Week 7 - Fluency

I had not heard of one minute fluency measures before reading the Deeney article. I think it is nice to have a reliable tool to measure students that are at  risk for reading difficulty.  However, it repeats that it is very important to define reading fluency. The article says, The Literacy Dictionary (Harris & Hodges, 1995) de- fines fluency as “freedom from word-identification problems that might hinder comprehension...; automaticity” and a fluent reader as “any person who reads smoothly, without hesitation, and with comprehension” (p. 85).  I really like what this definition says about fluency, but I believe a teacher is the true judge of a students fluency level, and hopefully as a teacher you are not too quick to judge and place students into classes or groups that make them feel inferior. 
While I was browsing Pinterest for fluency activities, I found this video that exemplifies reading fluency builders. The teacher has made a few different cards with 'a' patterns on them. He has one copy that is just black and white and another copy that has the 'a' patterns in red, and the student tries reading the black and white copy first, then if he or she is having trouble, he gives them the copy with the red coded patterns. I have posted the video below, and I really believe this exercise would be helpful in assessing fluency. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o1JmK1Ui750  

I also really liked this activity below. The student roles the dice and whichever number they land on is the emotion they have to read their book or assignment in. This would be fun and gives students something different to do.

Week 6 - Book Clubs

Last week was the first week we met with our book clubs. I personally, have never done a book club before, so I was unsure of what it would be like once we actually met with our groups. I was pleasantly surprised with our first meeting, and I really like the structure we used - assigning everyone to their own specific job for things to run smoothly. I definitely see myself using the book club format we use in my classroom one day, and as I was browsing Pinterest I came across two pins about using sticky notes while reading. I even used these pins for one of my assignments this week! They are very helpful, and I could see them being very helpful for students who are doing their first book club or while doing a reading assignment. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/375698793884736629/ and http://www.pinterest.com/pin/375698793884795223/ .
I am looking forward to meeting with our book clubs again soon!

Week 5