Fluency Intervention Lesson Plan Template

Name: Hannah Gartner Grade Level: 7th grade

Target Content/Lesson Topic: Fluency (Phrasing/Smoothness) Date: 2/27/2022

Planning
State Learning Standards L.7.1: Demonstrate an understanding of how language functions in different cultures, contexts, and disciplines; apply this
Identify relevant grade level standards knowledge to comprehend more fully when reading and listening, and make effective choices when composing, creating,
and Learning Outcomes from the State and speaking
Content Learning Standards, Common
Core Standards, and school learning
outcomes.
Learning Targets/Objectives ● I can apply my understanding of language to comprehend more fully when reading.
What should the students know or be ● The student(s) can read a passage with phrasing and smoothness closer to grade level.
able to do after the instruction? Use a
common format with a measurable verb
that matches the cognitive domain
standard. This should be a small piece of
the standard stated in measurable
terms.
Grouping ● This could be taught to a small group of students with similar fluency struggles or to an individual
Describe how and why students will be student, but it is specifically for student(s) receiving reading interventions.
divided into groups, if applicable
(homogeneous, heterogenous, random /
based on ability, interest, social
purposes, etc.)
Differentiation N/A
If either or both lessons are whole class,
how is the lesson(s) differentiated for
the focal student?
Assessment
Assessment ● Student(s) will be reassessed with reading passages.
How will students demonstrate that the ● After each lesson, student(s) will read a new passage at the same grade level to monitor progress, or a
focal student is making progress in lack thereof.
toward their fluency goals?

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 Instruction
Minilesson One 1. Student(s) will gather around a small group table. I will start by reminding them of the small group table
1. Introduction (including setting rules: voices down, hands to yourselves, and always do your best. I will then ask them if they remember
expectations and establishing the reading about the old man who hates mowing his lawn. Ideally, they will remember, and I will briefly
procedures and instructions) explain why we did the timed reading (to see how much we’ve grown as readers).
2. Activate/Connect To Prior 2. We will then try to connect the story to their own experiences. I will begin this by asking them to raise
Knowledge
their hand if they would like to share a story of them helping in the garden or watching someone mow a
3. Fluency Activity (including
modeled, guided, and independent lawn. This allows the student to reflect and understand the text.
practice, as needed) 3. “OK friends, we are going to read this one again together. Our activity with the reading is called “Get Your
Eyes Ahead of the Words”. This is going to help you learn how to read more quickly and with less breaks. I
will read the first couple of sentences while pointing to where my eyes are.” At this time, I would do so. I
would read while following my eyes with my finger. This will show the students that it is OK to let your
eyes go ahead of the word you are speaking at any given moment. “Why don’t you try a couple of sentences
while showing me where your eyes are?” I will read aloud with student for this portion. “Now Student, just
because your eyes are reading ahead, that does not mean you need to go faster. Faster isn’t always better.” I
will have them finish the passage independently. We will read the passage timed at one minute again after
completing the activity. This will serve as the assessment for this mini-lesson. “See Student? When you
push your eyes ahead of your reading, you can read more words per minute! This is also something you
can do at home with your parents when you are reading at night!”
Minilesson Two 1. “Hi student(s)! Welcome back to our fluency lesson! Have you been reading at home with your parents?
1. Introduction (including setting How about pushing your eyes ahead? Good!” I will review the table rules with them.
expectations and establishing 2. “Do you remember how good it felt to be reading faster last time we met? That was a good feeling wasn’t it.
procedures and instructions) Why did we do the activity we did together? What was the point?” I will lead them to the answer of “faster
2. Activate/Connect To Prior reading and less breaks in our reading. “Pushing your eyes ahead can help you read with less breaks to
Knowledge
think about words, you’re right! We are going to do another activity today to work on our reading fluency.
3. Fluency Activity (including
modeled, guided, and independent Are you ready?”
practice, as needed) 3. (Let me just say here, I really like this activity that I chose. I think it could be good for centers or buddy
reading time!) If completed with a small group, no additional students are necessary. If completed with an
individual student, I will choose someone that I know is their friend, but that they work well with in the
classroom. “What we are going to do today is an activity called “Partners can be Fluency Teachers”. We are
going to take turns reading a new passage we haven’t seen yet. After we are done, I will time you on this
passage like last time. Ready? OK!!! To start, I want *focus student* to read the first part of the passage and
*friend* to talk to them like the teacher. You are going to positively encourage each other like I encourage
you when you are reading aloud to me. Some encouraging things you can say are ‘smooth that out’ or ‘I
2
 think that was a little choppy, try it again’. What we want to do is be able to tell ourselves these things when
we read to teacher.” I will let go and allow students to work quietly with one another. If criticisms become
less friendly, I will correct them gently with reminders on nice ways to say the things that we mean. “Good
job! Now we are going to read the passage timed and we are all done! Good job today!”
Instructional Materials, See below
Equipment and Technology
List equipment or technology that needs
to be available. Attach a copy of ALL
materials the teacher and students will
use during the lesson; e.g., handouts,
questions to answer, overheads,
PowerPoint slides, worksheets.

