Reading Fluency

Cunningham and Allington's Chapter 4 introduces us to the methods of teaching reading fluency. This comes from rereading easy books, repetition of words, inflections, reading in groups, etc.; all of these contributing to each student's ability to read words in context, quickly, accurately, and with appropriate expression. It introduces different methods of reading in whole class contexts that will benefit independent reading, and of the provided suggestions, I like chanting and writing the words and the ideas of echo and choral readings. These combined with high-frequency word walls could help encourage reading and writing, as well as, build confidence in reading and writing for students to share.

Deeney's introduction to prosody, with regard to signal words and punctuation, could be developed or strengthened through echo and choral readings. Especially because as a group, the students could be more inclined to inflect appropriately or use exaggerated expression of punctuations. In addition, activities involving word chants and writing will also encourage excitement in reading with fluency.

Activities involving excitement over easy words and books both at home and in classrooms will encourage creativity in writing and bold expression in reading and writing activities. Rasinski introduces the idea of poetry cafes and readers' theatre festivals on Fridays. I really liked this idea, only maybe on more of a monthly basis. If students do the chanting activities and are enthusiastic throughout the week/month in reading aloud with their peers, I think that the cafes and festivals would be successful.

Poetry journals could be an "at-home" activity where the parents, siblings, etc. are encouraged to write poetry on the weekends with their children using vocabulary and contexts relevant to the class material from each week, and then allow the children to perform readings of their work at home. This would be engaging, fun, and be source of reinforcement over the weekend or holidays that seems more like a game than school work.

It would also provide some options over the month for the in-class cafes or theaters. If they have 3 or 4 poems to choose from over the course of a few weeks, the work they choose to present the class will use a broader vocabulary and more variety in content or expression.

Combining classroom engagement with at-home engagement and encouragement of expression and reading, could provide every student with a positive sense of "self" and capability that they can read aloud, they can write well and creatively, and they could be influential even when their writing seems "silly" or "meaningless". Asha Christensen wrote about her struggle to be inspired or put words to a page, and she was able to present her poem as a TedTalk partially because of her incredibly fluent delivery.

How would you encourage creativity for writing in your class?
How might you involve parents in the learning process?