Teaching Fluency with E.A.R.S

Teaching Fluency

The first week of school was a haze. Our first week was a half week (Wednesday-Friday) and there really wasn’t time to accomplish anything academic; which I was totally fine with. Fast forward to week 2, reading block. In my reading block I teach an ELA mini-lesson each day. My team this year decided to start off the year by teaching a week of fluency. It’s fairly simple for the kids, nothing heavy, and was a great ease into our reading block and what the procedures would be like for the kiddos. I thought our week of fluency went great and it’s completely adaptable for any grade. I would

teach/review fluency in every grade 1^st-6^th! It’s a great reminder for all students what a good, fluent reader consists of. 

I used the acronym E.A.R.S. to teach fluency and broke it up by taking one letter each day of the week. Monday I briefly taught the acronym and what fluency was and why it’s important then Tuesday-Friday I taught each skill more in depth! I hope you can adapt this and use it for yourself!

So first off, EARS stands for Expression, Accuracy, Rate, Smoothness!

Monday: I started with a youtube video from storyline online. We watched Betty White read this adorable picture picture book and I had the students jot down a few things that Betty did (yes, we’re on a first name basis) that made the story interesting to listen to. Afterward I explained that she is a fluent reader. To be a fluent reader you have to use your EARS! Then I pulled out these cute posters that a teacher from my team made. 

We read each one together and emphasized over and over that fluent readers use their EARS! We had a lot of fun memorizing what each letter stood for. I yelled out E and the kids would yell back EXPRESSION!

Tuesday: Today we practiced accuracy (I like saving expression for last.) To do this I set up 8 picture books around the room. The kids each partnered up with an inside partner siting on one side of the book and an outside partner sitting on the other side. Each time they heard my little bell they would take turns reading a page of the book while their partner checked for accuracy. I chose to use picture books because I wanted an easy text. I’ve noticed that most kids miss easy, filler words like: the, a, at, in, is or mix those type of words up. Their partners job was tap their finger against the page if their partner skipped or missed a word and the partner would correct. They would read back and forth until they heard the bell. After the bell the inside partner would rotate to the left and start again with their new partner. The outside partner would stay wherever they were at in the book and not start back at the beginning. I had the inside partners move 4 times to the right and then the outside partners move 4 times to the left. They LOVED this simple activity. Even upper elementary kids like picture books!

Here are some of the books I used for this activity. Skippyjon Jones was a little too difficult, but the Fly Guy books were perfect for this activity!

Wednesday: Today we practiced rate! I just went to this website and pasted in a reading passage. Then we “zapped it” to various reading speeds. As a class we talked about what it sounded like too slow, too fast, and then practiced multiple times with a just right 4^th grade rate. I also practiced with them at the rate they should be at by the end of the year. For fun we sped it up to 250 wpm and we tried to keep up. It was chaotic but a fun ending to our activity.

Thursday: Today we discussed smoothness. This was the day I had the hardest time with. Smoothness proved to be difficult to practice. To teach it, we discussed smooth reading vs. robotic choppy reading and of course practiced our robot voices. I read a few pages of a book to them and pointed out that each “phrase” or each time I took a breath was because the book gave me a clue: punctuation. I had the kids read outloud with a person and practice saying a phrase in 1 breath and not stopping or pausing until the book gave them their “clue.”

Friday: EXPRESSION! We had so much fun with this day. I showed the kids this clip (start at :23) to show what AMAZING Expression sounds like. Then I pulled out the picture book Seriously, Snow White is So Annoying.  I made copies of every couple pages every 2 students a few pages to work on together. They would need to look for punctuation and think really hard about how the author would want that page to sound. After giving them about 8 minutes to rehearse with their partner, the groups came up 1 at a time in order of thes tory and “presented” their pages. We had such a ball listening to all the good expression for the most part. Afterward we talked about who we liked listening to and why. I did have to clarify for them the difference between expression vs. accents and weird voices.

I plan to reference EARS all throughout the year during our reading block and especially during my reading groups! I hope you can find something here to help in your own fluency week! Thanks for stopping by!

Exit Cards AKA Best Thing Ever

I absolutely LOVE exit cards. I really can’t stress enough how beneficial they have been for my students this year. I began using exit cards last year (off and on) but really implemented a working system this year. I couldn’t be happier. Exit cards are not cutesy, they are not fun, they are not for show, or busy work. Exit cards are a quick formative assessment that can be used as data and to see where your kids are on a particular skill. 

My school uses standards based grading. That means I assess students with a 1, 2, 3, or 4 and do not give letter grades. Along with teaching and grading from common core standards, I should be grading continuously and re-assessing to really see if students meet the standards or not. 

An exit card is a simple way to do this.

What is an Exit Card:

An exit card is a set of problems students have to solve before “exiting" or leaving the classroom. I don’t necessarily do them before "exiting" but still refer to them as exit cards. They show a quick snap shot of what the student can do right then. They provide quick feedback and provide the teacher with data.

How to Make an Exit Card:

I do my exit cards two ways. If I’m testing story problems or something where I want the students to have the information in front of them whilst working I create an exit card on the computer. It has 4 boxes with a problem in each box; like this.

If I am in a hurry or feel the students can do it themselves, I have them rip out a paper and fold into fourths. Then they copy down the problems and do it themselves.

How do you Grade an Exit Card

This is my favorite part! I saw this little guy on pinterest and decided to make it one morning for my own classroom. It is awesome! You can find the original link  here

 When students complete their exit card they do a self evaluation and decide which folder to turn it into (With the environment I’ve tried to cultivate in my class, I haven’t come across any embarrassment or teasing with this self evaluation). It immediately shows me just from looking where the majority of my students are on a concept or at least think they are. As you can see in the picture the majority of my students were at 3's and 4's for this particular concept. I then take them out and give each student a 1, 2, 3, or 4. From this point what I do varies. If my scores is mostly 1 or 2’s I hand them back the following day and as a class we work through each problem. I then have students correct their errors and re-assesss. If my stack is mostly 3 and 4’s I do some small group work with the few students who received 1’s and 2’s.

Why I Love Exit Cards.

-Exit cards are so quick to grade!

-The provide feedback quickly!

-I can use them to re-assess subjects or review concepts

-They help me give up to date grades

-Students are able to self evaluate

-It keeps me on top of small group intervention

-My team uses them before we do reteaching or intervention groups

-It assesses a specific skill

-It provides feedback to me on how I taught a certain lesson or concept

-It monitors students through out a unit and not just at the end.

Do you love exit tickets? Do you use them differently? I'd love to know!