Fluency Strategies for Third Grade
1. Echo Reading:
Description: Echo reading can be enjoyable for both you and the students when you practice small segments of passages that you both enjoy.
Purpose: Involves a teacher reading a short phrase or sentence and the student echoing the phrase back, using the same rate and intonation. It is important for the teacher to interpret the passage with the author's intended meaning. Echo reading is especially effective with English learners because they see the words and hear the correct intonation.
Directions: To introduce echo reading, choose a short poem or passage the presents natural phrases on single lines. To echo read the book, you read a line and emphasize the underlines words, and the student echoes it using your rate and intonation. The slashes indicate where you stop and allow the reader to echo.
Here is an example of echo reading to use with younger students:
Description: Echo reading can be enjoyable for both you and the students when you practice small segments of passages that you both enjoy.
Purpose: Involves a teacher reading a short phrase or sentence and the student echoing the phrase back, using the same rate and intonation. It is important for the teacher to interpret the passage with the author's intended meaning. Echo reading is especially effective with English learners because they see the words and hear the correct intonation.
Directions: To introduce echo reading, choose a short poem or passage the presents natural phrases on single lines. To echo read the book, you read a line and emphasize the underlines words, and the student echoes it using your rate and intonation. The slashes indicate where you stop and allow the reader to echo.
Here is an example of echo reading to use with younger students:
Nancy White Carlstrom's Guess Who's Coming, Jesse Bear (1998)
Wednesday /
I count and look and then sit down. /
She knows she never will be found. /
At hiding Sara is the best. /
It gives us both a little rest. /
I count and look and then sit down. /
She knows she never will be found. /
At hiding Sara is the best. /
It gives us both a little rest. /
2. Preview-Pause-Prompt-Praise (PPPP) Strategy:
Description: This strategy can be used by teachers, reading specialists, adult volunteers, and trained paraprofessionals.
Purpose: This strategy focuses on fluency because the teacher reads along with the student, and it focuses on comprehension by emphasizing predictions before reading and in discussions afterward.
Directions: In order to use the PPPP strategy you must follow these steps:
1. During the preview segment, ask the reader to predict what will happen in the story based on the title and book cover.
2. Begin reading in unison with the student until they tap the desk to indicate that they wish to read by themselves.
3. When the student makes an error, pause three seconds or wait until the student gets to the end of the sentence.
4. If the student does not self-correct in three seconds or by the end of the sentence, give two prompts: "Let's read that again" and if they student still does not self-correct, tell the student the word.
5. Begin again to read with the student until they tap the desk.
6. If the student does self-correct after three seconds, praise the student, and read with the student again until they tap the desk.
7. After the student completes the passage, talk about their favorite parts with the student.
Description: This strategy can be used by teachers, reading specialists, adult volunteers, and trained paraprofessionals.
Purpose: This strategy focuses on fluency because the teacher reads along with the student, and it focuses on comprehension by emphasizing predictions before reading and in discussions afterward.
Directions: In order to use the PPPP strategy you must follow these steps:
1. During the preview segment, ask the reader to predict what will happen in the story based on the title and book cover.
2. Begin reading in unison with the student until they tap the desk to indicate that they wish to read by themselves.
3. When the student makes an error, pause three seconds or wait until the student gets to the end of the sentence.
4. If the student does not self-correct in three seconds or by the end of the sentence, give two prompts: "Let's read that again" and if they student still does not self-correct, tell the student the word.
5. Begin again to read with the student until they tap the desk.
6. If the student does self-correct after three seconds, praise the student, and read with the student again until they tap the desk.
7. After the student completes the passage, talk about their favorite parts with the student.