5 Quick Reading Fluency Lessons You Can Teach in 5 Minutes or Less [episode 118]

Emily  0:37

Hey there, thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we’re sharing five quick and engaging fluency lessons that you can teach on the fly.

Heidi  0:46

We start our episodes with a morning message just like we used to do a morning meeting in our classrooms. This week’s morning message is if you could have a fictional character as a student who would it be? Emily who would be your favorite fictional student?

Emily  1:00

I’d probably pick Rory Gilmore.

Heidi  1:03

That’s a good one.

Emily  1:03

She would be so easy to have in class. Plus, she’s like, always on top of her assignments and on time and prepared, except if she gets hit by a deer on the way to school. But that is not really her fault. We can’t hold that over her.

Heidi  1:16

Happens to the best of us.

Emily  1:18

Who would you want as a student?

Heidi  1:21

I’m gonna go with Hermione. I am a holding out hope that maybe she could create a spell that would do all my grading for me.K eep all the whiteboard markers from drying out, you know, like she could do a lot.

Emily  1:36

We finally finished book five and we started the movie last night. So excited. We had some fun responses from our community. Jeff said, Matilda, she can help students who need behavioral support. She does have some unique skills that would be helpful to have around as long as she liked you; didn’t use them against the teacher.

Emily  1:58

Abby said, any of the boxcar kids or all of them. They are such well behaved, polite and clever kids. Or maybe Kirsten from American Girl. She was my favorite and I love her family tradition. And we had a couple responses for characters we weren’t familiar with. Jennifer said Mo LoBeau from Three Times Lucky, sassy, smart and kind.

Heidi  2:21

I don’t know that but I love the name. That’s fun to say.

Emily  2:23

And Sara said Sydney Sage from Bloodlines by Richellle Mead. She’s the definition of teacher’s pet.

Heidi  2:29

I did look that one up. She’s works at a vampire school, I think.

Emily  2:32

Oh, I’m very excited. Well, we’d love to have you join the conversation over in our teacher approved Facebook group.

Emily  2:39

Well we have been deep diving into all things fluency around here.

Heidi  2:44

Yeah, back in episode 113, we talked about what reading fluency is and why it matters.

Emily  2:50

Then in Episode 116, we shared the top five most frequent fluency mistakes and what teachers can do instead.

Heidi  2:58

And last week in Episode 117, we gave suggestions for what teachers can do to help students whose reading progress seems to have maybe hit that mid year slump.

Emily  3:08

Make sure to go back and check out those episodes if you need some support and how to boost your student’s reading fluency.

Heidi  3:15

Today, we are wrapping up this discussion on fluency by sharing five easy ways you can teach your students to read more accurately and more smoothly.

Emily  3:24

These are just five types of lessons that we like to use with students. But this is by no means a comprehensive list of all the ways to teach fluency. There are lots of fun suggestions online and in books.

Heidi  3:36

But the key to making sure that your fluency practice is effective, and not just a time filler is to make sure whatever activity you choose is actually worth doing. The reading fluency guru Tim Brzezinski, we love him so much says that there are five elements to a quality fluency activity. They are one make use of quality texts, two make use of oral reading. Three, offer opportunities for feedback, four require repetition and five be engaging.

Emily  4:09

The first element of a quality fluency activity is that it uses quality texts. So tell us more about that, Heidi?

Heidi  4:15

Well for fluency activities, we want to be sure we are choosing texts that have a strong voice and are meant to be read aloud. Poetry is perfect for this. But we also really love using a reader’s theater for fluency practice.

Emily  4:29

And of course, narrative passages are great for fluency practice, too, as long as they’re actually interesting to read.

Heidi  4:36

Some of those are real dry.

Heidi  4:38

The second element is that quality fluency practice should be done out loud. That component is important because it enables students to hear what good reading sounds like. And bonus, oral reading practice also builds silent reading skills.

Emily  4:54

Oh, it’s always a win when practice in one area boosts performance in another area.

Heidi  4:59

Yeah, there’s not enough of those in teaching.

Heidi  5:00

The next characteristic of a quality fluency activity is that it includes opportunities for feedback. Students should have the chance to reflect on their own fluent reading, and how their fluency skills are progressing.

