Lindsay Terrio Fluency Minilesson Reflection While in the process of conducting a fluency lesson and going about with

my fourth graders, I learned a lot on how I will formulate my classroom in the future. After observing my students for a few weeks, I noticed that they do not have the opportunity to read aloud whether its in their reading groups, language arts groups or on their own. From what we have talked about in class, I could see that the lack of reading aloud during the day is detrimental because it could be unlikely that students are going home to read to themselves out loud. Therefore, I wanted to have a readers theatre because I wanted to see if any of my students possessed expression while they were reading out loud. My cooperating teacher works specifically with the higher level readers so I wanted to pick a readers theatre that was on their level, but not too hard for them to comprehend or read incorrectly. From Aarons Readers Theatre website, I chose The Bakers Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale because it is tailored to children 8-13 years old and was a roughly 6 minute read aloud. The students have been reading Bridge to Terebithia in their Language Arts class which has thematic elements and higher level language. Since I do not have much information on these students literacy backgrounds, I did my best to choose a read aloud appropriate for them.

While the entire class was working on spelling during their language arts period, I chose six students at random because I did not want to favor certain students over others. Four of the six students were from the other fourth grade class; it was nice working with these children that I am not as familiar with as well as not having a background on their reading. When I gathered the six students I needed for the minilesson, I took them into a spare classroom and began to explain to them what we were about to do. I asked the students if they have ever read out loud, like a play, but five of the six children said they did not. They told me that sometimes they read out loud to each other, but they said they did that more last year. When I told them we were going to be putting on a play for ourselves, the students were very excited, but nervous to perform. We agreed that I would be the only one seeing t he play, but the students were eager to pick their parts and read out loud. After asking the students about hearing or being a part of a play, I told them that when we read out loud we sometimes make our voices sound like a characters voice. I explain ed to the students that they would have to act like actors in this readers theatre to give them the cue that they may want to use inflection in their voice while they are reading. After the students and I decided the parts that they would be speaking, I asked each child to read their parts silently to themselves and they were finished to put their hand on top of their head. As they were reading I also read the play to model the silent reading behavior; this portion of the lesson was only 3-4 minutes. After reading silently, I asked the students if they had any questions on words within their parts that we could sound out together. None of them had any concern so I explained to

the students that I would read a few lines of the readers theatre and told them to listen to my voice as I was reading. I read Narrator Ones part in a happy, bright sounding voice and Narrator Fours part in a low pitched voice. After I had read out loud, I asked the students what they noticed while I was reading. They all told me that I gave the characters a voice and one student said a personality. I then explained that when we read out loud we have something called expression which makes the story fun and interesting to listen to. After our discussion on expression, I asked the students to again read their parts silently to themselves and think about a voice they might want to give their character. We read again silently for about three minutes and then I asked each student if they had a concern about any words in their part. Each child said no and I began to explain how we would set up a stage for our readers theatre. I had Narrator One and Two on the left side and Narrator Three and Four on the right side of the stage. The Woman and the Baker were set in the middle of those four students. I told them to rethink about actors and how they portray themselves on a stage. After we set up our stage we went through a practice round of the students reading their lines out loud. Each student was nervous, but they did not have trouble pronouncing words which indicated that this readers theatre was on their level. During this round none of the students used expression while reading which was concerning after what we had talked about. The practice round was about six minutes long and when they had finished I asked them what kinds of things they heard when others were speaking. They explained they heard each other talking, but did not understand that they werent reading with expressive fluency. I went over character voice again and how we are acting to see if the final read aloud would show their ability to read aloud fluently.

I told the students that we were going to have our opening night which meant that they would have their best reader voices ready. We began the story again and I was looking for the littlest inflection of each students voice while they were reading. As the readers theatre moved along, I did not hear any intonation or variety of speech from any of the students, they read in a dead pan tone. I thought I had emphasized expressive voices to them a lot, but they still did not perform with fluency. These students are very good readers, but they lack total expression when reading out loud. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would allow more time for the students to read the story aloud to build their confidence. As well, I would allow time at the end of the readers theatre to reflect on what we did and were trying to accomplish. To emphasize expression when we read, I would show a clip of a readers theatre being conducted by a group within their age group. This video would give them a visual representation of what a readers theatre is and maybe have a better understanding of reading with intonation and inflection. I would encourage the students to perform their readers theatre in front of the entire class so they could be proud of what they can do. With this, I would use time wisely to give them the chance to perform to the best of their ability. Also, I would video tape their performance so that if we were to do another readers theatre later in the year we could document the students progress. I would incorporate readers theatre into my classroom in a number of ways. I would create assessment data so that I could personally rate my students performances so that I can track their performance and give support where it is needed. My data would be collected using

checklists and areas for note taking where I could note that a student needs more support, is just right or is exceeding the level he/she is reading on. Watching and observing the students will help me understand who I need to work one on one with and work on expression and speed. I would group my students according to their reading level to avoid frustrations while reading. I would want all my students to feel comfortable reading aloud therefore I would need to make sure I was being fair. Also grouping students rather than as a whole class allows me to focus more closely on students needs because I can assess each one more comfortably. If I were to have a readers theatre day, each group of students would perform for the rest of the class to promote equality among all readers. To conduct readers theatres on a regular basis throughout the year would require me to have a large selection of scripts that I could easily copy for students. As well, to promote reading aloud I would have a special collection of readers theatres appropriate for my students to do on their own during free time or incorporate into a center to give students independence reading aloud to each other. As well, I would love to create a corner of my room or a banner that could be hung up at the front of the classroom that would set a mood for a play. The backdrop would look like a stage so that the students knew this was a performance an d theyd be in their best character that could possess. A lot of times classrooms implement silent reading into their day which is a great way to promote independent reading, but some of those times could be readers theatre periods as well. I would like to do readers theatres at least twice a month or more if possible because I

think it is so important for young readers to hear their voices while reading. A period solely dedicated to readers theatre would allow ample time for students to read their part silently, practice aloud and voice their concerns with the teacher. Throughout the course of the year students could have better expression and speed if there was time just for reading aloud. Doing this fluency lesson taught me how important it is for educators to read out loud to their students and allow students to do the same. I think that every grade should practice this to give students better support; if we only give students time to read silently, how do we know they are actually reading? I will definitely do readers theatres in my own classroom because I think with a lot of practice it could be a great way to teach fluency.