Real-Life
Reading Inquiry (Fluency)
For
me to complete this assignment, I observed a third-grade classroom in a local Knox
county school where the majority of the students were ESL learners (English as
Second Language). For this reason, I
focused my attention on how the teacher, we’ll just call him Mr. X, worked on
these students’ fluency in regards to reading.
I observed approximately 13 hours within this specific classroom and
also conducted an interview of Mr. X regarding the issue of fluency in his
classroom.
One
specific lesson that Mr. X used to work on his students’ fluency was really
cute and was an awesome way to address other areas that would affect fluency. These
other areas included: comprehension, vocabulary and a cool way for the students
to better understand the elements of the story. This lesson was what he
referred to as a story innovation. For this
lesson, Mr. X offered the class a choice between three different grade level
appropriate books. These were: Jumanji by Chris VanAllsburg, Not My
Dog by Colby Rodowsky, and The Adventures of Captain Underpants by
Dav Pilkey. All of the selection options
for this third-grade class were fiction-based stories, but Mr. X said he has
applied this lesson concept to more scientific-based unit themes like when they
were studying spiders. He said he then offered a selection of informative
non-fiction books and applied the same methods.
It
was really neat to see the kids work and interact with each other. Mr. X had
the kids in ability-based groups where he allowed each group to choose the book
for use. Then each group would team-read, assisting each other as necessary. Once
the story was read, the students brainstormed ideas on how they could change
the story. Each team re-wrote the story
by changing characters, many to their own names, and then continued by altering
the timeline, the plot, and sometimes even the endings to the story. It was a
very interactive and fun way for the kids to build on their skills. Mr. X
floated the room from team to team providing assistance where needed and
pointing out key-words or vocabulary, for the teams to focus their
understandings on. At the end of the week, each team would present to the class
an overview of the original story and explain their new one. The kids appeared
to love it.
I
can see how you could use this method to address cross-curriculum issues and still work on
building some much needed literacy skills. The kids illustrated their remade
stories so I can see how using more familiar text to explain their stories
would help build on fluency while possibly adding new vocabulary to their
libraries.
I
have found a multitude of readings online available on this very teaching
concept. A few that I wanted to share
that would be of great use to us all as new teachers are the following two
articles:
Story Innovation: An Instructional Strategy for Developing
Vocabulary and Fluency
by Priscilla L. Griffith and Jiening Ruan available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204592
And
an example of this applied at the 1st grade level is available at: (Lengthy
but it does work and opens up helpful PDF)
I thought it was really thoughtful and productive for Mr. X to offer the students a selection of texts to choose from. I feel that ESL students are surrounded by a language that may not be what they speak at home, or feel any ownership of at times of frustration/struggle. By allowing them to choose a book it gives them a sense of ownership and instills a personal relevency with what they're reading.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this activity and the link at the bottom. I could find many ways to in-cooperate that into a class with students with fluency problems, or even a class that doesn't have trouble with fluency.
ReplyDelete