Passage for 1st activity (printed as a passage from https://www.henryanker.com/Language/Reading_Fluency/23_No_More_Mowing.pdf )

For Uncle Harry, the grass outside his home was becoming too much trouble to take care of. He lived in the desert of Las Vegas, Nevada. It was hot most of the
year, and his water bill was becoming very expensive. In the summer, to keep it green, he had to water his lawn twice a day! In the winter, the grass would turn
brown when the temperature got too cold. On top of all that, he thought, at seventy-five, he was getting too old to mow it himself. He decided to have his lawn
dug out and removed, and put pampas grasses, cacti, and cool looking rocks and smooth stones in his yard instead. First, he hired some men who were looking
for work, waiting outside the local home improvement store. Together, they dug out all the grass below the roots. Next, they removed all the sprinkler heads and
capped them off, as the plants Harry would be putting in wouldn’t need much more than the occasional rainstorm to stay alive. The next step was to smooth out
the dirt using rakes and make it flat. After that, they rolled out some thick plastic over the dirt to keep wild grasses and weeds from growing through. Finally, the
men opened the bags of different colored smooth stones Harry had bought and spread them out by hand until the dirt was covered. They left open circles where
the grasses and cacti would be planted next week. Harry was happy with his work and the work of the men he had hired. He gave them all an extra twenty dollars
each over the one hundred dollars each he had promised to pay them for the day. In the next few weeks, after Harry had planted the grasses and cacti, neighbors
were stopping by daily complimenting Harry on how nice his yard looked. Some people even asked him which landscape architecture company he had used, and
‘could they get the phone number?’ Few people believed Harry and a few men looking for work on a Saturday could have done such a ‘professional job’. That
gave Harry great satisfaction, along with the relief that he didn't have to mow anymore, and that his water bill would be cut in half.

3
Passage for 2nd activity (printed as a passage from https://www.henryanker.com/Language/Reading_Fluency/24_Family_Traditions.pdf )
Family Traditions A family is a group of people that are related by birth, by marriage, or another reason, like foster care or adoption. There are other ways people
can be included in a family. A person may be included if he or she is a lifelong friend to a member of the family. A person could be considered ‘family’ if he or she
served together in the military with someone in the family. Families have mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles,
cousins, and more. Families often have traditions that help members of the family feel a stronger connection to the past, and to each other. Traditions include
events, activities, a love of music, dancing, participating in sports and games, preparing meals or cultural foods, or celebrations in a religion that people in a
family do together. Traditions can be things like eating a Thanksgiving dinner, opening presents on Christmas morning, or fifteen-year-old girls wearing white
dresses for their Quinceñeras. A family tradition can be snuggling up in lawn chairs watching fireworks on a Fourth of July evening, grinning children gathered
around a picnic table singing, “Happy Birthday”, or grandchildren helping their abuelita make tamales. Other special occasions families might consider traditions
are traveling to their home country during school holidays, young and old family members playing soccer or softball at the park, or eating pozole and buñuelos at
an aunt and uncle’s house. Traditions can be wonderful when families participate in them, but they can be sad when members of a family can’t be there because
they are not able to attend, are sick, or have passed away. Traditions like taking a family photo, or walking on the beach holding hands at sunset, are times we
cherish and remember, and look forward to doing again and again. Honoring traditions, by keeping them going, is the responsibility of the older members of the
family. Having fun, singing, dancing, playing, joking around, shaking hands, and giving kisses and hugs are everyone’s job.

