PDF 6 Readers and Writers Developing Fluent - Pearson

[Pages:28]6 chapter

Developing Fluent Readers and Writers

Chapter Questions

? Why do children need to learn to read and write high-frequency words? ? What strategies do children learn to use to recognize and spell unfamiliar words? ? How do children become fluent readers? ? How do children become fluent writers? ? Why is fluency important?

Ms. Williams's Students Learn High-Frequency Words

Ms. Williams's second graders are studying hermit crabs and their tide pool environments. A plastic habitat box sits in the center of each grouping of desks, and a hermit crab is living in each box. As the children care for their crustaceans, they observe the crabs. They have examined hermit crabs up close using magnifying glasses and identified the body parts. Ms. Williams helped them draw a diagra m of a hermit crab on a large chart and label the body parts. They have compared hermit crabs to true crabs and examined their exoskeletons. They have also learned how to feed hermit crabs, how to get them to come out of their shells, and h ow they molt. And, they've conducted experiments to determine whether hermit c rabs prefer wet or dry environments.

These second graders use reading and writing as tools for learning. Eric Carle's A House for Hermit Crab (1987) is the featured book for this unit. Ms. Williams has read it aloud to the children several times, and they are rereading it at the listening center. M oving Day (Kaplan, 1996), Pagoo (Holling, 1990), and other stories and informational books, including Hermit Crabs (Pohl, 1987) and Tide Pool (Greenaway, 1992), are available on a special shelf in the classroom library. Ms. Williams has read some of the books aloud, and children listen to others at the listening center or read them independently or with buddies. Children make charts about hermit crabs that they post in the classroom, and they write about hermit crabs in learning logs. One log entry is shown on page 000.

Ms. Williams and her students also write many interesting and important vocabulary words related to hermit crabs that they learn about on a word wall made

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of a sheet of butcher paper. They write these words and add small drawings for some of the words on their word wall:

c o ra l c r u s t a c e a n e n e m i e s e x o s k e l e t o n lantern fish

l a r va l a r va e m o l t i n g p e b b l e s p i n c e r s

r e g e n e ra t i o n s c ave n g e r sea anemone sea urchins s e aw e e d

s h e l l s s h r i m p s n a i l s s t a r f i s h tide pool

Then children refer to these words as they write about hermit crabs, and Ms. Williams uses them for various reading activities. This word wall will be disp l ayed in the classroom only during the unit on hermit crabs.

Ms. Williams integrates many components of reading instruction, including word-recognition and fluency activities, into the unit on hermit crabs. To develop her second graders' ability to recognize many high-frequency words, she uses another word wall. This word wall is different from the hermit crab word wall, wh i ch contains only words related to these ocean animals. Her high-frequency word wall is a brightly colored alphabet quilt with 26 blocks, one for each letter of the alphabet. The most common words are written on small cards and disp l ayed permanently on one wall of the classroom.

At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Williams and her students posted the 70 high-frequency words on the word wall that they were familiar with from first g rade. Then each week, Ms. Williams adds 3 to 5 new words. At first, the words she chose were from her list of the 100 highest-frequency words, and after finishing that list, she has begun choosing words from a list of the second 100 highfrequency words. She doesn't introduce the words in the order that they are presented in the list, but rather chooses words from the list that she can connect to units and words that students misspell in their writing.

This week, Ms. Williams has chosen soon, house, your, and you're to add to the word wall. She chose soon and house because these words are used in A House for Hermit Crab and because several children have recently asked her how to spell house. She chose the homophones your and you're because children are

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A Second Grader's Science Log Entry

confusing and misspelling them. She also has noticed that some students are confused about contractions, and she plans to review contractions using you're as an example.

Ms. Williams has the children sit on the floor near the word wall to introduce the words and post them on the word wall. She uses a cookie sheet and large magnetic letters to introduce each new word. She explains that two of the new words-- house and soon--are from A House for Hermit Crab. She scrambles the letters at the bottom of the cookie sheet and slowly builds the new word at the top of the sheet as students guess the word. She begins with h, adds the ou, and several children call out "house." Ms. Williams continues adding letters, and when they are all in place, a chorus of voices says, "house." Then Kari places the new word card in the H square of the word wall, and students chant and clap as they say the word and spell it. Ms. Williams begins, "House, house, h-o-u-s-e," and students echo her chant. Then she calls on Enrique to begin the chant, and students echo him. Then Ms. Williams repeats the procedure with the three remaining words.

