Heather Howell

T.C. McSwain Elementary School

Implemented on October 1, 2014

Mrs. Katie Lockridge

Fluency Minilesson
Type: Rereading of a passage.
Level of Passage: Level F (a first grade level)

This minilesson will be completed with one student who needs some extra attention
working with fluency. We will be working on the students speed of reading.
Objective: The student will increase the speed of his reading.
Materials:
o 2 papers with the reading passage on it
o A stopwatch
Introduction: I will give the student the directions of the task, and explain the purpose for
doing the activity.
Procedure:
o The student and myself will be sitting together in the hallway away from the other
students. I will give the passage to the student and I will have a copy in front of
myself. My copy will be useful to model each step of the process when giving the
student directions.
o When the student begins reading I will start the stopwatch. As the student comes
to a word he cannot read, he will circle the word (the first time he reads the
passage). When the student finishes reading the passage I will stop the stopwatch.
o We will both record the time it took for him to read the entire passage.
o I will take a minute to go over any words that he circled, working with him to
decode the words.
o He will then read the passage again (without circling the words and trying to
read/decode the words), and I will time how long it takes him to read it. His goal
is to beat his time from the last try.
o After the student has read through the passage three times, we will look at his
reading times together and talk about our observations about the amount of time it
took each try. I will do a running record each time the student reads the passage.

Heather Howell
T.C. McSwain Elementary School

Implemented on October 1, 2014

Mrs. Katie Lockridge
Reflection

There is one student that could benefit from some extra time working on his literacy
skills, so my cooperating teacher preferred that I implement my fluency minilesson with this one
student independently. She felt that this student particularly needed work on the speed of his
reading. I was having a hard time understanding how to pick an activity for the student without
knowing where his independent level fell, so I went to my cooperating teacher for assistance. My
cooperating teacher gave this passage to me because it is a first grade passage, and she said the
student was on a first grade reading level. My cooperating teacher also suggested that I have the
student circle the words he didnt know, so he could focus on reading. My goal for the lesson
was that the student would read the passage faster each time he read it because he would be more
familiar with the words every time.
The student was very open and willing to participate in this minilesson, especially
towards the beginning of the lesson. He followed directions very nicely for the first reading and
did exactly what I asked of him. As we went back together to decode the circled words, he
expressed excitement and interest at the words he could identify. After he read the word
reading, he exclaimed, Like we are doing now! The morning announcements came on in
between the second and third reading, and he became a little restless when I told him I needed
him to read the passage one more time. It seemed that he did not try as hard and was not as
focused during the last reading of the passage after the announcements.
During his first time reading through the passage, he circled 19 out of the 87 words.
Besides circling those words, there were seven other occurrences where he said a different word
in place of what the actual word was. For example, twice he read, here when the passage said,
helps. The first reading was surprisingly the fastest that he read the passage, but that is because

Heather Howell
T.C. McSwain Elementary School

Implemented on October 1, 2014

Mrs. Katie Lockridge

he did not try to decode any of the words, he just skipped right over the ones he did not know. It
was very interesting to see that when we went back and only looked at the words that he circled,
he could decode 16 out of the 19 words without my help. It was also interesting to see that most
of the words he decoded individually, he still skipped, or misread when he was reading the whole
passage. Vegetables was one of the words he had a hard time decoding, but the next time he
read the passage he read the word vegetables correctly, and the third time he read one of the
two occurrences of the word correctly. His second reading was slower than his first reading, but
his third reading was faster than his second reading. Throughout every reading of this one
passage, the student left out some words, and sometimes read different words in place of the
actual words that were on the page.
First of all, if I had to do this again, I would choose an easier passage. The fluency lesson
is supposed to be with easy text at the students independent level. This passage was more at the
students instructional level (if not, frustration level) and that affected how much he could really
practice his fluency in regards to speed because he wasnt reading every word. I would also try to
do the activity with him in a place where there is not so much activity and at a time that does not
provide distractions. It was good that we did the activity in the hall, but the table we were at was
at the top of the stairs, and we were doing this activity in the morning when many students were
in the hallway going to their classrooms. Also, I would tell the student the topic of the passage,
so he/she has an idea of what he/she will read about, and to gage the interest level the student has
in that topic.
In my classroom I will make sure to get detailed information about the students fluency
skill towards the beginning of the year through reading passages and word lists for time and
words per minute, and also listening for the amount of expression while reading. It will be

Heather Howell
T.C. McSwain Elementary School

Implemented on October 1, 2014

Mrs. Katie Lockridge

important for me to gather the information to determine the students independent level,
instruction level, and frustration level. Knowing the instructional levels of each student will help
to group students of similar levels together. Knowing the levels will also identify what type of
material to use when working with each group on fluency. When practicing fluency, the students
need to have material that is on their independent reading level so the students do not have to
spend a lot of time and energy on decoding each word, but they can focus on reading the words
with speed and expression. Throughout the weeks I will use smaller assessments and activities to
get an update on the students fluency skills, such as, running records or timed repeated readings.
The way I would schedule my lesson plan is by starting off with a read aloud. Read alouds allow
for the teacher to model fluency through speed and expression. I would use the read aloud to
point out specific features that I want the students to pay attention to that will lead into certain
tasks during centers. After the read aloud, the students would break out into the three reading
groups I created and they would do a specific task at each center. One center would be with me
getting instruction with an activity. Another center would be an activity that they do with a
partner to work on fluency. The last center would be independent reading. These centers would
rotate after a certain amount of time until each group has been at every center.