A Few Thoughts About Fluency

Fluency is a big buzzword these days. 

I've seen it used for reading stories, decoding, and even math facts!

Since I attended my second session of the LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) training a few weeks ago, I've thought a lot about reading fluency.

LETRS training was one of the best PD training ever!

Studies indicate a direct relation between fluency and comprehension.

No surprises there, it makes sense that struggling readers would struggle with comprehension.  If they have a hard time figuring out the words, it's not very likely they will put together the meaning easily.

The experts define reading fluency with 4 phrases:

1. automaticity in word recognition

2. accurate word recognition

3. rate (speed) of reading

4. prosody, or expression

So, how do we build fluency?

Practice both phonetic patterns as well as sight words. Feel free to download my short a/ long a practice freebie by clicking the graphic above or click here: Vowel Word Work Freebie (You'll need to sign up for my emails, which means you'll get plenty more freebies!)

Practice reading phrases and sentences a few words at a time. (Phrasing)

Practice reading simple paragraphs with expression.  

Oral Reading with a partner.  (using text of appropriate difficulty... "just right" text! 95 - 100% accuracy) 

Monitored Independent Reading

 

This full resource has all 5 vowel patterns: long and short vowels, with real words as well as nonsense words. Vowel Word Work: Word Sort and Fluency Practice

What do you do to build fluency?

My Traditional Mother's Day Gift

First of all, if you are the mom of one of my students, you'll have to click out of this screen. Sorry, you can't see this until after Mother's Day! (Or you'll just have to be really, really good at acting surprised!)

Now that I've made that clear, I can tell you about my traditional Mother's Day gift. It's something I've been doing every year for at least 15 years. It's one of those activities that's a win-win-win for everyone involved! I love it, the kids love it, and the moms love it. Plus, there's some learning going on!

 

Every year about this time I go to the gardening store and buy a flat of impatiens. I usually get a variety of colors, and I make sure I have more than enough. I brought my flat of little plants to class today just to "wet their whistle". I think every single kid in the class asked about them.

Later this week, I'll sit with small groups and repot them. I get right into the soil, asking them to loosen all the soil around the roots before repotting. There are some great conversations around the table during this process! It's always interesting to see which kids are afraid to get their hands dirty! I typically use peat pots (see below) because they can go right into the soil. Paper cups can be used as well, but must be removed before going into the ground.

• Peat pots (Amazon affiliate link)

Once all the plants have been repotted, the kids keep the plants on their desks until it's time to bring them home. Yep, that's right, the potted plants stay on their desks, beside the flags, beanies, water bottles, and once in a while, some work! 

I love to watch their faces... they come in first thing in the morning, and check the plant right away. They tend to panic if a leaf has fallen off (They know just how many leaves their plant has!) After a while, they catch on that leaves falling off is part of the process, and new leaves will appear.

There are always a few minor disasters. They all know where the dustpan is kept, and they all know how to use it. Impatiens will endure just about everything the kids can do to a plant, except a broken stem. Then it becomes another learning experience. I've learned to keep several extras for a couple of reasons:

1. Those "learning experiences" can be too distressing without a backup plan!

2. I love growing impatiens in my own garden. I usually keep the extras in the classroom for most of the year, but I do take them home and put them in my yard... they're great to grow!

I send home this information sheet on impatiens with the children the day the plants go home. 

It's also a good time to bring out some related books!

• What's inside a flower? And Other Questions About Science and Nature
• What do Roots, Stems, and Flowers Do?
• From Seed to Plant
• Lola Plants a Garden

The parents really seem to love the plants, and the kids love preparing them. It's one of those activities that works so well I keep coming back to it every year, and it's a delight each year. It's definitely a win-win-win... with plenty of learning on the side!

You've Given the QPS, Now What?

My last post was about using the Quick Phonics Screener to find where students have reading deficits.  If the QPS doesn't show any deficits, that's fantastic! The next step would be to work on accuracy and fluency in reading.  (That's another post!) 

 More than likely, if a child was already struggling in reading (as indicated by DIBELS scores or by teacher observation) something will show up in the QPS.  That's where to start!  Quite often, there will be others with the same deficit, and you can group these kids together as a phonics "break out" group.  Of course, with older kids, it's best to use fancy words like "word study group" or even "linguistics".

There are TONS of free resources on the internet that will help you out.  

One of my favorites is from University of West Virginia. (West Virginia - Reading First)  This site has complete lessons from the warm up, phonological awareness/ articulation, letter/ sound correspondence, blending routines, word work, dictation, and reading text that focuses on the skill.  They also include word lists and texts for practicing!

Another great site for resources is The Florida Center for Reading Research.  I could spend hours on this site exploring everything!  Once you've figured out which skill needs work, just find an activity to go with it, and there you go!  

There are also tons of materials on Teachers Pay Teachers as well as Teachers Notebook.  I'm sure you'll be able to find plenty of ideas on Pinterest as well.  Here's a link to my Pinterest board on Word Work.