Emily  5:16

And they should also receive feedback from a teacher or other adult frequently. As part of our feedback, we want to help our readers notice what they’re doing well, and point out areas where they can improve.

Heidi  5:28

As we like to say, students can’t hit an invisible target. When we make the effort to point out their strengths and help them recognize opportunities for growth, they are more likely to keep doing what they’re doing well, and to make progress in the areas where they need to grow.

Emily  5:44

Another hallmark of worthwhile fluency practice is that it includes repetition. Now, we’re not repeating our practice with the goal of increasing reading rate. Though practicing the skills of fluent reading, like phrasing and expression usually does increase rate.

Heidi  6:00

But instead of focusing on increasing rate, the aim of repeated reading should be to provide practice with expression.

Emily  6:08

We want students to read with expression that reflects the texts meaning. This is a good measure of their comprehension. If they can read with appropriate expression, they’re showing that they understand the meaning behind the words.

Heidi  6:21

And their last element of worthwhile fluency activity is that it’s engaging. Nobody wants to repeatedly reread a low quality, lifeless text. But students are automatically engaged when they get to play with rhythmic texts like poems and songs and chants.

Emily  6:37

Plus rhythmic texts, invite playfulness. Kids practicing with these kinds of texts are naturally going to add liveliness to their reading. Now,

Heidi  6:46

Now this might seem like a tall order to fill.

Emily  6:49

But the good news is that quality fluency lessons are easy to find, and don’t need to take long two to three minute fluency mini lessons are perfect.

Heidi  6:58

Since they are so short though the key to making fluency mini lessons effective is to do them frequently. A three minute mini lesson once a week is really not going to have much of an impact. Ideally, fluency practice is something that you do every day or almost every day.

Emily  7:15

It’s surprising how frequent brief lessons go such a long way in developing fluent readers.

Heidi  7:21

And to help you plan your own fluency practice. We have five quality mini lesson ideas that you can keep in your back pocket for anytime you need to do a quick fluency lesson on the fly.

Emily  7:33

All of these lessons are designed to target the key skills needed for fluent reading: accuracy, phrasing, expression, and also adequate rate.

Heidi  7:43

When those skills work together, students are able to read the text with automaticity.

Emily  7:51

That’s one of my favorite teacher words. Automaticity is the fast effortless word recognition that comes with a great deal of reading practice.

Heidi  8:00

Now even as a proficient reader, I can’t pull up a highly technical document and make it sound like I know what I’m talking about. Unless I have a lot of time to practice it first.

Emily  8:11

Have you seen lessons in chemistry yet?

Heidi  8:12

I started it but I’m not very far.

Emily  8:14

I would not be able to read a paper out loud about a biogenesis without lots of practice.

Heidi  8:21

Yeah, Elizabeth, we very disappointed in you. And it’s the same for our students, she might be disappointed in them. Our students can’t read fluently unless they can effortlessly read most of the words on the page. So we need to make sure that students have lots of opportunities to add words to the sight word banks, the more words students can recognize automatically, the more fluent their reading will be.

Emily  8:46

One way we like to help students recognize words automatically is using sight word phrases in an activity we call fantastic phrases.

Heidi  8:55

For this activity, all you need to do is post a phrase that your students can read easy peasy. And any phrase will do that this is a great opportunity to work in extra practice with grade level high frequency words, or content area vocabulary.

Emily  9:10

If you’re studying weather you might use a phrase like precipitation is falling, or you can keep it simple with a phrase like on the bus.

Heidi  9:18

Have students practice reading the phrase smoothly, we don’t want any pauses. We don’t want any word by word reading. You know that choppy on the bus none of that. And then repeat the activity with any additional phrases you want students to practice.

Emily  9:32

And you don’t need to do 100 of these at one time, five to 15 depending on how much time you have is plenty.

Heidi  9:41

You can also let students suggest their own phrases for the class to try. You might want to vet those first. And this can help students learn to recognize the difference between a phrase and a complete sentence which is so hard.

Emily  9:52

Yeah, that’s a handy skill for them to finally master. And now on to our second fluency mini lesson Emphatically Speaking.

Heidi  10:01

Fluent speakers change the meaning of what they’re saying based on the words they choose to emphasize.

Emily  10:07

And fluent reading, did you notice my emphasis there requires the same skill, so it’s important to teach students how to use their voices as tools.