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 Hannah Gartner

EDU 443

2/27/2022

Student Fluency Assessment

Letter Home

Dear Parents or Guardians of A,

I conducted a fluency assessment to identify their strengths and weaknesses in the four

areas of reading fluency: expression/volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace. Expression and

volume in fluency can easily be defined as the students’ ability to use tone and volume

appropriately while reading. What we want from students is to change their tone and volume to

match how they interpret the passage they are reading. Phrasing includes their ability to follow

punctuation breaks in the reading. We want your student to know and understand that

punctuation typically means to take a brief pause. Another important part of phrasing is breath

control. At this age, we want them to be able to make it to the end of a sentence or to a comma

before taking a deep breath. Breathing can interrupt the flow of the passage they are reading. We

also find that students typically get lost once they breathe in the middle of a sentence.

Smoothness can be defined as students’ ability to read the words without needing to stop and

figure out what they are. In this category, we are watching and listening for the student’s rhythm

as well while they are reading. Finally, pace can be defined as the speed and rate the student is

reading at. We don’t want them to read so fast that they make grammar or pronunciation errors,

also not so slow that we forget what they are reading about. There is a balance between the two.
 Now that we have gone over the four parts of reading fluency, let me tell you how we

score students. Each category is rated from 1 (below grade level), 2 (approaching grade level), 3

(almost at grade level), to 4 (at grade level). For expression/volume, A scored a 3, not bad! For

phrasing, she scored a 2. This is one of the two concepts we will focus on with her. For

smoothness, she scored another 3, good! This is the second concept we want to work on with her.

Even though she scored a 3, we often pair smoothness with phrasing with students that struggle

with one of the other. For pace, she scored a 4; amazing! She kept a consistent speed throughout

her reading, which was amazing!

A scored a 3 for expression because she didn’t read with very much enthusiasm. She

didn’t seem very interested in the reading passage. Using this information, I can find her a more

interesting passage for the future. This isn’t something I was worried about following her

assessment. She was given a 2 for phrasing because she missed several punctuation pauses

within the text. As you can see in my notations on the passage, she missed an exclamation mark

and treated the end of the sentence as if it had a period. I didn’t mark all of her forgotten pauses,

but she did speed through a couple of the commas throughout the passage. I gave her a 3 on

smoothness because her breaks seemed to be due to not fully understanding the words or

mispronouncing them. Instead of Harry, she said Henry, which I thought was interesting. In the

line “he was getting too old to…” she seemed to be giving words the wrong ending sound.

Instead of “old”, it sounded like she was saying “uld”. Again, this wasn’t a huge concern for me.

And like I said, she scored a 4 in pace for staying consistent and not rushing through. Her total

score was a 12!

For our lessons in class, we will be focusing on the phrasing issues and touching on

smoothness. I have picked two activities for us to work on in a small group or independently.
Either way, she will be getting the help that she needs with these struggles. There are some

things you can do at home as well to help her make the progress she needs within these areas. I

have included a link to some amazing middle school reading passages.

https://www.teachingexpertise.com/classroom-ideas/7th-grade-reading-fluency-passages/

On this website, activity 5 is something I would like you to work on with A at home throughout

the school week. Together, I need you to pick a new passage every week. If you get the

opportunity (and remember to do so), I would like to know which one you pick so I can talk

about it with her. Every night after dinner, before bed, or whenever A works on her homework, I

want you to read the passage with her. She will use the two activities we have learned in class

during our lessons together: “Partners can be Fluency Teachers” and “Get your Eyes Ahead of

the Words”. These two activities will help her work on phrasing and smoothness.