Don't forget these important parts of any phonics lesson:

• Goal
• Review
• New Concept
• Word Practice
• Dictation
• Word Meaning
• Text Reading 

Assessing Reading Difficulties

How do you find out what the children need for Reading RTI (Response to Intervention) time?

Our district gives the DIBELS three times a year:  In September, January, and May.  As long as the children are working at grade level and showing growth, there is no need for additional assessments. If the children are working below level, or are not showing adequate growth in reading skills, they are followed more closely by Progress Monitoring, accompanied by additional instruction or alternative instruction.

DIBELS will help figure out which kids need help.  Then what?

A Quick Phonics Screener can help you find a deficiency in decoding skills more quickly and more specifically than DIBELS or other assessment tools. It's a one on one assessment, and can be done in a couple of minutes. (Google Quick Phonics Screener! There are several low priced options.)

I would prefer QPS used nonsense words, but I'm unable to find a copy online. This gives a true measurement of how the child does at "sounding out" the words without relying on the visual memory.  (I've known more than one reading deficit that was masked by a strong visual memory!)

I keep my QPS materials in a folder with the child's copy laminated and plenty of record sheets in the pockets.  If I notice a kid is not showing the desired growth, I'll find a couple of minutes to pull the child and guide them through the screening.  There is no "set way" to record what the child does, but generally I try to write something so I'll remember the mistakes the child made. (That's often a key for teaching!)

Looking closer, you'll see the order of subtests is in a logical order:  letter ID, letter sounds, cvc words, cvc words with blends, cvce words, r controlled vowels, cvc with digraphs, vowel pairs, words with prefixes or suffixes, two syllable words, and multisyllabic  words. The QPS suggests if a child misses 5 or more in a section, that's the skill needed.

Quite often, the teacher is already aware that the child has a specific reading issue, since we read with our children daily. But this is a way to record what's going on and drive instruction.

More Random Tidbits About Our Language Reading Teachers Should Know

I'm sharing more ideas that I learned from my LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) workshop from a couple of weeks ago. 

The instructor, Carol Tolman, was brilliant and inspiring!  She really knows her stuff! See the previous post HERE. Here are more of the things I learned from her:

1. First Grade Instruction:

First grade Reading/ Literacy Instruction should be 40% Word Work. The other 60% should be Guided Reading, Writing, Oral Vocabulary, Oral Comprehension, and Handwriting. The word work percentage goes down slightly through the grades as the children get older.

2. Handwriting:

Handwriting is 85% linguistics and 15% fine motor skills.

3. Phonological awareness

Fifty-two studies have proved that phonological awareness is essential for reading success.  Quite often we need to back struggling readers up to this point.  (Phonological awareness is the skills that we could do "in the dark", before we start matching sounds to letters.  This refers to "Which word has the same sound as a in hat?" or "Which word rhymes with log?"

4. Words ending in S

Rarely do word ends in a single s unless it's plural. That's why words like horse and house have the silent e.  If house were spelled hous, it would mean "more than one hou". I honestly can't think of any exceptions to this!

5. Words ending in J or V

Words rarely end in Jor V  either. That explains the spellings of words like have and huge. Final e has several purposes, besides making a vowel long.

6. Words with tch

The spelling tch typically occurs after a short vowel, with ch coming after a long vowel or "vowel team". There are a few exceptions like such and much, but most words follow this pattern. I never knew this, and I had a tch in my maiden name! (After a short vowel, of course!)

7. When to teach phonics

Phonics should be taught through 6th grade (or later, if needed). After 3rd grade, kids respond better when it's called Advanced Word Study or Linguistics, but it needs to be taught daily.

8. "Air writing"

When "air writing", have children start with their shoulders, not arm or hand.  This makes a bigger neuron trace in the brain.

Well there you go! 

How many of these did you know?

What "reading facts" can you add to this list?

Random Tidbits About Our Language Reading Teachers Should Know

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a 4-day LETRS training session.  LETRS stands for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling.  

The recent 4-day session was the second of three sessions. It's exhausting and overwhelming stuff, but it's amazing and quite valuable to know as a teacher of reading. Here are some interesting pieces of information I learned from some of the training.

1. Vowels are open, unconstricted sounds.  

The English Language has 18 vowel sounds: 5 short vowel sounds; 5 long vowel sounds; 3 r controlled vowels /er/ (spelled er, ir, or ur), /ar/, and /or/; diphthongs /oi/, /ow/; and the vowel teams /aw/, /oo/ (as in book) and /oo/ as in (as in pool).  This doesn't include the schwa sound, which takes on a short u or a short i sound in unaccented syllables.

2. Consonant sounds

The English Language has 25 consonant sounds:  /p/,/b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /ng/, /f/, /v/, /th/ (unvoiced, as in three), /th/ (voiced, as in those), /s/, /z/, /sh/, /zh/ (as in pleasure), /ch/, /j/, /y/, /wh/, /w/, /h/, /l/, and /r/.

