Fluency

This week, Ms. Leom's class started their fluency learning. Mr. Greninger's class ran out of time this week, and they will have the lesson early next week.

Fluency is the ability to read like you talk. Your fluency should vary, or change, depending on what is happening in the story. You might read faster if you are excited, slower when you are sad, or slower when you are trying to understand something. If you read too fast and skip lines or words, you may find you don't understand and need to go back and slow down (a student added this detail - LOVE how we learn from each other!!)

We read the text, Snow and More Snow. First, Ms. Leom read it to us, so the whole class had familiarity with the story. Then she taught us (or we figured it out and taught her) how to highlight on the text. We worked with a partner. We highlighted the words we read fast, green, the words we read at normal pace yellow, and the words we need to slow down, red. We practiced reading with our partner.

A turn and talk activity earlier in the lesson

 What it looks like as we started using Google Classroom and the highlighting tools on our iPads.

 Toward the end of the lesson, partners could volunteer to read their version of the the dialogue demonstrating their fluency. SO exciting to see and hear the progress!! We had several pairs share. I just didn't think to grab my camera for the first volunteers. I was so busy being proud of their work in class reflecting in their fluency demonstrations!

Fluency is an important skill, because students who can read fluently, free up "brain space" to think about the deeper meaning of the text. Fluency also indicates comprehension. When a student varies the pace of their reading for the context of the action or plot details, you can tell the level of understanding. It indicates students are reading beyond surface details. SO EXCITING to develop our skills!!!