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Hopping into Fluency with Frog and Toad

Growing Independence and Fluency

Karley Franklin

Rationale: In order to gain the ability to comprehend while reading, students must learn to read fluently. Students should focus on reading smoother, faster, and with more emotion when working on increasing fluency. While decoding is an important part of the reading process, it is a slow and arduous process. Students can use the fluency instruction they have learned to help transfer new words into automatically recognizable words known as sight words. Repeated readings can be utilized to help students move from slow decoding to effortless automatic reading. In this lesson the teacher will instruct children on using strategies of repeated reading, crosschecking for the meaning of the missed word, and documenting progress during paired partner reading. All of these strategies will help the building of sight words as well as give them the tools to progress towards fluency and comprehension.

 

Materials:

  • White board

  • Dry erase markers

  • Stop watches (one for each pair of students)

  • Frog and Toad are Friends (one book for every student)

  • Partner Reading Check Sheet (one for every person)

  • Reader Response Forms (one for every person)

  • Overhead if preferred

 

Procedures:

1.) Say to class, “Okay everyone today we are going to learn how to read with more fluency. This means to read effortlessly and automatically. If we can learn to read with fluency then we to not have to stop and take time to decode every word we come across. We can also understand what we are reading and comprehend the meaning of the story and be able to enjoy it more.”

2.)Say to class, “ Okay now we are going to practice decoding a word using our cover-up critter. (Write the word cat on the dry erase board). Remember when we are trying to decode a word we always find the vowel first. So we are going to find our vowel and then cover up the other parts of the word. Okay so we are going to cover up the c and the t. The vowel we have in the middle is /a/. Now I am going to uncover the first part of the word and the letter is c. So far I have /c/ /a/, that says /ca/. Now lets add the ending letter t. When we out them together we get /ca/ /t/, cat. We always must remember that we use the vowel first, then the beginning, and lastly we use the end to figure out a word.

3.)Say to class, “ I am now going to read a short passage aloud two times and after I read them to you I want you to tell me which one sounds the best. Okay lets get started.

  • Frog ran up the pat-h, pa-th, path to Toad’s h-ow-se, how-se (Frog ran up to Toad’s how-se? No, that can’t be right. Frog ran up to Toad’s house). He k-nok-ed on the door. (He k-nok-ed on the door? No, he knocked on the door. There was no an-sw-er, answ-er, ohhhh there was no answer!

  • Now I am going to read this passage again. Frog ran up the path to Toad’s house. He knocked on the door. There was no answer.

Now I want everyone to raise your hand if the first time I read the passage sounded the best. Okay good. Now I want you to raise your hand if the second time I read the passage was better, Great! Ya’ll are right! I sounded better the second time because I read faster and didn’t have to stop to and try and decode words. I already knew the words.”

  • Say to class, “ During the first reading I used a self- help strategy called crosschecking that we have learned. Remember crosschecking is when we don’t know a word and try to figure it out. Just like when I came across the word path I didn’t know what the word was so I tried my best to decode it and when that didn’t work I finished the sentence and then reread the whole sentence to make sense of the word. I would then go back and make mental notes about any silent letters or odd pronunciations. By mentally marking these words I will know how to read them more quickly and more effortlessly next time I see them.

  • Say to class, “ Now we are going to read the next line together. (Have the book pulled up on the over head for class to read together OR let them look at their books individually to read) (Choral Reading) “Toad, Toad, shouted Frog, Wake up. It’s spring!” I heard a few of you had trouble when we got to the word shouted but you kept reading and then figured out that the word is shouted. That very good crosschecking! Now lets read that part again without mistakes. (Repeated choral reading of corrected text) Great job guys!

  • Say to class, “ Okay so now let me tell ya’ll a little bit about the book we will be reading. It is about two friends named Frog and Toad. Frog woke up one morning from his long winter nap and is very happy because it is spring time. He is so excited that he goes to his friend Toad’s house to wake him up from his winter nap too. When Frog gets there he can’t get his friend, Toad out of bed because he is too sleepy. I wonder what Frog will have to do in order to get Toad out of the bed and outside with him to play. We will have to read to find out!

  • (Display these instructions on the overhead and read and go over them with the students) (Pair students up appropriately)

1.) One partner needs to be counting all of the words in the first chapter of the book write this number at the top of both of the check sheets when your partner returns

One partner needs to come up and get the following:

  • 2 Partner Reading Progress Check Sheets

  • 2 Reader Response Forms

  • 1 stop watch

2.) One partner will read the chapter while the other one marks on the checklist (remembered more words, read faster, read smoother, read with expression). You must also mark with tallies how many words the other partner is getting incorrectly.

3.) Then partners will switch back and forth until both partners have had 2 timed readings and 2 checklists completed. Model this for students to make sure they completely understand the task at hand. This way each student can compare their progress with their individual results.

Assessment:

 

  • Next we must do a subtraction problem:  the total number of words minus the number of words that they got incorrect (the number of tallies that you marked) that goes in the blank “ _____words in _____ seconds”

Reading Progress Checklist

Total number of words in chapter____________

 Reader__________________________________________________

 Checker_________________________________________________

 1._________ Words in ____________ Seconds

 2._________ Words in ____________ Seconds

 3._________ Words in ____________ Seconds

 Which turn sounded the smoothest?_____________

 Which turn had the least number of errors?________________

 4.) After you have recorded the progress answer the questions at the bottom of the page about smoothness and errors.

5.) Once you are both done reading and filling out the worksheets discuss what you have read.

6.) After discussing please go back to your desk and complete the question worksheet

  • Where was Frog going?

  • Why wouldn’t Toad get up?

  • Did Frog ever get Toad out of bed? 

7.) Once you are done I need you put your papers in the tray and wait patiently for me to call you up to my desk to calculate your progress.

References:

Lobel, Arnold. (1970). Frog and Toad Are Friends. New York: Harper Collins.

Aubrey Etheredge, The Reading Maze http://www.auburn.edu/~ale0007/EtheredgeGF.htm 

Checklists provided by Dr. Bruce in class (sorry I tried to find this on the reading Genie but couldn’t find it anywhere).

 

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