There's a book titled SIX MINUTE SOLUTIONS which has leveled passages and shows how you can train students to coach one another in fluency. It takes less than 6 minutes a day, but it covers all your students. It isn't perfect, but you can go one on one once a grading period to get a more accurate rate.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Renee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Listserv" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 11:05 AM Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Fluency Rosie, I'm sorry you are being subjected to weekly notetaking that takes away from teaching time. I heard a great word yesterday: "administrivia" and that's where I put this. But that's just me. Your theory that if your students were fluent readers it wouldn't matter if it were a "cold reading" makes a kind of surface sense from one perspective. But think of your own experience with reading. I know that I read much, much faster and with more comprehension when reading silently than when reading aloud, and that sometimes when I am reading aloud in a hurry, I make more mistakes than if I slow down. As we subject children to fluency tests that depend largely on time, I believe that their actual fluency will go down. I'm not a scientist; I haven't tested this. It is my opinion based on years of teaching and listening to children read. But these days that doesn't count for much, does it? To me, reading aloud is a performance, pure and simple. In the real world there is no other reason to read aloud than to relay information to someone else in a manner that passes on information in an understandable way. To me, fluency is at least 90% expression and at best 10% speed. But the thing that sticks with me most about your post is that you are doing these fluency checks weekly. Let's see.... 20 students.... 5 minutes per students (the test itself plus all the transition time and notetaking).... that's 100 minutes a week that you are not teaching. How do you feel about this? I would be interested in knowing what strategies you can get from your literacy coach. Renee On Feb 8, 2007, at 6:17 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I am sorry if this sounds negative but I am trying to get some > clarification > on something. My school is a low-performing school that is required > to > teach exclusively from the Houghton Mifflin basal. We MUST do a > fluency record > on each child who is not reading at grade level every week. We are > the lowest > level third grade leveled reader passage for the fluency record. > Most of my > students being checked weekly are reading at least a grade below. > > My first question is: Should these checks be done after the student > has > been exposed to the passages? They are taken directly from the > leveled reader > that we read each week, however, I test most of my students prior to us > reading the leveled reader. My theory was if they were fluent > readers, it > shouldn't matter if it is a "cold reading". > > I got a sticky note today telling me that I need to consult with the > literacy coach on fluency strategies since my students fluency is > dropping. Seems > perfectly natural to me since the texts we are reading are becoming > more and > more difficult and the vocabulary mose sophiscated. > > What is the point of this weekly recording? It isn't making them > better > readers. Is this just a cover your rear type of documentation? > > Help!!!! > > Rosie > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ > mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > > First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me. -Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1945 _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