The next day, Ms. Williams and her second graders use interactive writing to compose sentences using each of the new words. They write:

The hermit crab has a good shell for a house. He likes it but soon he will move. "You're too small for me," he says. "I have to move, but I will always be your friend."

Children take turns writing these sentences on a chart, and after rereading them, they underline the four new words. Each week, the children write sentences using the new word wall words on this chart. Ms. Williams and the children often reread the sentences they've written during previous weeks.

The next day, after the children practice the word wall words, Ms.Williams takes a few minutes to review contractions so that they understand that you're is a contraction of you and are and that the apostrophe indicates that a letter has been omitted. Then children volunteer other contractions. Michael identifies

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three: I'm, can't, and don't. The children use intera c t ive writing to make a chart of contractions, listing the contractions and the two words that make up each one. Ms. Williams tells them that she'll put the chart in the word work center and that they can use the information to make books about contractions.

After this practice with high-frequency words, children participate in activ ities at literacy centers while Ms. Williams meets with guided reading groups. Most of the center activities relate to the unit on hermit crabs and to Eric Carle's book A House for Hermit Crab, but children also practice reading and writing highfrequency words at two of the centers. The eight literacy centers in Ms. Williams's classroom are described on page 000.

Each morning, a sixth-grade student aide comes to the classroom to monitor the children's work at the centers and provide assistance as needed. Ms. Williams worked with two sixth-grade teachers to train 10 students to serve as student aides, and these students come to the classroom once every week or two on a rotating basis.

The second graders keep tra ck of their work in centers in small booklets with eight sheets of paper that Ms. Williams calls their "center passports." The student aide marks their passports with stickers or stamps at each center after the children finish the assignment, and they leave their written work in a basket at the center.

As a culminating activity, Ms. Williams and her second graders write a retelling of A House for Hermit Cra b. The children compose the text, and Ms. Williams uses the Language Experience Approach to write their rough draft on chart paper so that eve r yone can see it. Children learn revision strategies as they fine-tune their retelling, and then Ms. Williams types the text on five sheets of paper, makes copies, and compiles a booklet for each child. Children each receive a copy of the booklet to read. They also add illustrations. Later, they will take their booklets home to read to their families.

Ms. Williams reads their retelling aloud as children follow along, and then they join in the reading. Children do choral reading as they read in small groups, with classmates sitting at the same grouping of desks. Numbers on the left side indicate wh i ch group of students reads each sentence. As children read and reread the text aloud, they become increasingly fluent readers. Here is the last section of the class's retelling:

1

Soon it was January.

2

Hermit Crab moved out of his house and the little crab moved in.

3

"Goodbye," said Hermit Crab. "Be good to my friends."

4

Soon Hermit Crab saw the perfect house.

5

It was a big, empty shell.

1

It looked a little plain but Hermit Crab didn't care.

2

He will decorate it

3

with sea urchins,

4

with sea anemones,

5

with coral,

1

with starfish,

2

with snails.

ALL So many possibilities!

The words printed in red are high-frequency words that are posted on the word wall in Ms. Williams's classroom. Of the 68 words in this excerpt, 37 are highfrequencywords! Also, two of the new words for this week, soon and house, are used twice.

Chapter 6 Developing Fluent Readers and Writers

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Ms. Williams's Literacy Centers

Visit Chapter 6 on the Companion Website at tompkins to look into the chapter questions, standards and principles, and pertinent web links associated with developing fluent readers and writers.

A s children learn to read, they move from word-by-word reading with little or no expression to fluent reading. Fluency is the ability to read quickly and accurately and with expression. To read fluently, children must be able to recognize many, many words automatically. By third grade, most children have moved from word-by-word reading into fluent reading, but 10?15% have difficulty learning to recognize words, and their learning to read is slowed (Allington, 1998). Fluency is an important component of reading instruction, especially in the primary grades, because fluent readers are more successful than less fluent readers (National Reading Panel, 2000). The difference is that fluent readers have more cognitive resources available for comprehension. The feature on page 000 shows the role of fluency in a balanced literacy program.

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How Fluency Fits Into a Balanced Literacy Program

Component

R e a d i n g

Description

Children need to become fluent readers by third grade; that is; they need to be able to recognize words automatically and to read quickly and with expression.

Phonics and Other Skills

Phonics is an important word-identification strategy because most words can be at least partly sounded out.

Strategies

Children learn to use four word-identification strategies--phonic analysis, analogies, syllabic analysis and morphemic analysis.

Vocabulary

Children learn to read high-frequency words and use word-identification strategies to identify unfamiliar vocabulary.

