Unit of Study: Fluency & Stamina Mini-study
Big Ideas
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Goals
What do I want students to learn as a result of this
unit?
Prior Knowledge
What prior knowledge do students need to enter
this Unit of Study? What routines do I expect
students to know?
Standards Addressed
What concepts will this unit address?
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Grade: 5
Strong readers read accurately, automatically, with
expression, and at a rapid rate. These elements of fluent
reading are deeply interconnected and contribute to deep
comprehension, reading stamina, and the enjoyment of
reading.
Accuracy Automaticity Prosody Endurance
Develop skills to improve accurate reading of text and
automatic decoding
Increase reading rate
Readers reread for smoothness, automaticity, and prosody
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Strong readers read “fast and right”
1. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text and analyze how
specific words choices shape meaning or tone
2. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts
independently and proficiently
3. Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
a.
b.
Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.
Read grade-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy,
appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.
c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and
understanding, rereading as necessary.
Bends in the Road
What bends (or series of lessons) will support each
of the goals for this unit?
Ways to Challenge/Provide Extra
Support
* Accuracy and Phrasing
* Prosody and Voice
* Putting it all together
Challenge Strategies:
Extra Support Strategies:

Which students do I anticipate needing a
challenge? Which students do I anticipate will
need extra support?
Assessment
Resources
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Students will read a leveled passage and will be scored
on their oral reading fluency (NAEP scale). This will be
done at the opening and close of the unit (pre- and post-)
Students will self-assess reading fluency using a variety
of measurements.
The Fluent Reader by Tim Rasinski
Differentiated Reading Instruction (chapter 6)
Putting Fluency on a Fitness Plan by Barclay Marcell
Accuracy Automaticity Prosody Endurance
Word level Phrase Level Sentence Level Passage Level
Bend in Road: Accuracy and Phrasing
1
Focus Lessons
2
3
4
Materials
Accuracy Before Anything! Strong readers use
strategies to recognize each word on the page. Break
the word apart, examine, look for root, consider the
context.
Making Sense out of the NONSENSE: Readers bring
Nonsense word
our phonic knowledge to bear, actively working on
lists (lower)
making sense of unfamiliar words by examining each
part, rereading, and aligning our reading to the cues on Jabberwocky
the page.
(higher)
Phrase Cues: Attending to punctuation and clear
signposts in the texts that direct our phrasing.
Notes
M. Graves
connection
More Than Words and Periods: Noticing how authors Phrase-Cued texts
create meaning through phrases or chunks of meaning.
Bend in Road: Prosody, Voice
Focus Lessons
5
6
7
8
Readers allow our envisioning and inferential work to
affect the tone, rate, and expression of voices in the
text. We imagine how the characters would say each
phrase and the motivations and emotions that guide
each choice.
Readers of narrative text are prepared to read fast and
smooth and right- BUT we are always prepared to
reread to adjust meaning, revise voice, and clear up
misconceptions.
Readers of information text attend to audience and
purpose when phrasing and voicing the text. We
monitor the features of the text and allow the structure
to guide the voice we bring to the text and the
importance we give to certain phrases and passages.
Readers of informational text are prepared to read in
more careful and deliberate way as we learn new
information (may be slower and in smaller chunks).
Tiger Rising (pgs
8-9)
Planet Earth
narration
rereading
informational
text for clarity
Bend in Road: Putting it all Together (Tying everything
together in service of meaning)
Focus Lessons
9
10
***
Reader’s Theatre Refresher Course. The reasons for it,
why and how it is done, and the tools to make it
happen.
Rehearsing Reader’s Theatre and Individual
Monologue Performances.
Celebration: Reader’s Theatre Group
Performances
Individual Monologue Performances
shares on
phrases we love
JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that
catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he
sought -So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he
stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of
flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.