An Easy Way to Improve Fluency

Reading fluency is crucial for young readers because it bridges the gap between word recognition and text comprehension. Fluent readers do not have to spend as much time decoding the words so they are able to focus their efforts more on comprehending what the text means. Reading fluency is a huge struggle for many young readers.  Since reading fluency is the building block to comprehension, less fluent readers often fall behind their peers.   Significant improvement in reading fluency can be achieved with just a few minutes of practice each day.  

I have seen great gains in fluency using Super Speed 1000 from the Whole Brain Teaching Website. This activity and many others are available as a FREE download when you register on their website.  I love that this activity integrates both the Dolch and Fry word lists so the kids get exposure to as many words as possible.

In my classroom, we use a slight variation from the official rules that come with the download.  I have my students paired up by ability and personality.  The students work together as a team to beat their previous record.  The partners take turns reading the words back and forth for 60 seconds.  Each time the pair beats their record, they get to start one line further down at the beginning.  The official directions are a bit different, but I have found this procedure to work well with my class.  

This is a short video showing two of my students doing the Super Speed Reading Fluency activity.  My students are using the paper version of the game which is designed for partner practice.  The partner game promotes social interaction and goal setting in a fun, fast-paced game. There is also an electronic version of the game that is great for whole class practice.  

There is also a Super Speed Game for math facts.  Each of my students have a folder with the papers needed to play both games inside.  

Here is a short video of my students playing the Super Speed math game.  We play each game twice a day.  Since each game is only one minute long, we are able to practice both math facts and the top 1,000 words in five minutes.

If you are looking for an easy to implement way to improve reading and math fluency in your classroom, I encourage to visit the Whole Brain Teaching Website, register with your email address, and download the FREE Ebook(s).  You won't be disappointed!

Partnering Students Using Appointment Cards

I am always looking for new ways to partner my students up and I found a great technique in Total Participation Techniques.

This book has many (37 to be exact) practical techniques to involve your students in every lesson.

 

Many of the techniques allow students to mingle with peers while discussing/figuring out concepts taught. This relies on having students work with partners a lot. You can put students with partners in many ways such as desk partners, grade partners, or number partners. One of the best (and used the most in my classroom) techniques for putting students in partners is the use of an appointment card. The book goes into great detail on this partnering technique and I immediately fell in love with the practicality and ease of this technique.

Basically, students set up appointments ahead of time and when you need them to work with a partner you have them pull out their laminated appointment card and say "I want you to work with your 2pm appointment." My students always ask if they can meet with their appointment partners. Click on the picture of the appointment cards for a ready-to-go template.

Tip: If you have an odd number of students make sure they make an appointment where there will be 3 of them in a group.

Trust me when I say that this is the professional resource to have in EVERY classroom. What methods do you use to partner your students?

Cheers,