Heidi  10:18

In this activity, students are given a sentence. Again, you can use any sentence or work in some of that content area vocabulary you always needed to more practice with. Have your students practice the sentence until they can read it smoothly. But don’t worry too much about expression at this point.

Emily  10:35

Let’s use this sentence as an example. It’s been a century since this meeting started.

Heidi  10:41

Once the class can read it smoothly, choose one of the words to emphasize, have students read the sentence again, this time focusing on expression by emphasizing this selected word.

Emily  10:52

We want our readers to understand why this is important. So take a minute to discuss how the emphasis changes the meaning of the sentence.

Heidi  11:00

And then you can continue this activity keep the same sentence, but maybe this time, select another word to emphasize. How has the meaning shifted by emphasizing this new word?

Emily  11:10

It’s been a century since this meeting started, or it’s been a century since of this meeting started. Those sentences have the same words but convey slightly different meanings based on the emphasis. When we emphasize century we’re focusing on how long we’ve been sitting there. When we emphasize this, we’re comparing it to meetings we’ve had in the past that have not gone as long.

Heidi  11:33

It’s really subtle, and maybe a little tricky. But it’s important to recognize the difference in meaning that happens when we emphasize different words.

Emily  11:42

And you can see why kids need practice with this skill.

Heidi  11:46

So as you’re doing this as a mini lesson, you can keep practicing with the same sentence until the words that are left maybe don’t affect the meaning if you emphasize them. Or you can change up the sentence and keep going with a fresh group of words.

Emily  11:58

It’s fun to choose a sentence that’s a bit of an accusation like, you weren’t asked to go to the store, or I didn’t tell Mom, you broke that lamp. Adding emphasis to sentences like that really amps up the drama.

Heidi  12:13

I didn’t tell Mom you broke that lamp.

Emily  12:15

I didn’t tell Mom, you broke that lamp.

Heidi  12:20

And an aspect of fluency that we haven’t really talked too much about so far is tone.

Emily  12:24

Yes, it’s important for students to recognize that meaning isn’t just in the words we say but also how we say them.

Heidi  12:31

When reading it can be a challenge to understand a character’s tone, since we aren’t hearing them speak. But luckily for us writers often include clues in the dialogue tags.

Emily  12:43

Dialogue tags are the little additions before or after a quote like he whispered, or Kate bagged. These tags tell the reader a lot about the character’s feelings, but students often ignore them.

Heidi  12:56

So to solve that problem, and help students learn to pick up on the information in the dialog, we have a fun activity called Watch your tone.

Emily  13:03

To do this activity with your class begin with some dialogue that is tagged simply as said, for example, Kylie said why do I have to be up this early?

Heidi  13:12

Then I have your students practice reading it smoothly. Again, we’re not going to focus on expression too much at this point.

Emily  13:19

Once you’re happy with your students reading of the sentence, swap out said for another way of speaking such as puzzled, have students practice reading the sentence in a puzzled voice. Kylie puzzled. Why do I have to be up this early?

Heidi  13:34

This is the time to focus on expression. How does that clue about Kylie puzzling give you clues about how your voice should sound?

Emily  13:41

Now try the same dialogue another way. Kylie yawned, Why do I have to be up this early? Did that change the meeting? What might be going on with Kylie?

Heidi  13:53

Talk with your class about how Kylie is saying the same words, but they can have a different meaning each time. Help students see that we can guess at Kylie’s feelings by paying attention to those little dialogue tags.

Emily  14:06

And if you have enough time, you can let students generate their own ways of speaking the sentence. You could separate the class into small groups or partners and let them come up with their own dramatic dialogue tag to perform for the class.

Heidi  14:20

So far, the activities we’ve shared have students practicing fluency at the sentence level, but we also want to extend their skills to longer texts.

Emily  14:30

Choral reading is a wonderful way to boost community in your classroom and it’s a great way to build fluency skills as well.

Heidi  14:37

Poetry is our favorite choice for choral reading. We love using poetry to practice fluency because poems are engaging. And also you can find really concise poems don’t go for the super long way. Yeah. Poetry is just a really easy component to add to your classroom routine.

Emily  14:55

Plus poems can be a lot of fun. Kids are naturally drawn to poems with lots of rhythm and rhyme. Didn’t we all grew up loving Shel Silverstein?

