Exploring the World with Two Tiny Mice and Fluent Readers

1.   Say: “How many of you have ever sat in a classroom and listened to [change to monotone, robotic voice/speech] someone read a story like this. [allow time for responses] [change back to regular voice] Isn’t that so boring? [allow time for responses] I would almost fall asleep! When we read aloud, we want others to pay attention to and enjoy the story, almost as if you are an actor performing in a play, and they are in the audience; you wouldn’t want your audience to fall asleep! So, reading with confidence is very important. So important, in fact, that we are going to practice doing it today! We are going to work on reading fluently.”

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2.   “We all know for the most part how to decode a word. If I am looking at this word [show the word hedgehog on the board], I might decode this by saying:

/h/ /e/ /d/ /g/ /e/ /h/ /o/ /g/. Head-geh-hog? Oh! Hedgehog!

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See? I sounded out each letter again and again until I reached the right word. But something funny happened there. The letters didn’t perfectly indicate the right pronunciation. If they did perfectly indicate the correct pronunciation, that word would sound like head-geh-hog. I simply didn’t know that dge made a /j/ sound. But, somehow, I did eventually come to the right word. How did I come to know that the correct word was hedgehog? [allow time for responses] If you think I reached the pronunciation hedgehog by guessing… you’re exactly right! I didn’t randomly guess however, I used context clues and something called analogizing to give an accurate guess. So it was okay that I didn’t know every possible phonics rule; I just strategized instead! And there are lots of other strategies I am going to tell you all about.”

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3.   [Teacher may choose to have a slideshow prepared to support this direct instruction.] “Before I begin, I want to emphasize that decoding is the most important strategy you can use when trying to determine an unfamiliar word. Decoding is the foundation all these other strategies depend on. When you come to an unfamiliar word, the FIRST thing you should do is try to decode it. But again, sometimes decoding doesn’t work, so it’s important to know some other strategies to help you read a word and move on to the next.

                 A.   The next strategy (after decoding) is reading the rest of the sentence. Who can guess why this is a good strategy? [allow time for responses] This is a good strategy because the rest of the sentence can give you context clues. [explain what context is]. For example, if I have already decoded this word [point to the word know in the sentence ‘Do you know who sank the boat?’ which should be displayed on the board], and I still don’t know what it is, I will keep reading the rest of the sentence. ‘ … who sank the boat? Do you ___ who sank the boat?’ Oh! ‘Do you know who sank the boat?’ See, before I read the rest of the sentence, the only context clues I had were the words ‘do’ and ‘you.’ ‘Do you ___’ After I read the rest of the sentence, I had lots of context clues: ‘Do you ___ who sank the boat,’ and all I had to do was fill in the blank! So this strategy helps a lot.”

 

                 B.   “The next strategy is called analogizing. [Allow everyone to practice saying the word.] When I analogize, I think about similarly spelled words to see if I can guess the unfamiliar word. For example, if I come to this word [the word know should be displayed], and I say /k/ /n/ /O/, I know that that is not the correct pronunciation. So I will analogize by thinking of something that has a similar spelling. Hmmm… How about this word? [display the word knot] Both words have the letters k, n, and o. And in the word knot, I know that the k is silent because it comes right before the letter n. So maybe that rule works for the other word too! Let’s try it out by making the k in this word [the word know] silent:

/n/ /O/. /n/ /O/. Know! Hey, that’s a word!

Before I stop there, I will check to make sure that the word works in the sentence: ‘Do you KNOW who sank the boat?’ That sentence makes perfect sense, so it works! And now you KNOW how to analogize!”

 

                 C.   “The last strategy we can call chunking. When we chunk unfamiliar words, we break them up into familiar parts. For example, if I am looking at this unfamiliar word [display the word pancake], that’s a lot of letters to sound out and try to remember! So I will practice chunking by breaking up the parts I already know. At the beginning of the word, I can see another, smaller word camouflaged in. Does anyone else see it? [allow time for responses]. It’s the word pan! Pan is easy to pronounce: /p/ /a/ /n/. Pan! So, you know what? I am going to forget about it for now. If I had a coverup critter, I would cover up all the letters in pan, so that I can direct my focus to the more difficult end of the word. Then, I might decode it: /k/ /a/ /k/ /e/. I remember the letter e is silent if it comes at the end of the word, and I remember silent e makes the vowel say its name. The vowel is a, so the sound it makes is /A/. Let’s try again: /k/ /A/ /k/. Cake! That worked! Pan … cake! Pancake. I could also try analogizing.” [Allow one or two students to demonstrate an appropriate use of the analogizing strategy. Provide teacher example if student examples aren’t really good.]

 

                 D.   “The final strategy is asking for help. How many of you don’t like to do that? [allow time for responses] I am the same way! Sometimes, I feel like I’m giving up if I ask for help. I am here to tell you, though, that asking for help is perfectly acceptable. There is no way that you could ever know every single word in the entire dictionary; there is a way that someone near you knows a word you’re struggling on! There is also a chance that you know a word someone else is struggling on. So don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you’ve tried all the strategies we’ve just gone over, and still nothing: ask your partner for help. If your partner doesn’t know either, ask me! I really want you to understand the story and an important part of doing so is reading every word.”

 

4.   “We will now practice fluent reading with the partner I have assigned each of you. {Students should be paired weaker readers with stronger readers.] We are going to read the story Two Tiny Mice by Alan Baker. In this book, two mice explore the world by going out into their neighborhood and looking at all the animals they live near. Each animal has a unique personality trait. What kinds of animals will they see? [The teacher will pass out a copy of the text to each pair of students as well as the one-minute reading rubric, the partner checklist for each student, pencils, and a stopwatch.] I want you to read the entire book together. Try to employ some of the strategies we’ve just gone over. Then, I want you to go back to the beginning; this time, one person will be the reader, and the other person will be the timer. The partner in charge of time will set the timer to one minute. After one minute has passed, the timer tells the reader to stop. Both partners count the words read and record the number on the rubric. Each reader will read the book three times and record the number of words for each time.”

 

5.   [After both partners have read and recorded their results in the check sheets, the teacher will collect them. Use the charts for teacher assessment to see if fluency has improved. The teacher will calculate WPM with the equation (number of wordsx60)/number of seconds. To ensure that students are also comprehending what they are reading, the teacher will also ask each student some comprehension questions:

• What kind of mice were the two mice in the story? (answer: field)

• Where was the weasel? (answer: the river’s edge)

• What was the squirrel doing? (answer: nibbling on a nut)

• Did the mice see the badgers playing in the dark? (answer: no; they were asleep in their nest)]