Riding into Fluency with Junie B. Jones
Growing Independence and Fluency
Mary Kate Smith
​
​
​
Rationale: Reading Fluency is the ability to recognize words quickly, accurately and automatically. The student is transitioning away from slow decoding and into reading smoothly and quickly. Students need to develop sight word vocabulary to increase fluency. To become successful readers, fluency is important because they can focus their attention on becoming quick in their ability to read smoothly, increase expression, and comprehend the text. To gain fluency and speed, it is best to use the method of repeated reading. In this lesson, students will be able to use the strategy of crosschecking throughout the repeated reading of a decodable text. Students will gain confidence in their ability to become more fluent, independent readers.
Materials: Class set of Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus; stopwatches for each pair of students; partner reading checklist; reader response questions; fluency assessment graph; cover-up critters for each student; dry erase board; dry erase markers;
Procedures
-
Say: “Good Morning class! For today’s reading lesson, we are going to work on developing fluency. We want to get great at reading. In order for us to be great at reading, we must be able to read fluently. We need to learn new site words to be able to read fluently. Don’t worry; this takes a lot of practice! Once we are fluent readers, we will love and enjoy reading books even more than before! We will enjoy reading because we do not have to stop at every word to understand the story. We can practice fluency by reading a book more than once. You can become a fluent reader by being able to read at a steady rate and it does not sound choppy.”
-
Say: “Now direct your attention to the sentence on the board and tell me if I sound like I am reading fluently or not. ‘Sssaammm tttoookkk a sseettt iinn the cccaarr. Sam took a set in the car? Hmm, that doesn’t sound right. Sam took a sssseeaat in the car? SEAT! That makes more sense.’ Did you see how I reread the sentence so I could figure out the word that didn’t make sense? This is called crosschecking and it allowed me to comprehend the sentence. Crosschecking is very important when becoming fluent readers. Once I figured out the hard word, did you see how I did not sound out or stumble on any words? I said the sentence smoothly and comprehended the meaning.
-
Say: “Today, we are going to be reading a portion of the book, Junie. B Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus. Booktalk: This book is about a girl named Junie B. Jones. She is on her way to her first day of kindergarten but when she gets on the bus it is full of mean kids and the bus smells bad. She’s scared of the mean kids on the bus and hates the smell, so when its time to go home for the day she doesn’t know if she should get on the bus or not. What will Junie B. Jones do? Will she ever get on the bus and make it home? We will have to read to find out!”
-
Say: “Now, I want you to get with a partner (the person sitting next to you) so that we can play a fluency game.” [Pass out to each person a reading checklist sheet] “I want you to look at this sheet with me while I explain. You’ll be reading aloud chapter 1 to your partner. You will take turns reading it aloud 3 times each. After the 2nd and 3rd readings, make a checkmark by the elephant if they ‘remembered more words’, by the cheetah if they ‘read faster’, by the swan if they ‘read smoother’ and by the monkey if they ‘read with expression’. Now let’s get started!” [Walk around to monitor and observe partner reading]
Reading Checklist Sheet
​
​
​
​
​
-
[After partner reading is done, collect the reading checklist sheets.] Say: “I’ll be calling people up individually to my desk to read to me.” Assess individual student reading by having them read to you. Time the reading with a stopwatch. While they read, mark reading miscues. Calculate the individual’s words per minute with the formula (# of words x 60/# of seconds). Record this number on clipboard list next to that student’s name. Using the Fluency Assessment Graph, show student where they are at by moving the school bus along the road until it reaches the school at a goal of 100 wpm.
Fluency Assessment Graph
​
​
​
-
[Pass out a reader response question sheet to each student] The purpose of this is to ask them reading comprehension questions to see if they understood what they read. Say: “After reading with me at my desk, I want you to answer these questions at your desk to see if you remember all about the chapter you just read with me.” [Collect sheets when everyone gets done].
Example Questions (from Chapter 1)
-
What grade is Junie B. Jones in?
-
What does Junie B. Jones want people not to forget about her name?
-
What does Junie B. call her teacher?
-
What makes Junie B. feel scary in this chapter?
-
I will collect the questions and evaluate the students’ answers to assess each student’s fluency of the reading.
Resources
-text: Park, Barbara. Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus. New York: Random House, 1992. Print.
-resources:
Koch, Anna Gray. To Fluency and Beyond with Junie B. Jones. http://agk0007.wix.com/annagraykoch#!growing-literacy-/aim28
Lindsey, Lauren. Driving the Fluency Bust to School with Junie B. Jones. http://laurielel12.wixsite.com/lel0026/growing-independence-and-fluency
Murray, Bruce. “Developing Reading Fluency.” Reading Genie. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html
​
