Andrianna Boykin

READ 436

Professor Sullivan

30 April, 2019

Fluency Mini-Lesson

For my fluency lesson, I chose to do readers theater because it seemed like the only way to see

progress over the course of the week. There is only one group that stays in our main room which I had

been reading with every week. There are six total students, so I chose a 4-5 page script with 12 parts

(Each student had two parts to read). I found the script under 3rd grade and read through it to make sure

it was on their level. They have been reading a chapter book every day which I used as a guideline for

picking the reader’s theater materials. There were some that I found that were not quite on their level

based on vocabulary. I was looking for one that was long enough so that we could get through it within

one session without having to repeat it multiple times and have them get bored. We read through the

script every day from Monday until Thursday. The first day, I assigned parts and we simply read it

through once. The second day we began with reading through it, stopping every so often to discuss the

story and characters. In order to determine how each character is feeling based on the events

happening and, in turn, how they might be feeling. The third day, we did the same the thing as the first

two days and then I asked them to read on a page in various funny voices (monster, squeaky, sad, mad),

which they loved that they could be silly and creative. My reasoning for this was to get the students

engaged in reading while stretching their limits in reading with expression. It also improved their speed

as we read the same page over and over again each in a different voice. The last day, we read through

the entire thing, stopping periodically to go over the expression the student should be using. It was quite

surprising how much they improved in such a short period of time. Once we had read through it, we did
more voices as they enjoyed it. I decided to do funny voices as a way to help them get comfortable.

Reading has always come naturally to me, so I didn’t think that reading aloud would be too difficult. I

forgot that many of my students needed extra support in reading aloud in order to successfully improve

fluency skills. The silly voices allowed them to loosen up, going above and beyond what was expected of

them when reading using a normal voice. Some had attempted voices that were so far from their normal

voice that the words were nearly unrecognizable. It was at this time that I realized I needed to set

guidelines. Before this, they struggled to speak with any expression (unless you count robot) at all. It

also helped move us along in terms of practicing speed and accuracy.

After the success of this lesson, I feel that it would be a great way to address fluency throughout

the week. Before this, this group has been reading Double Fudge by Judy Blume. Each student reads

about a page and we stop periodically to discuss character development, plot and make predictions. I

think this an effective way to model students’ thinking process while reading a chapter book. It was also

a great model for me as a future teacher to be able to know what questions to ask. Now with the

combined experience, I feel that both fluency and comprehension could be accomplished in one session.

For instance, if I am asking questions like “What happened to this character? How are they feeling

because of this? What do you think they will do next?” it would encourage them to address all aspects

of reading. I would group may students by reading level and provide them with reading materials that

aligns with that reading level. I would alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays for reader’s theater and

Monday, Wednesday and Friday have them read to a partner during silent reading. When they do

partner reading, I can provide them with questions they ask their partner for comprehension and

fluency. I would also put on a timer for when they need to switch readers. Assessment was the most

difficult part of fluency as each student grows at their own pace. There were some students whose

personalities really came out during readers theater but there were still some whose personalities did

not necessarily align with the requirements of readers theater. That being said, each student went out
of their comfort zone and made tremendous progress. Therefore, I am unsure of the best way to create

an assessment that would equally assess each student other than just noting that all of them had

significant improvements. Overall, the minilesson went better than expected and I am so proud of the

progress they made.