3. Short vowel sounds

Fifty percent of words have short vowel sounds.

4. Predictable

The English language isn't as unpredictable as people think:

• 50% of words are predictable by rule
• 36% of words are predictable by rule with 1 error, usually a vowel
• 10% of words will be predictable with morphology and word origin taken into account
• Fewer than 4% of words are true oddities.

This is just the beginning of what I've learned from this training. 

See also THIS POST.

Twelve Strategies to Get From Working Memory to Long Term Memory

I had a delightful group of teachers at my after school workshop today on Using Brain Research in the Classroom. We shared lots of ideas and there was lots of enthusiasm on the topic of the brain. 

I had several key points I wanted to make, which I think came through successfully. You can see these main points on this post: Seven Brain Based Learning Principles.

Although I got through most of these points, (we really didn't get to the last two, after all, it's only an hour workshop!) But the one that's stuck in my mind is the third one:

The working memory can hold 2 to 4 chunks of information at a time, usually in about 4 - 8 minutes. After that, the brain needs time to process, reflect and review in order for those chunks to move to the long term memory.

In a world where we're given large amounts of information to dish out to the kids in a short day, it's tough to give out just 2 to 4 chunks of information at a time, then allow the time to process that information so it can go into the long term memory. Here are some suggestions for this enormous task of taking information from the working memory to the long term memory:

1. Get them moving! I like to make movement and physical action part of the learning experience by using gestures and having the children mirror what I do.

2. Give time to review. I find the use of whiteboards work well for review. They are easy to use, very forgiving, and the kids love them.  They are easy for a teacher to check for quick assessments.

3. Use hands-on activities. Math manipulatives and science demonstrations work well to get the students interested and involved.

4. Minimize directions. Break larger lessons into smaller parts, making connections between parts.

5. Use a timer. After about 4 - 8 minutes, stop for a brain break, then return for a few more minutes, then another brain break.

6. Pause after a few pieces of information and give the students time to reflect and/ or ask questions.

7. Allow the students to draw pictures of what they're learning.  I'm a firm believer that drawing internalizes information. (I use it a lot for vocabulary.)

8. Use graphic organizers to arrange ideas so they can be revisited and understood.

9. Use "think pair, share" type activities where the students talk about what they just learned.

10. Use music. Putting important information to a simple tune that the children already know really helps them remember the information.  Some simple tunes that everyone knows:  Twinkle Twinkle, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, or This Old Man.

11. Have a gimmick. Do something clever or unique to get their attention. Tell a joke or hook them in with something clever.

12. Get their emotions involved. Emotions are very  much tied to memory. (I'll bet you remember those very emotional events in your life:  like your wedding or giving birth!) For some, getting up in front of the class will get the right amount of emotions going. For others, a game will do the trick.

Do you have any ideas to help those chunks of information get into the long term memory?  Please include your ideas in the comments section below!

Seven Brain Based Learning Principles

I've been fascinated by Brain Based Learning. 

I've made a point to learn a lot about how the brain works. Here are some of the important points:

1.  The brain needs to make patterns and associations in order for new material to make sense.

2.  Humor decreases stress and  increases learning speed.

3.  The working memory can hold 2 to 4 chunks of information at a time, usually in about 4 - 8 minutes.  After that, the brain needs time to process, reflect and review in order for those chunks to move to the long term memory.

4.  Music boosts brain organization and ability.  It affects our moods and emotions.  Music goes hand in hand with math.

5.  The brain is a parallel processor.  It needs to activate more than one process at a time. This is why lecture-type teaching doesn't work.  Try combinations, such as listening and moving or watching and listening.

6.  Practice does NOT make "perfect".  Practice with appropriate feedback makes "better".  Feedback should be honest and immediate, if possible.

7. If children are engaged cognitively, physically, emotionally and socially, learning will happen.

The more I learn about how the brain works, the more fascinated I am!

Want some resources?

Click the blue "learn more" button for a link to a previous post on Brain Based Learning Strategies.

Click the orange button for a link to Eric Jensen's blog.

Click the Pinterest logo to see my Pinterest board on Brain Research.

Enjoy your reading about Brain Based Learning!

A Fun Way to Present Research!

There are so many types of ABC books! 

 

The ABC theme can be tied to content areas. For example, a student could make an ABC book showing what they've learned about plants through an ABC book. Another could write about the government with an ABC book. The possibilities are endless!

Here's an ABC book that's ready to go! If you run off the pages back to back, then fold, the pages will be in alphabetical order for you. Then the children just have to fill in the information. Just see the image or HERE to download your ABC book template!

There are so many wonderful published ABC books to use as examples, just read a couple, then let the kids do their own! Here are some examples:

                  

What other ABC books would your students write?