Fluency

Between the Lions website is an excellent resource for many different aspects of literacy, specifically fluency. The videos on this website are designed for students to watch and gradually become fluent with words. Each video has interesting, catchy aspects to it so that the students are entertained. Students will watch as words are sounded out and then put together fully and repeated for fluent reading. I would use this as a whole group and have the students watch the videos as a group so that we can focus on specific words or incorporate them into our lesson. This resource is instructional valuable because it sounds words out multiple times and uses lots of repetition so that students have numerous chances to say the word as well.

This fluency lesson plan is an excellent example of not just one lesson in a unit but how to incorporate an objective over time. Students will read familiar books or passages daily for fifteen minutes of silent reading. The teacher will monitor the student's progress and can use this time for individual literacy assessment. This would be an excellent opportunity to meet with students one-on-one and do written record or fluency assessments. This lesson plan is instructionally valuable because it has students reading constantly and allows them to read at a level they are confident in.

This book resource, Developing Fluent Readers, by Melanie R. Kuhn and Lorell Levy, is an excellent resource for teachers to use when working with students on fluency. It gives helpful tips for effective instruction and also goes into detail on the best ways to assess. I would use this before teaching a fluency lesson or assessing fluency to remind myself what I, as the teacher, need to do to give my students the best instruction. This is an instructional tool because it will provide me with information as a teacher to help teach my students fluency in the best way possible.

This graphic organizer allows students to organize their thoughts in the writing process. There are many aspects to fluency, but one factor is that the story makes sense and relates in an understandable way. For this to occur, students can use this graphic organizer in the pre-writing stage to connect all of their ideas to one main topic in an organized way. I would give this to students during the writers' workshop in the prewriting phase so that they can refer back to this organizer throughout all of their writing stages. This is an instructionally valuable tool because it allows students to understand how all of their points are intertwined and allows them to have a reference for their writing so that all of their writing can be fluent.

This YouTube playlist is an excellent example of how to incorporate reading fluency through music in the classroom. On this playlist, there are ten different songs, many of them common songs that kids have most likely heard before. They are all developmentally appropriate and have lyrics on the screen for kids to see as they sing along. These songs are useful in the classroom because they allow kids to associate words they already know and are singing with words on the screen so they can see what they look like. I would use this in the classroom as a transition activity or brain break to get kids moving and singing, but also focusing on fluency without them even knowing it because these are songs they love.