Heidi  15:03

I checked those out of the library like every week. Yep. When we introduce a poem we like to begin with a model of fluent reading. Depending on the poem you choose, you may be able to find a recording or a video of it, or if not, your voice is always a handy model for fluency.

Emily  15:18

After the students have listened to the poem, take a minute to discuss what’s going on in the poem and point out any unfamiliar words.

Heidi  15:26

And then you can chorally read the poem as a group. This is an important step because it provides a lot of necessary support for your not yet fluent readers.

Emily  15:35

After that, you can have your class perform it. The easiest way to do this is to divide the class in half and have groups alternate lines. You’ll want to practice until they can read it fluently and then switch lines and practice again.

Heidi  15:49

If time permits, you can break your whole class into smaller groups, and maybe even provide some students we’re solo lines.

Emily  15:55

Oh, let those future actors and comedians have their moment to shine.

Heidi  16:01

And speaking of comedians, that’s convenient. That brings us to our fifth fluency lesson. Find the funny.

Emily  16:08

One of our fluency secret weapons is using jokes. You may not have realized it but humor depends on phrasing and expression. So jokes and tongue twisters and riddles are the perfect way to practice fluency.

Heidi  16:22

To make jokes a teaching tool, make sure to discuss how to tell a joke. Are there words that should be emphasized to highlight a pun? Do students know how to pause before the punch line?

Emily  16:34

To increase the fluency practice you may want students to develop a list of possible responses for what to say when you’re the listener to the jokes such as I have no idea or tell me. This back and forth happens naturally in conversation but doesn’t always come naturally to youngsters

Heidi  16:52

Okay, Em, let’s give this a try. What’s a frog’s favorite drink?

Emily  16:57

I have no idea.

Heidi  16:59

Croak-a- Cola.

Emily  17:03

It’s definitely silly, but it’s also meaningful fluency practice. The joke teller should emphasize frog in the joke setup, and croak in the punch line. That helps the listener make the connection between the two ideas and adds to the humor.

Heidi  17:17

Kids don’t automatically understand how to tell jokes, which you know, all too well. If you’ve ever had a five year old trying to tell you a knock knock joke. Them just trying to tell you the joke is the funny part. So using the novelty of a joke to practice fluency skills like emphasis and tone will carry over into longer texts.

Emily  17:35

And they will be delighted to get to go home with new jokes that they’re good at telling. We promise this will inevitably end up high on the list of your students favorite fluency lessons.

Heidi  17:45

So let’s recap those five types of quick fluency lessons that you can teach on the fly. We have fantastic phrases where students practice smoothly reading short phrases. Emphatically speaking, where students emphasize different words in a sentence to see how their voice and meaning change.

Heidi  18:04

We have watch your tone which highlights the importance of dialogue tag and conveying meaning. Choral reading helps students build fluency skills with the repeated reading of a poem or a longer text. And of course, everyone’s favorite find the funny, which uses jokes, riddles, and tongue twisters to build fluency skills like phrasing and expression.

Emily  18:23

If these lessons sound like the sort of thing that would benefit your students, but you don’t want to have to plan one more lesson, we have good news for you. We have already put these together into daily mini lessons for students in grades first through fourth. We

Heidi  18:38

We assigned each day of the week its own type of mini lesson and created PowerPoint activities for each day. That means an effective fluency mini lesson for each day of school is already planned and prepped for you.

Emily  18:50

All you need is a computer access to a PowerPoint or Vimeo and a projector or smartboard.

Heidi  18:57

In just a few minutes a day your students fluency skills will soar. And you won’t have to spend a single moment planning the lesson.

Emily  19:04

Nope, all you have to do is open and click. And we are not exaggerating when we say that these lessons are a ton of fun. Superheroes fly in with punctuation, and pirate ships launch cannonballs of dialogue.

Heidi  19:17

And is exciting as the daily fluency and flash lessons are. The seasonal ones are over the top incredible. Our designer really outdid herself and she packed in so much detail and so many fun surprises that like I will sometimes just go through them by myself without any kids.

Emily  19:36

I know I know it’s so much fun. You definitely don’t want to miss out on these and we will link to fluency ina  flash in the show notes.

Heidi  19:45

So this brings us to the end of our fluency deep dive.

Emily  19:48

For now.

