on the author’s word choice with assigned vocabulary words. When the students finish reading the text, the teacher will use story specific vocabulary cards to go over ten assigned vocab words that appear in the story. The cards contain the word, definition, picture, and sentence that it was used in. After the vocab words are discussed as a class, the students begin work (individually) on a vocabulary worksheet.

Tuesday’s lesson revolves around word patterns and word analysis. The teacher will lead a class discussion on why and how each vocab word was used in the story; why and how the students could use the same word in another sentence; and why and how the students might replace the word with a different, but similar word. The students will then work in groups to rewrite the story. The teacher will hand out assigned pages of the text with vocab words and specific sentences highlighted. The students will be required to replace the vocab words with other similar words and rewrite the selected sentences completely, while still keeping the story’s theme alive and relevant.

Wednesday’s lesson centers on reading fluency. Students will be taught the importance of sounding out difficult words and to correct themselves when they mispronounce something. The students are to read their re-written story as a class. After the class reads the re-written story, students splint into tiny groups of two. The reading partners will be given smaller American Revolution themed texts to read out loud to each other. The partners will help each other sound out difficult words and correct each other’s mispronunciations.

Thursday’s lesson plan focuses on reading comprehension. Students will read the text as a class one final time. This time the teacher will pause from time to time to discuss cause and effect. The teacher will also stress the importance of visualization and how being able to visualize the text during reading increases comprehension significantly. After the students finish the text again, they will be asked to individually complete a worksheet containing text specific visualization and cause and effect questions.

The unit of study concludes with Friday’s lesson on writing. The teacher will revisit all of the major lessons discussed over the week, as well as the text itself. The student’s will then be asked to complete and essay assignment that requires them answer the following question: “Write a five paragraph paper on why or why not someone should read Dangerous Crossing: The Revolutionary Voyage of John Quincy Adams.” Students will be required to use at least five of the week’s vocabulary words in their papers, explain what they view as the most important cause and effect moment of the story, and illustrate one color picture visualization using a quote from the text. The final assignment will be intensive, but students will be given ample in-class time to complete the assignment.

Conclusion

This author thoroughly enjoyed reading Krensky’s Dangerous Crossing: The Revolutionary Voyage of John Quincy Adams. Not only was the text interesting and inspiring; but it was also fun to build an entire five day unit of study around. The lesson plans created by this author were insightful, helped to increase student reading fluency, included different reading and writing activities, and utilized various types of assessments. This author’s unit of study did focus on oral language and vocabulary, word patters and word analysis, fluency, comprehension, and writing. As Tompkins states, this author’s lesson plans will help fifth grade students, “become fluent readers through a combination of instruction and lots of reading experience.” (Tompkins, 2010, p. 188). Through the careful research of the Krensky text and the study of fluency reading plans, this author successfully created a 5-day mini unit of study for a fifth grade class.

References

Krensky, S. (2004). Dangerous Crossing: The Revolutionary Voyage of John Quincy Adams. (Teacher’s ed.). Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach (5th ed.). New York, NY: Allyn & Bacon.

Wyoming Department of Education, (November 19, 2008). Wyoming Language Arts Content and Performance Standards. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from .

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