Conducting fluency interventions during remote learning has not been as challenging as I thought. With the use of a great document camera, leveled text, Google Jamboard, and a few other techie things, my students have made great progress. Let me refresh your memory first though: fluency includes pace or speed of reading along with phrasing. Fluency enhances reading comprehension because the reader is hearing text the way the author intended it to be. I always tell my students: we should read with the same expression that we talk.
Today I wanted to share 5 different fluency interventions for remote learning that are research based, engaging, and ensure student growth.
Modeling: Sharing the screen and modeling with text where the teacher can explain her thinking about how the reading should sound are essential elements for teaching fluency. All text can be read fluently, but some text lend themselves to teaching of fluency. For example, books that have rhythm and rhyme like Dinky Donkey by Craig Smith and There Was an Old Astronaut Who Swallowed the Moon by Lucille Colandro. For older students, Laugh Aloud Jokes for Kids by Rob Elliot offers short but phrased passages to practice fluency. For this particular intervention I make sure to use the reading aids option from my doc cam.
2. Explore Dialogue: Also books with dialogue like Yo! Yes! by Chris Raschka and I Don’t Want to Be a Frog by Dev Petty also encourage the teaching of fluent reading. They offer great examples of using punctuation. For this particular activity, I use my doc cam and the intervention of “reading practice” from Intervention Central.
3. Repeated Readings of Poetry: I select text from many digital options. I wrote an article about FREE digital books for kids HERE. My local library branch has amazing options for poetry books, with my favorite being Jack Prelutsky. The repeated readings intervention is from Intervention central and you will need a digital stopwatch, I find mine in YoutTube. This is one of the greatest fluency interventions for remote learning because it provides immediate feedback and Jack Prelutsky is just amazing!
4. Error Correction: Teachers also need to remember when listen to children reading with a focus to fluency, the teacher needs to ignore minor reading errors and support the student by telling them the correct word. My intervention lessons always start with rereading of familiar text as a way of developing fluency through repeated readings.
5. Listening Preview: If I were to teach this intervention face-to-face, I would be reading above the shoulder of my student. I would read a sentence and then the student would read the same sentence right after me. For a virtual option, I share my screen and use leveled text from the Literacy Footprints Digital reader.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you found these ideas of fluency interventions for remote learning helpful and relevant.
Until next time!
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