MODULE 4

1. The three most important concepts I gleaned from the readings:


Probably the most important concept in recognizing how important fluency is would be the concept that we must be fluent readers before we can be good readers that comprehend what we read. I see this in the first grade classroom every day. My struggling readers are so busy working on the phonics part of reading – just getting the word out – that they cannot comprehend what they just read. Word attack is the only part of reading they can do. However, my readers that have moved past this phase and can read smoothly are ready to move on to fluency and vocabulary so that they can read with expression, word attack quickly enough to understand meaning, and become good readers that comprehend what they read. I also learned about the accurate but not automatic stage. I did not realize that this was a true stage in learning to read and that this is the point of reading instruction that re-reading a passage several times helps this child in their reading instruction. Finally, I found that Reader’s Theater is an excellent concept for emergent readers to improve fluency because they have to “become” the character which promotes expression and they are only responsible for a few lines of the entire story which helps to alleviate some stress for the beginning reader. However, they must still follow along with the entire story which promotes reading skills and comprehension.


2. How I plan to implement the research into my classroom? What changes I will make to my classroom teaching knowing this new information:


I have not been the best in utilizing Reader’s Theater in my classroom nor have I utilized re-reading of the same passage for my readers. These are two areas that I will focus on over the rest of the year to help my young readers become fluent.


3. The before/during/after reading strategies I used while I was reading and the effects of it after implementing it in my classroom.


The after reading strategy ORQ seemed to be one I could incorporate into my classroom. We did this as a group after reading Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. We made observations about how we would feel if this happened in our town. Some observations were:


• We would probably all throw up after eating all the food from the sky.


• It would be nasty after falling through the sky – birds might have touched it


• It would be fun – we could stay outside and play and eat when we wanted






We extended it by comparing to Hansel and Gretel and what could we do with all the food?


• Could we build houses with any of it?


• Could we drive any of it? (Meatballs could be wheels)


• Playground equipment? (Hot dogs could be teeter-totters)






Then our final question was would we really like for this to happen? Why or why not? And it was determined that although a fun idea – this would not be a good thing to happen.