I hope this message finds you well and that we can get A on the right track with her

fluency. Teamwork and consistency are what we will need to get her there!

Fluency Assessment Reflection

There are advantages and disadvantages to assessing and teaching fluency. Some of the

advantages include focused reading interventions, an awareness of how the student is doing, and

the ability to include the family in student learning. If a student is doing well with their

expression and volume, they will not benefit from a lesson on expression and volume. When we

know what our students are doing well in, we can know how to relate to them. What we really

need to know is what they are struggling with. Without this assessment data, we will not know

where they need help or how to help them. Not all students will need help in all areas of fluency
at once. We can gather students with similar struggles for small group lessons. Reading is

something parents and family can easily play a strong part in for their students. This not only

improves reading fluency and comprehension, but can also build a stronger bond within a family.

Some of the challenges in assessing fluency can definitely be student mood. As I found

with A, the passage I chose wasn’t very interesting to her, so she didn’t do quite as well as she

could have in her expression and volume. If a student is not in the mood to complete an

assessment or to read aloud with the teacher, they might test poorly compared to when they are

in a good mood. We need to get to know our students for this reason. It is important that we

know our students well enough to help them thrive and succeed in school.

I found the fluency assessment and lesson planning to be fun and simple. I think all of the

practice we did in class helped prepare me for what to expect from the assessment and process as

a whole. I can’t currently imagine having to do that for every student in a classroom at one time

right now, but focusing on one student was a good place to start. I liked looking for activities and

strategies to use for the lesson plan and note home to parents to use. The note to parents helped it

to feel real as well. I think that A will be more comfortable with me in the classroom now that

we have gotten some one-on-one time together.

Assessing students’ oral fluency is so important for their education. Full reading

comprehension is something we as humans work on for our whole lives, as I am still

comprehending new things everyday at the age of 23. This process starts in kindergarten and

doesn’t stop. Middle school students are at a crucial point in their education where they are no

longer learning to read, but they are reading to learn. This is where school will start to feel harder

for them, and the more we know about their struggles (especially fluency struggles), the quicker

we can help them read to learn.

 Fluency 23

3
No More Mowing

14
For Uncle Harry, the grass outside his home was becoming too

28

much trouble to take care of. He lived in the desert of Las Vegas,

42

Nevada. It was hot most of the year, and his water bill was becoming

56

very expensive. In the summer, to keep it green, he had to water his

70

lawn twice a day! In the winter, the grass would turn brown when the

84

temperature got too cold. On top of all that, he thought, at seventy-five,

99

he was getting too old to mow it himself. He decided to have his lawn

111

dug out and removed, and put pampas grasses, cacti, and cool looking

119

rocks and smooth stones in his yard instead.

130
 First, he hired some men who were looking for work, waiting

141

outside the local home improvement store. Together, they dug out all

153

the grass below the roots. Next, they removed all the sprinkler heads

166

and capped them off, as the plants Harry would be putting in wouldn’t

178

need much more than the occassional rainstorm to stay alive. The next

193

step was to smooth out the dirt using rakes and make it flat. After that,

207

they rolled out some thick plastic over the dirt to keep wild grasses and

218

weeds from growing through. Finally, the men opened the bags of

©2016 Henry Anker

Fluency 23

229
different colored smooth stones Harry had bought and spread them out

242

by hand until the dirt was covered. They left open circles where the

250
 grasses and cacti would be planted next week.

264
Harry was happy with his work and the work of the men he had

277

hired. He gave them all an extra twenty dollars each over the one

291

hundred dollars each he had promised to pay them for the day. In the

303

next few weeks, after Harry had planted the grasses and cacti, neighbors

314

were stopping by daily complimenting Harry on how nice his yard

323

looked. Some people even asked him which landscape architecture

334

company he had used, and ‘could they get the phone number?’

347

Few people believed Harry and a few men looking for work on a

358

Saturday could have done such a ‘professional job’. That gave Harry

370

great satisfaction, along with the relief that he didn't have to mow
381

anymore, and that his water bill would be cut in half.

©2016 Henry Anker