Heidi  19:50

We will always come back to fluency. We’d love to hear how you practice reading fluency with your students over in the teacher pro Facebook group.

Heidi  19:58

Now let’s talk about this week’s teacher approved tip. Each week we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week’s teacher approved tip is decide once when you will practice fluency each day. Can you tell us more about this, Emily?

Emily  20:14

Anytime I’m trying to implement a new habit, the biggest key to success is to decide once, when I’m going to do that habit. It’s even better if I can attach that habit to something else I already do. For example, I could decide that after I brush my teeth in the morning, I’m going to clean my bathroom countertops, then brushing my teeth will become a trigger for that action that I’m trying to get in the habit of doing.

Heidi  20:38

Yeah, pairing things is always a good strategy for me. Yeah. And it’s like habit stacking. Yeah. I’m always forgetting to take my vitamins. So I finally got smart and made sure to set them near where I eat lunch. That way, when I sit down to eat, they’re right there, I don’t have to go find them. And I’m reminded right away that I need to take them.

Emily  20:55

Well this same technique works in your classroom. If you have something you want to incorporate into your daily teaching routines, decide in advance when you’re going to do it. If you think, Oh, I only need a few minutes. So I’ll just see where I can find a few minutes today, then you are far more likely to get busy and forget to do it all together.

Heidi  21:14

Oh, yeah, that’s kind of my life.

Emily  21:17

So decide when in your day, you’re going to do these lessons every day or as many days as you can, let’s be realistic. And then see if you can tie that to another event that already happens every day. Maybe you’re going to do the lesson right after the kids come in for morning recess. Or maybe you’re going to do it right after the kids wash their hands for lunch. Those actions can serve as your daily reminder to do your fluency mini lesson.

Heidi  21:44

One great thing about fluency lessons, the ones we shared here are the ones in our fluency and a flash resource is that they are so easy to stretch or shrink depending on how much time you have available that day.

Emily  21:56

Plus, we’ve heard from many teachers that your students will remind you if you forget to do our fluency lessons because they just so much fun. So even better, somebody else will help keep you on track with your new habits.

Heidi  22:08

To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week, and we won’t get your extra credit.

Emily  22:14

Well speaking of Lessons in Chemistry earlier in the episode, I’m giving extra credit to the new series on Apple TV. I think it came out right before the holidays, so I didn’t get around to watching it until recently. Now I love the books. So it’s always a little scary to see if a movie or a show will capture the book. Well, I think they did such a good job.

Emily  22:35

The casting was so perfect. I loved how they handled the character of the dog, Six Thirty. Because that was is a little tricky from how it is in the book. But they did it perfectly. I think I felt like any changes they made from the book made sense for the show. So they didn’t really bother me. Whether or not you read the book, you should give the show a try. And then also read the book if you haven’t because I did love the book so much. And if you’ve already seen this, come tell me in the group what you thought about it.

Heidi  23:03

I’m only one episode but I’m really loving it so far.

Emily  23:05

Oh, you’ve got a ways to go on the casting. The casting is just so good. Everyone was perfectly cast. So hurry up so we can talk about it.

Heidi  23:14

I’m glad they decided to do it as like a series instead of just a one off movie because I don’t think it would have the same impact.

Emily  23:20

No, I totally agree they should probably with books do more often series than movies. I agree. That’s what my kids are always complaining about with the Harry Potter movies. They cut this out? They change that. And it’s like, well, that book was like 700 page. So it probably should be a series. Maybe it will be okay, what are you giving your credit to Heidi?

Heidi  23:38

Well, my extra credit also goes to a TV show. And that we can finally tell you about TV again. I’m just so excited to Abbott Elementary is finally back. Yeah, the gold stars. It’s just so funny and so clever. I think anyone watching it would enjoy it. But especially if you’ve been a teacher and like your principals suddenly talking about all of the district mandates that are going to be implemented. Like you feel that in your soul.

Emily  24:00

And even though some of the show was like so unrealistic, like the teachers have so much time to stand around. I don’t even care about all of that, because there’s these parts that are just so spot on. And it’s just clever and funny and enjoyable to watch. So I will forgive their inaccuracies like that.

Heidi  24:17

That’s it for today’s episode, make plans for short fluency lessons in your schedule, and try out the five quick lesson ideas that we shared in this episode.