Comprehension

Fluent readers are better able to comprehend what they read because they can identify words easily

Literature

As children read stories, their focus should be on comprehending and responding, but that is possible only when they are fluent readers.

Content-Area Study

As children read informational books, their focus should be on remembering big ideas and making connections, but that is possible only when they are fluent readers.

Oral Language

Talking and listening are not important components of fluency.

Writing

Children become fluent writers so that they can express ideas quickly and easily.

S p e l l i n g

Children learn to spell high-frequency words and use word-identification strategies to spell other words.

Teacher Prep The Teacher Prep website will help you become a better teacher by linking you to classroom videos, student artifacts, teaching strategies, lesson plans, relevant Education Leadership articles, and practical information on licensing, creating a portfolio, implementing standards, and being successful in field experiences. Visit this resource at prenhall. com/teacherprep.

Children become fluent readers through a combination of instruction and lots of reading experience. Through systematic phonics instruction, children learn how to identify unfamiliar words; as they read and reread hundreds of books during the primary grades, these words become familiar and students learn to recognize them automatically. They also learn increasingly sophisticated strategies for identifying the unfamiliar words, including syllabic and morphemic analysis, in which they break words into syllables and into root words and affixes.

At the same time children are becoming fluent readers, they are also becoming fluent writers. Through phonics instruction and lots of writing practice, children learn to spell many words automatically, apply capitalization and punctuation rules, and develop writing speed. They also develop strategies for spelling longer, multisyllabic words. Developing fluency is just as important for writers because both readers and writers must be able to focus on meaning, not on identifying and spelling words.

Chapter 6 Developing Fluent Readers and Writers

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TEACHING CHILDREN TO READ AND WRITE WORDS

Teachers have two goals as they teach children to read and write words. The first is to teach children to instantly recognize a group of several hundred high-frequency words. They need to be able to read and write these words automatically, which they usually accomplish by second or third grade. The second is to equip children with strategies, such as syllabic analysis, that they can use to identify unfamiliar words--often longer words they come across during reading and need to spell during writing.

Word Recognition

Children need to develop a large stock of words that they recognize instantly and automatically because it is impossible for them to analyze every word they encounter when reading or want to spell when writing. These recognizable words are called sight words. Through repeated reading and writing experiences, children develop automaticity, the ability to quickly and accurately recognize words they read and to spell words they are writing (LaBerge & Samuels, 1976). The vital element in word recognition is learning each word's unique letter sequence. This knowledge about the sequence of letters is useful as children learn to spell. At the same time they are becoming fluent readers, children are also becoming fluent writers. They are learning to spell the words they write most often. Hitchcock (1989) found that by third grade, most children spell 90% of the words they use correctly.

High-Frequency Words. The most common words that readers and writers use again and again are high-frequency words. There have been numerous attempts to identify specific lists of these words and calculate their frequency in reading materials. Pinnell and Fountas (1998, p. 89) identified these 24 common words that kindergartners need to learn to recognize:

a

at

he

it

no

the

am

can

I

like

see

to

an

do

in

me

she

up

and

go

is

my

so

we

The 24 words are part of the 100 most commonly used words, and these 100 words account for more than half of the words children read and write. Children learn the rest of these 100 words in first grade. Eldredge (2005) has identified the 300 highest-frequency words used in first-grade basal readers and trade books found in first-grade classrooms; these 300 words account for 72% of the words that beginning readers read. Figure 6?1 presents Eldredge's list of 300 high-frequency words; the 100 most commonly used words are marked with an asterisk. (For a list of the 100 most commonly used words, turn to Chapter 5, "Learning to Spell." Children learn to both read and write these words during the primary grades.)

It is essential that children learn to read and write high-frequency words, but many of these words are difficult to learn because they cannot be easily decoded (Cunningham, 2005). Try sounding out to, what, and could and you will see why they are called "sight" words. Because these words can't be decoded easily, it is crucial that children learn to recognize them instantly and automatically. A further complication is that many of these words are function words in sentences and thus don't carry much meaning. Children find it much easier to learn to recognize whale than what because whale conjures up the image of the aquatic mammal, whereas what is abstract. However, what is used much more frequently, and children need to learn to recognize it.

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Figure 6?1 The 300 High-Frequency Words

From Teach Decoding: How and Why (2nd ed., pp. 119?120), by J. L. Eldredge, ? 2005. Adapted by permission of Prentice Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. *The first 100 most frequently used words, as shown in Figure 5-5 on p. 000.

Chapter 6 Developing Fluent Readers and Writers

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